If you know

So Sunday was LL’s birthday. Given her druthers, she’d let birthdays slide by quietly and ignored. I like a bit of fuss, just a bit. Given it had been a hard few days before, we did need a bit of a fuss. Thankfully I am an organised boy, so we did a thing.

Our relationship has survived because of raising children, yes, but also because we do enjoy many of the same things. One of those things is Opera. I grew up in a musical household, oddly Opera wasn’t one of those things. When I met LL, it was one of the things in her childhood home. So, pretty early on, we did Opera. One of her dreams was to go to Glyndebourne.

If you know, you know. Can you describe it as a private Opera? It receives no public funding, it is held in trust by its members. Donations and tickets which range from costing pennies to, erm, rather a lot. It is based on an old country estate. The opera house is a modern build, the gardens are exquisite, and the opera itself is rather good.

It is also an event. Dress is black tie, though I don’t think that’s actually written down in rules anywhere. The schedule is done to allow one or two very long intervals. You arrive early to mid afternoon. You wither set up to picnic, or (as we did Sunday because of worries about the weather) you go to one of the rather decent restaurants. You wander the gardens, bubbly in hand. The bell rings and you troop inside for the first act. Out you head for the long interval and have your meal in the great outdoors of the garden, then go listen to the final music.

I love it, I really do.