Saturday 13th May 2023

Got up around 0900 and porridged. Walked over to the Picturehouse in the new Finsbury Park development for an 1100am showing of "Between the Bars", a short film charting the creation of Harvey Brough's oratorio, "The Sun Does Shine", which we'd seen premiered at St Luke's last year, featuring his Vox Holloway choir, of which Helen is a member...she and Martin had bagged us a couple of seats. The song cycle was inspired by a book of the same name, written by a black man who had wrongly spent 30 years on Death Row in Alabama, convicted of a crime he didn't commit, and his journey to inner and physical freedom. The film sketched out the phases of the piece's creation, interspersed with shots of north London streets which seemed familiar. We adjourned to the Member's Bar afterward for a natter, then accompanied Helen and Martin across the road for lunch at the ramen noodle house. It was tasty enough, though not quite the convincingly Japanese experience Aki was hoping for...these places rarely feature Japanese staff or chefs...the waitress was Korean, and the chef looked Indian...Aki reckoned that the miso soup was overly salty. We walked home via Lidl, where we managed a little grocery shopping. Aki cooked pork tonkatsu for dinner...pork shoulder steaks in breadcrumb, and deep fried. They turned out a little tough, though. Ice cream and aragostine to follow. Watched a bit of telly... managed to avoid the stridencies of Eurovision by checking out the 2015 re-make of "Far From the Madding Crowd"...not a patch on the 60s vision with Julie Christie, Terrence Stamp, and Alan Bates! Aki booked our flights to Berlin for September...she flies out of City Airport, which will be a first. I'm flying out from Heathrow, but we both come back in via City Airport.