Glyndebourne

Adam, Pip, Luke and Meriel all arrived in time for supper last night but Tommy and Inca arrived quite late as he had to move rooms in his college. He is staying in Cambridge for the summer due to his research internship and so had to move into different rooms.

This morning the marathon runners - Gavin, Adam, Luke and Meriel went off for a long training run, Gavin doing 21km and the others doing about 19km. I prepared some more of the food for the picnic meal, Pip helped me make sandwiches, and then we all got dressed up in our glad rags and set off for Glyndebourne. It is on a beautiful farm near Lewes in West Sussex, and one of the enjoyable things about going there is to visit their gardens. The dress is formal, guests are encouraged to wear black tie and it's even better if there is a bit of a twist, anything eccentric is welcomed!

The young adults all made  such a lovely effort to dress up. In the extra you can see portraits of all of us.

We were blessed with good weather - sunny all day although a bit windy at times. We set up our picnic at one of the tables and chairs dotted about the large gardens. It was heavenly sitting in the sunshine sipping champagne and eating nibbles of smoked salmon sandwiches and other snacks.

The performance of The Marriage of Figaro started at about 4pm, we saw the first two acts before breaking for the long interval to eat our picnic supper outside in the garden. The opera was delightful, a modern version set in the 1970’s with some very funny moments. Our picnic supper was delicious, the sheep were bleating in the field next to us, the sunshine was warming and we felt so lucky to be there.

The opera ended at about 8.30pm and we said our goodbyes to Adam, Pip, Tommy and Inca who went directly back to Cambridge while we drove back home with Luke and Meriel. We will see Tommy and Inca again in 2 weeks time for his 21st party at home.

Our neighbour’s daughter took Xena out for a walk this afternoon and then came back to feed her supper. She was well looked after and happy to see us when we got home.