On a delightfully sunny and warm Friday afternoon the Meadows were as busy as I've ever seen them and the cherry trees were in full bloom. I've recently read a book about Collingwood Ingram, an Englishman who was instrumental in saving cherry varieties from extinction and in promoting the cultivation of cherry trees both in Japan and worldwide. It's a very good read. In an appendix the Meadows are listed as one of the best places in the UK to admire cherry trees in bloom. 

Not to be outdone the Friends of Starbank Park hosted a Cherry Blossom Picnic on Sunday which had all the hallmarks of Japanes hanami celebrations.  I bumped into Hilda who used to play trumpet with Dunedin but who was at Starbank to play with the Edinburgh Brass Band.  Here's a snap of the event and of the brass band.

Continuing in a Japanese vein I went to a U3A talk on Japan in which the speaker focused on the co-existence of traditional and modern features in the country.  I think those in the audience who had not been to Japan would have gained more knowledge and enjoyment from it than I did. 

I enjoyed a Japanese meal with Sarah at Harajuku, an Italian meal with Connor at Vittoria's, a Persian meal with Ross, Claire and Siobhan at Konj.  I also celebrated Ross's birthday at Sotto where I know I had a delicious meal and even more delicious wine but can't for the life of me remember what I had though it must have been Italian in spirit.  Not content with eating out in restaurants I was liberally fed by both Siobhan and Claire in their homes.  A good month for digestive diversions.

Cultural diversions include a Stabat Mater by a Belgian group La Chapelle Sauvage at Easter in the Queen's Hall and again in the Queen's Hall from the SCO a concert of Czech music including a wonderful piece I'd never heard before, Martinu's 2nd Violin concerto.  I absolutely loved it.  My own musical activities were limited to a Sunday afternoon Big Blaw where I had a great deal of trouble getting anything out of my sax in such contrast to the weekend at Stirling University last month.  Maybe time to put the instrument away.

I was at the pictures twice though once was to see an NT Live cast of All My Sons.  It's oe of my favourite plays.  This was what we used to call a very Brechtian production, i.e. no set or almost none. In this case they had a backcloth with a door shaped hole and above the hole a large round aperture which acted as a window into the house.  The forestage held a large tree which we saw collapse in a storm in the opening scene. So it all depended on the performances which were splendid.  I particulary liked Marianne Jean-Baptiste who played the mother clinging on to the fiction that her son will return now the war is over despite his aircraft having been reported missing three years earlier for fear of having to face the part his father played in the deaths of American airmen.   Altogether an excellent production which Esther who was with me also enjoyed.

Two Prosecutors was the film I saw.  Set in Stalin's Russia The Guardian called it petrifying in this 5 star review.  It certainly makes you thank your lucky stars for our albeit imperfect society.

The only live drama I've seen recently was Vanishing Point's What I'm Here For, a collaboration with a Danish theatre company performed in a mixture of Danish and English with surtitles in both languages. From what little I know of the Danes they probably understood the English dialogue without having recourse to the surtitles.  We knew Danes in Nairobi who chatting away happily amongst themselves in Danish would immediately switch to English when we hove into sight. 

I liked the presentation but wasn't all that impressed by the play.  It deals with the pressures on over-stretched staff in a hospital, the mistakes and oversights that can lead to etc.  It doesn't offer any solution nor does it tell us anything we don't already know, except perhaps that Denmark has similar problems to us.    

However my recent experience with the NHS has been very positive and continues to be so.  Having dealt with my bowel cancer they have turned back to checking out my lungs.  I saw a consultant who like my bowel surgeon is an Irishman and he gave me the lowdown on my condition.  Although I have emphesema it's apparently limited and not of much consequence. My main problem is progressive pulmonary fibrosis.  He said that what I would find when I googled it was that I had less than five years to live but stressed that mine was a slightly different flavour.  "What you've got is not good" he said "but it's not that."

Nevertheless they can't cure it, can't repair the damage already done and can't stop it destroying more of my lung tissue.  What they can do is slow down the progression but the side effects of the two alternative treatments he described are not attractive.  I've been left to ponder and in the meantime I'm on a pulmonary rehabilitation course.  That's basically a set of six weekly exercise classes aimed at improving my breathing and getting oxygen into my muscles. I've also got contacts for choirs for the breathless thanks to my meeting Hilda at Starbank park.  We'll see how they can fit in a non-singer like me.

On a cheerier note I picked the horse that came second in the Grand National.  Pity I hadn't gone the length of putting money on it.  I enjoyed Scotland's women's rugby team's victory over Wales and lamented the thrashing they got from England.  I didn't subject myself to more pain by avoiding their Italian defeat.

But Scotland so far has come out tops in snooker's world championship with a couple of superb matches from John Higgins.  How he recovered from being five frames behind Ronnie O'Sullivan to beat him 13-12 was awe-inspiring.

The National Galleries of Scotland talks are popular and the one on Art Deco in Scotland was sold out when I was booking but happily it was also available to stream which I did and which I found very worth watching.  Given by Bruce Peter from Glasgow School of Art he traced art deco's precursors in 19th century decorative arts, discussed how art deco became significant in Scotland between the wars and gave a potted insight into the contents of his book Art Deco Scotland:Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age.

The whole talk was beautifully illustrated by lovely slides including many of ocean liner interiors, mostly Clyde built.  He admits to a fascination with ocean liners which I share.  I saw an excellent exhibition relating to design within ocean liners in Genoa some years ago.