Theatre: Romeo and Juliet........

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep;
the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite”

The Montague Mods are riding their mopeds, the Capulets are rocking their leather biker jackets – bitter rivals from different worlds and that’s the way its always been. But there’s one thing they hadn’t counted on…Romeo and Juliet have never been the kind to obey the rules!
Can these rebels in love ever break free from their families and create a truce between Rockers and Mods once and for all? 

This year’s marks 20 years of Theatre in the Forest and what better way to celebrate 
than with the love story that changed the world in the beautiful woods of 
Jimmy’s Farm as we take you back in time to the 1960s.

===================================

This evening performance was actually rounding off a lovely catchup day with friendKK. Friends for nearly 40 years, spending so much time together when our children were young. However now we have trouble finding suitable matching free time so when we do it's a whole day. We started at 9:30am - driving - tea and cakeing - walking and mooching - shops, antiques, galleries etc - driving - late lunching at the Artisan Smokehouse yum yum - driving - admiring beautiful landscapes - popped into her house - ending our day with the Bard - really good weather all day AND WE NEVER STOPPED TALKING hahaha

Again Red Rose Chain Theatre have a great success. All the actors were brilliant. They always stick to Shakespeare’s scrip and add. This time it was 60's music, a few song and dance routines, deck chairs and sand and audience participation panto style for the Punch and Judy puppets. The enthusiasm and enjoyment of the cast is contagious and we were well looked after before, in the interval and when leaving by the merry band of crew who are youth theatre volunteers.
We loved it and would highly recommend it.
.

Daughter's Tudor Tavern.......

Emma Mordue and Melford Hys Companie present
A Night at The Red Rose Tavern

Join us for an immersive evening of music, plays, food and dancing from the alehouses of old. From bawdy songs to morality plays the event promises to bring hearty laughter and full bellies, and the true flavour of 16th Century Ipswiche.

Local early musician Emma Mordue performs at music and dance workshops and events up and down the country, and as part of The Kentwell Players, at the Great Tudor Re-creations at Kentwell Hall. Playing a range of historical instruments, she can often be seen at festivals and events portraying a variety of historical and mythical walkabout characters as well as hosting informal renaissance music evenings at both private parties and public events.

Melford Hys Companie have been performing together for 25 years, portraying  a company of travelling entertainers in the Tudor and Medieval periods. In historically accurate dress, with props, instruments and accessories of the time, they portray life on the road through well developed characters with authentic names, histories and speech. At a Melford Hys Companie event you will be entertained with music, dance and plays from the period. Some plays are funny, some more serious, but whilst there may be a moral to the tale you can be sure the actors will tell it with infectious enthusiasm and a good dose of healthy irreverence.

Both Emma and The Melfords have a common aim – to have fun and pass this on to audiences along with accurate historical insight. Participation is positively encouraged, though not obligatory.

We are pleased to have period caterer Gerry Rhodes providing dishes of the era.

=================================

I'm so very proud of Daughter (= Emma Mordue) who undertook for the first time to organise a whole event in a theatre. It was a great success. Almost non-stop entertainment as they only allowed themselves a 15min interval in just over three hours. Musicianship was brilliant and the Mummers' plays were hilarious.

I'd taken friendKK as she's great for getting into the spirit of this sort of thing and it was just like old times when she would come with me when my very talented musician Daughter gave performances as a child/teen with school or consort or solo.

Both Granddaughters were also there, E as a Tudor came out to dance with Daughter and R as always was in her Red Rose Chain sweatshirt working front of house and waiting tables with the other Youth Theatre volunteers.

Yes I'm very proud indeed ☺
.

Lovely, local, lunch and laughter......

We never get together often (she's always so busy) but when friendKK and I manage to synchronise a free day out we always have fun and yesterday was no exception.

