DeJager the bulb merchant is doing a series of Spring tulip festivals at gardens around the country including Alnwick Garden. As a friend of the garden I try to visit once a month, and was pleased to go today to see the tulips. The garden has recently planted thousands of tulips in the new Cherry Orchard and are appealing for sponsors to get more of the 'Mistress' bulbs planted.
The display of tulips was lovely, in a room in the courtyard. Unfortunately the varieties on display were not named which I found rather bizarre, as DeJager had leaflets and order forms so that you could order bulbs. How could you decide on which bulbs you wanted if the ones on display weren't named?!
Today was the first day of the festival and most of the tulips were freshly picked and tightly in bud. Nevertheless they still made a wonderful display.
My mother loved classical music. My sisters and I grew up listening to her LP record collection of Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart and various opera recordings including her beloved Pavarotti. I don't know where she got this love of music from, but it was always around us and we never questioned it.
I can still visualise the covers of some of the albums she had. I think my sister has most of them stored in her loft as LPs are pretty much obsolete now.
My sister excitedly emailed me recently about a programme she'd watched on Sky Arts about organ works of Bach by Karl Richter. The name was incredibly familiar to me, I remember vividly the record our Mam had of his Bach recordings. "How wonderful" my sister said, "to be able to see Richter playing the Toccata & Fuge in D Minor", which we both knew by heart. I don't have a TV, and the programme wasn't listed in the Sky Arts iplayer menu.
A couple of weeks later while surfing around on Youtube, I thought, why not search for Richter? Straightaway I found the Toccata recording. Seeing it was almost indescribable and full of emotion. By the end I was in floods of tears, remembering my mother, the beauty of the piece, and the absolutely wonderful discovery of this amazing man.
I had a week off work and in that time I've scoured the internet for anything to do with this remarkable musician. What a tragedy that he was taken from us so early at aged only 54, but he will live on forever in what he left behind. I've so enjoyed my discovery of the man and his incredible work. Long live Karl Richter!
Many thanks to Johannes Martin for his wonderful blog on Richter http://karlrichtermunich.blogspot.com/
March 31 was my 49th birthday. My twin sister and I haven't spent the day together for some years, mainly because I was living in Maine for 10 years between 1997 and 2007. We decided to spend the day together this year. The weather wasn't conducive to a garden visit, which is how we tend to spend the majority of our time together these days, so we decided to go to Newcastle.
It's a couple of years since I've been to the city, despite living only 10 miles away. Our first stop was the Hancock museum which has been transformed from the old dusty and rather frightening museum of my childhood. I enjoyed the exhibits, particularly the Roman and Egyptian galleries.
On our way to lunch we stopped to look inside the church of St Thomas the Martyr which occupies a prominent position in the Haymarket and which has some very nice stained glass windows which are becoming something of a passion of mine.
We then went to the Laing art gallery and I'm ashamed to say I've never been there before. Holman Hunt's magnificent and poignant 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil' was wonderful to see, as was a gorgeous Turner, "Snow Storm Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps". I so want to go to the Tate again!
We had a nice Italian meal for lunch with a free glass of champagne in honour of our birthday. Fortunately the rain just about held off, we were lucky as the day before had been truly foul.
To end our day we visited the marvellous cathedral church of St Nicholas, again a building I'd never been inside before. Although I'm an atheist, I absolutely love these historical buildings. I chatted to a helpful guide about Charles Kempe and some of the other windows in the church. I would like to go again and spend longer looking at them. A magnificent wooden screen and reredos in the centre of the church certainly warrant more study.
Born in Northumberland, I've lived in Yorkshire and Maine USA, and am now settled back in my home county. I'm interested in nature, gardening, reading contemporary fiction, cinema, photography and music.
The display of tulips was lovely, in a room in the courtyard. Unfortunately the varieties on display were not named which I found rather bizarre, as DeJager had leaflets and order forms so that you could order bulbs. How could you decide on which bulbs you wanted if the ones on display weren't named?! 
My mother loved classical music. My sisters and I grew up listening to her LP record collection of Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart and various opera recordings including her beloved Pavarotti. I don't know where she got this love of music from, but it was always around us and we never questioned it.
Many thanks to Johannes Martin for his wonderful blog on Richter http://karlrichtermunich.blogspot.com/
March 31 was my 49th birthday. My twin sister and I haven't spent the day together for some years, mainly because I was living in Maine for 10 years between 1997 and 2007. We decided to spend the day together this year. The weather wasn't conducive to a garden visit, which is how we tend to spend the majority of our time together these days, so we decided to go to Newcastle.
We then went to the Laing art gallery and I'm ashamed to say I've never been there before. Holman Hunt's magnificent and poignant 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil' was wonderful to see, as was a gorgeous Turner, "Snow Storm Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps". I so want to go to the Tate again!
