Five Things

I've been a bit pressed for time this week and last night gave the evening over to some work I'd brought home with me. So I'm going to cheat and give you a list of five things we have done in recent times. Here it is.

1. J took Mr M for a boat ride on Lake Burley Griffin. This has been a long-held ambition of Mr M's and because they were the only two passengers on Thursday afternoon, Mr M was even allowed to sit at the driver's wheel for a photo. I don't know if this is the boat they went on but it was probably similar. After all, we don't have that many boats on Lake Burley Griffin.
2. After the boat ride and after picking me up from work, we had a picnic at The Castle in Commonwealth Park. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, The Castle is a kids' playground in the style of a ... castle. It has been in the Park forever. I remember it being there when I was a teenager and that is over 20 years ago. It has recently been improved with that awfully smelly, supposedly soft playground carpet. The improvements haven't addressed the main issue as I see it, which is that if you wanted to climb up high and jump, you still can and you'd probably still hurt yourself badly in the jumping. Mr M isn't into jumping, however. But he loves climbing through The Castle's tunnels.
3. On Friday, a concert of J's music was performed at the National Gallery at lunchtime. Just a small but interested group of people. It was wonderful, however, to hear music in the gallery spaces and especially that that music was J's.
4. Swimming. We've been back to the pool this weekend after a break of a few weeks. Yesterday, J, Mr M and I went to the indoor pool in Belconnen. It's great when we all go together because it means I can actually swim some laps. Yesterday I managed eight (woohoo!), a recent record. This morning, Mr M and I joined the cousins at the Big Splash outdoor pool. Swimming outdoors is a novelty for us and I was a bit paranoid about the sun. But Mr M and his cousins had a fantastic time, gradually getting braver and braver and bolder and bolder at sliding down some of the less daunting slides. And we didn't get sunburnt.
5. Movies. I've been very lucky and been to see two adult movies recently. About a fortnight ago, I saw Atonement and this evening J and I went to see Sweeney Todd. Very different films, although both exquisitely designed and shot. Atonement will make you want to read Ian McEwan's novel, or re-read it. In some scenes, the film was incredibly close to my memory of the book; other bits I just couldn't recall. And it is certainly worth waiting for Vanessa Redgrave's gorgeous cameo right at the film's end. Sweeney Todd is an exuberant, bloody recreation of Stephen Sondheim's musical - and for that alone I love it. There is much to enjoy, including performances by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Both are recommended. But a warning - if you see Sweeney Todd, it will be a while before you can eat a meat pie again.