Philharmonia Orchestra

The last time Jeff and I were together, we went to quite a few classical music concerts. I think the year we have been apart has shown us that it can be quite hard to find young(ish) people who like classical music as whilst I had been to a few concerts last year, it certainly wasn’t as many as when I was with Jeff – Jeff admitted that he hadn’t been to any since we split as it wasn’t the type of thing his new partner, nor his friends were interested in.

Jeff managed to get a couple of hours off work at the end of his shift and met me outside Waggamamas for some food before we went for a drink and then off to the concert. Jeff hadn’t been to Waggamamas for ages so actually had to look at the menu to see what he wanted to order! (Myself, on the other hand knew what I wanted before I even set foot in the place as it has been a staple food stuff in my healthy eating regime for months).

The food, as always was lovely and the service was superb – Jeff even had room for pudding. It seems that Waggamamas have changed their menu slightly so had a new desert ‘Japanese Cherry Cheesecake’. I declined to get one, however obviously stole a mouthful of Jeff’s desert to say I had tried it – it was gorgeous! However the rest was his.

We went for a drink afterwards in ‘Giraffe’ and as both of us were driving after the concert back to our respective homes, we decided on non-alcoholic cocktails ‘Oceans breeze’ – They tasted absolutely foul. I likened it to the taste in your mouth after you have thrown up. I don’t think it was because there was too much banana in it (although I think that was Jeff’s opinion) they just didn’t taste very nice at all.

We got to the concert hall and once again, we were some of the youngest people there. There was a school trip, however, therefore about 20-30 kids looking like 1980’s New Romantic type, with Amy Winehouse hairstyles so we certainly weren’t the youngest.

The Philharmonia orchestra were very, very good – exceptionally skilful. Sadly I have now figured out that I’m not overly keen on Weber or Schumann – too many strings, not enough brass or piano, therefore actually found the first half of the concert quite boring. We listened to Weber Overture: Oberon and Schumann Symphony no. 3 (Rhenish) – neither of which excited me. If you had played any of the pieces to me today, less than 24 hours later, I doubt I would be able to recognise which ones I had listened to last night. The second half of the concert was ‘Beethoven’s Piano concerto No. 5’ which was much better. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was the Dude on the piano and was exceptionally good, however not as good (in my opinion) as Ludivico Einaudi who will always be one of my favourite classical pianists and who I really hope has another UK tour date soon as currently he’s not due to come to England any time soon.

It was a lovely evening as it was spent with Jeff, and in the second half of the concert he had his arm around me and we just cuddled whilst listening to the fantastic piano music. The next time I am seeing him is Sunday which will be....interesting as his parents are coming to visit him and I haven’t seen them in about two years – I hadn’t seen them for about 9 months – 1 year before we split and I’m rather nervous about it.

We’re cooking a 3 course dinner for them (Our decisions as we like cooking) at Jeff’s house and whilst they are lovely, lovely people (makes a change from the usual ‘Mother in law from Hell’ stories, I guess!) it will be quite weird to see them again and be like, ‘Oh Hi! Haven’t seen you since your son dumped me!’ – Jeff assures me it won’t be weird, but he can’t control what goes on in my head (Good job too!)

So, watch out for the update of Molly meeting Jeff’s parents – second time lucky! :-)

- Molly