On the home front, a month containing a real variety of very enjoyable stuff. On the increasingly depressing world scene, a month of geopolitical chaos, with Trump and Musk seemingly doing their best to damage every single one of their international relationships apart from that with Russia. Nothing suspicious there.
We kicked off watching Hamilton at the fantastic Alhambra theatre in Bradford. I’m not a massive musical fan but Hamilton was a class above others that I’ve seen. The lyrics told an incredibly clear story and were often very comedic; the cast was terrific and the staging made very clever use of a simply rotating floor.
We were then lucky enough to stay at a Cotswolds manor courtesy of a family friend connection. It was a glimpse into the lifestyle of the super-rich, with very generous (absent) hosts giving us free range of a truly special house, and it’s amazing grounds. The kids loved the trampoline and outside play barn, the mums the hot tub, the dads the fishing lake, and we all enjoyed sampling the wine cellar.
While walking through the garden on the second morning we came across a dead snake, which we identified as a grass snake, nearly a metre long. Why it was in the middle of a lawn on a very cold February was a mystery… one theory being that it had been dragged out hibernation by a predator. Either way, I decided to take it home and attempt to cure the skin…
One final treat was the purchase and build of a Lego Concorde, second-hand from Ebay as per normal. I find Ebay facilitates both a bargain and a sense of re-use to quell the devils whispering in my ear about over-consumption. Having just read an in-depth history of Concorde from it’s Chief Pilot, it was the perfect time to immerse myself in a build. Compared to my other biggies (Saturn V and the Millennium Falcon UCS) it was a pretty simple build, but enjoyable in a meditative kind of way. And it looks great.
Books read this month: