Wednesday was bonfire night, and since I crapped out of seeing the fireworks with Dave last year I was honor bound to go see them this year. I met up with Dave and his friend Tim at Herne Hill in South London and we tromped through the mildly drizzly night to get a good place to see the fire works. We had hopped that they would be selling cotton candy/candy floss there, but were disappointed to find only pancake stands and vendors with glowing light sabers and (oddly) fluorescent, fuzzy bunny ears.
The sound track was a cycling set of John Williams tunes so we amused ourselves in the particularly nerdy fashion of figuring out which symphony he had ripped off for the various themes. That and singing along with the correct words when the opening of Carmina Burana came on. I love that.
The fireworks started a big late, but we could see various other displays going on around the city- eventually they got going and were buckets of fun. The final flourish had me watching the ground instead of the sky though because we were close enough to see the giant flames go up when they set the fireworks off. It was cool.
Last night (Thursday) I went to a show at the Bishopsgate Institute. The first band was HandMade with Manu Delago playing a set of three hang drums. If you don't know what they are (and you probably don't, they were only invented in 2001) you should get over to YouTube and search for hang drum or just Manu Delago- he's got a lot of videos up and the music is divine. The second half of the program was a bunch of GSMD leadership grads playing a 50 minute long piece based on principals of gamelan composition but played on cellos and flutes and other western instruments. It was pretty trance like and well done.
The only problem with last night was that I managed to leave my wallet on the bus. BUT! There are more good people in the world than bad so today I got a message on Facebook from the woman who has it- we haven't actually managed to get a hold of one another beyond that but I know that my wallet is safe and am very pleased about that.
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2 comments:
oh yes. i love hang drums.
When I saw the title with fireworks and wallets I had to go to the end right away to hear the good news. A friend from swimming was not so lucky in Montreal after taking a taxi from the hotel to a cathedral to meet the cruise group for the first time. Everyone was very helpful in trying to find it but no luck. It was only wallet (not purse back at the hotel) so not the passport but the wallet and cards are bad enough. Love G&G
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