My first dilemma was what to wear. It looked so lovely and spring like but I knew it was colder than it looked, so it had to be layers, warm enough but not heavy if I ended up having to carry not wear and a rain coat as Hubby assured me we would have heavy showers at midday.

FriendKK arrived about 10ish and we headed out to a place she knows just over the Suffolk border into Essex.

Hall Farm Shop is just off the A12 on the way into Stratford St Mary and the gateway to Constable Country.

Hall Farm got some pretty impressive awards for being the ‘Best Farm Shop’ in 2008 and the ‘Best Informal Dining Venue’ in 2009 – so worth a visit. The Suffolk Food & Drink Awards granted them Best Farm Shop 2011 and they pride themselves on offering everything you may need for a weekly shop plus much more!

They have a wonderful cafe open for breakfast and serves lunch and afternoon tea. There is a shop and deli to browse round before enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee or tea in the cafe.



We were just popping into the restaurant to reserve a table for lunch but decided to start as we meant to go on and have tea and cake as elevenses......my coffee and walnut cake was enormous but as light as a father so I ate the lot mmmmm. The windows of the restaurant area look out onto the farm land and we watched goats and alpacas and sheep wandering around. And we talked and caught up on life, families, friends and general gossip.

Leaving there we got into the car and the heavens opened into a really heavy shower and sure enough it was 12:05pm hahaha.

We drove into Dedham village and parked just as the rain stopped! We marveled again at the houses covered in wisteria (quite famous locally). We have so many lovely villages.

We headed into the art and craft centre which is run as a co-operative and is very big inside, packed with a great variety of stuff that kept us there browsing for nearly two hours!

   http://www.dedhamartandcraftcentre.co.uk/


Then it was back to Hall Farm for lunch, we both had the grilled mackerel fillet on a bed of cabbage and sanfire in a butter and crab sauce with new potatoes, truly scrumptious! Conversation carried on as always with not much time between each recollection of what we used to do together and hilarious memories of past times, we always laugh a lot. Neither of us had dessert, not so soon after the morning cake, there just wasn't room for any more!

Then of course we had a good wander round the farm shop and I bought some huge scones to bring home for Hubby (his favourite). As we were leaving the car park we spotted the pigs in the nearby pen had two young piglets in there too so we watched them for a little bit too.

Heading homewards and then a sudden diversion into Bypass nurseries at Capel St Mary.
They have so many departments other than the huge plant nursery including their pet store called "Cats, rats and elephants" which I knew was a memory so far back that I couldn't quite grab, so frustrating and made worse because I couldn't get an Internet signal in there to look it up. I just did and it was from The Unicorn Song by The Irish Rovers, find it on YouTube and you may remember it too. Of course I now have it as an ear worm!

Home with just enough time for a quick cup of tea and to show friendKK my new studio space, and she is so jealous (her words) as we used to do so much of our crafting together which I'm now back to but she doesn't have time until she hopes when she has retired in two years time.

Waved her off then rushed around to sort some art stuff to take and check if I'm giving friendDJ a lift (unfortunately he's still not feeling well enough) and get out for art group, followed by live music at Olive's Bar and home just as the street lights went out.


Disclosure: none of the photos are mine, I pinched them all off Google searches as I was having too much fun to take photos. 
.

Very proud grandma moments.....

We're coming to the end of the school year and although my grandchildren are home educated they attend various extra groups that run term time only, so we have a little group of performances that we look forward to.

Thursday evening E's choir had their concert which Daughter and I both went to (thanks to Hubby offering to entertain and feed O) and really enjoyed, they came on after the guitar group and the junior percussion group. The choir had quite a varied programme of songs and they all looked the part too.  Friday evening, however, E had her South Suffolk Youth Wind Band concert at the same time as R's Wolsey Youth drama group's performance, so Daughter went to E's and my friendKK and I went to R's. It was great seeing these young performers on a real theatre stage. The whole evening was Shakespeare based and R's group did "How many Shakespeare plays can we fit into 10 mins), so a lot of very abridged dialogue and running around all done with great humour. R only had a few small parts to play which she did very well although I know she was a bit disappointed at not having a part a bit bigger....but friendKK and I both enjoyed it, as did the young dad who sat beside friendKK who was there on his own to see his daughter and was obviously not used to theatre going, so KK went into her usual befriending inquisition and had his whole life story in 10 mins!

