Jan 16th

Against all odds, and certainly all predictions, the day dawned fresh, crisp and dry. Had to thaw ice off the windscreen and drove E & D to school in glorious frosty morning sunlight. Having deposited my charges I decided it was about time to kick my fitness regime into action. I realised with alarm that it is now almost 7 months since Dr Annapurna read me the riot act and told me to loose weight and start exercising. I lost the best part of a stone pretty quickly but then hit a brick wall. Along came Christmas and half a stone went back on. Have decided it'll only come off again if I follow his advice and take to the hills.
What a day to start, morning mist hanging in the valleys, and steam hovering around the dewy fields. Underfoot was sodden, squelchy and slippery to the point of being treacherous. I headed down the paths behind Cryer's Hill, followed the paths to Hughenden Church, struck right and into the woods towards Downley. Heart was thumping and lungs screaming. Reckoned if it got to the other way round it was time to start making phone calls! Squelched along past the
de Spencer Arms, got a little lost but quickly found the route at Naphill, over fields through more woods and then more fields, and then to the Harrow and up the crippling steps and climb back to the top of Cryer's. Got back to the car after two and a half hours solid rambling. Boots caked in mud as were the troosers, but felt good if a tad fatigued.
Got home and Sophie had decided to take three days off to revise for exams, Mentioned I might go to Festival Hall and she seemed keen to join. News then came through that Emsy wasn't feeling good at school so went to retrieve her. seemed to perk up considerably rather quickly!
Took Sophie for a half hour lesson then headed off to London. She was bright and chatty as usual. Bought her a pasta salad at M&S at Marylebone but neglected to get a fork, so the pasta followed us around for the rest of the evening, disappearing a Sophie fingerful at a time.
Beethoven's 2nd piano concerto (not the one I thought it was!) and Mahler's 5th. The Beethoven was ok, the Mahler awesome!! The adagietto, which I generally resent for being undeservedly regarded as Mahler's masterpiece by the general masses, was sublime and bought a tear to my eye. The finale was as exhilarating as I have ever heard it performed. Wonderful. Wanted to hear the whole symphony again.
I'd warned Sophie Mahler wasn't the easiest. She wasn't exactly blown away, but said she'd enjoyed it. It was nice to have her there, if expensive, though after last time we swapped to expensive empty seats before the start.

Words I hate

"Movie", when spoken by a non American
"Elevator" as above
"Awesome" for something entirely trivial (as opposed to Mahler's 5th!!)
The word "enjoy" used in total, pointless, fucking meaningless isolation.