Margot Fonteyn

As I was early for Woman in Black, I crossed over to the Royal Opera House to have a look. During my first trip to London, the Opera House was holding its final performance before closing the following day for a major 4-year renovation. An open-air screen was set up at the Covent Garden and we sat squashed in the crowd, watching the performance that was taking place indoor. I did a google and realised, gosh, that was in 1996. It was 10 and not 5 years ago that I visited, how time flies when you're having fun :)

At the foyer of the Opera House, I found a small exhibition celebrating the Royal Ballet's 75th anniversary.

I'm not a fan of ballet, but my buddy Daphne is, and look, Daph, this is the costume that Margot Fonteyn wore when she danced for the first time as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty at 19, in 1939, more than 60 years ago, and it's still gorgeous.

London was a Scream

My first visit to London was in the late 1990s to attend my sister's post graduation, and it turned out to be the summer that wasn't. I ended up with a horrid cold for a week. Most luckily a friend had offered his unoccupied apartment for my stay or I would have been dead miserable. Prior to the trip I had asked friends who had lived in London/England for some of their fave places/things to do. So besides the usual tourist spots, I also visited a particular cafe in Oxford to sample their bacon sandwiches, a store in Covent Garden to admire their exquisite mechanical toys, Belgos for mussels and cool interior, the Design Museum, Terence Conran shop... the one thing I missed doing was to catch the West end play, The Woman in Black. It was a spooky plot, and I was too cowardly to catch it as I was alone in London that week.
More than 5 years later, I finally caught this popular production that is still running strong at The Fortune Theatre, Russell St. And it's easy to see why. The play had the sure-fire ingredients for a delicious, chilling thriller and though the near fullhouse audience were probably familiar and even expected the visual tricks and BOO! moments, live theatre still worked its magic and we found ourselves collectively jumping from our seats and screaming on cue. Jolly good fun!

pics from thewomaninblack website

Time-out, its Spring

My blog's been idle for almost a month because I was away on a trip. I was in London/Leicester for over a week. Happiness! It was for work, but there was time to chill,

and it was spring and I had a room in London that looked into the garden where flowers were in bloom.
Where I stayed in Leicester, it was old-fashion pretty.

In London, I went to the theatre and checked out some museums where even nature seemed more arty.