We dropped R home. (along with the big bag of dried washing) and went home and friendKK came in for a cuppa but as it was such a lovely warm evening we went straight outside again to the garden with cold drinks. Hubby joined us out there soon after as he'd been out on a blood-run. KK went home and we came in then I noticed the video Daughter had uploaded to her flickr account. E is a percussionist and of course spends most performances running between instruments at the very back of the orchestra and because she is small can be heard but often can't be seen. Well during this concert E and another slightly older lad were right at the front and played a difficult xylophone duet AND Daughter was in a really good position to capture it all on her phone. IT IS AMAZING :-) very very proud of her. Daughter said the applause went on and on for a long time!!!

Saturday morning Daughter then went to see R perform with her other drama group. Unfortunately I couldn't go to that as I was on my way to London, however Daughter said that R was brilliant in the two different sketches she was in and "owned the stage" in one of them :-)

How wonderful that they each have special talents and the opportunities to use them and really  enjoy using them as much as we enjoy being entertained by them, I can't stop smiling and showing off to others... I'm a very proud grandma :-)
.

Worth the wait.....

My lovely FriendKK and I became friends very nearly 30 years ago and we did lots together with our young children evenings, weekends and during school holidays. We also did lots together when the children were not around, we are both very arty-crafty types with FriendKK always having lots of "let's make, sell and make money" ideas which were always hard work but fun to do and rarely made enough money to cover the material costs let alone our labour. KK if you are reading this, remember the Christmas wreaths project where we were both covered in cuts and bruises from foraging for greenery and your poor dinning room carpet covered in squashed holly berries......there was also the "Clowns" project when we made from little brooches up to big rag dolls and even thought to dress as clowns to man the stall......and it might be best not to remind you of the "ginger beer" project that actually exploded all over your cellar!

Over the years we had less time to spare - she got an allotment and I got a factory job (yes it was easier than having to help her dig). About 10 years ago we decided it was getting daft buying each other birthday presents when what we really needed was time together so sometime between her birthday and mine we plan a whole day out, mainly to catch up with each other's lives. Unfortunately over the past 3 or 4 years it has been really hard to find the time that fitted in with us both so it was especially nice to manage a day together this year...yesterday in fact.

We started the day at Wimpole Hall (National Trust) and out of the car and into the tea shop :o)
A lovely walk around the hall, reading the info, asking the guides in each room and generally poking about a house that still feels very lived in. Then we stopped in their restaurant for a very late lunch and spent a very long time sitting in the warm just chatting, sharing all the news about our loved ones and having a real good whinge about the people that really piss us off (essential therapy right?). After that we drove back to Bury St Edmunds for an evening at the theatre. A quick meal in a pub before the theatre. Actually it had to be quick as the pub was hosting a Frank Sinatra evening and all the tables were booked from 7pm, but the curtain went up at 7:30pm so that was fine. We got the cheapest seats, thankfully, as the show was a bit of a disappointment. It was called "I'm An Aristocrat, Get Me Out Of Here" and was about the French Revolution and the imprisonment of the posh lot including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and their rescues by the underground group 'Les Petite Pois'. There were just three performers making lots of quick costume changes to play lots of different characters but the script was a bit daft and delivery wasn't good so just a few 'moments' that made me giggle but overall just a bit weird. Then home by 10pm making it a 12 hour day out almost to the minute.

Actually even doing naff stuff together is good because it makes us laugh and gives us plenty to talk about. So a really good day and hopefully it won't be 4 years before we get to do it again.
.