Windy weekend in NY

Well, I just had a very busy weekend. Opera on Friday night (Madama Butterfly, which was just beautifully staged, although the singing was not fantastic, inasmuch as I am any expert). Saturday involved getting up after the heavy rain stopped, getting the paper, then heading out for a matinee. I actually ordered my first home delivery meal as well, one of the best Pad Thai's I have ever had. Sunday got up early, went to the gym and did some washing, and then met my friend Les and his friend Mike at Madison Square Park. Sunday was FREEZING cold, and really really windy - the kind of wind that blows you sideways.

We headed off to brunch at Cafeteria, got a table reasonably quickly, and then who should join us but Susan Sarandon and her two sons. Nice of them (she is the one wearing the hat in the photo - couldn't use flash as that might be a bit...rude?).








Brunch was lovely - this time I had the crabcake and poached eggs, whilst Les noshed on the Green Eggs and Ham, and Mike went suitably masculine with the eggs benedict with swiss chard...

So then the three of us headed up to Central Park to find Strawberry Fields (for Mike, who turns out to be a closet Beatles fan, and kept thinking every small Asian woman we saw was Yoko Ono). Had a good wander around, taking shelter behind large rocks out of the wind.
















As you can see from my picture, my hair suffered rather in the constant bombardment, but the colours of the trees were just beautiful. We watched the ice skaters for a little while (thenks to Trump for sponsoring the rink of course!), and then Mike lost his spare AA batteries over the edge of the large rocks we were sitting on and decided to be an intrepid rock climber to recover them. He did get one back, but after smacking his head on a tree limb decided discretion was the better part of being a cheapskate, and maybe he could just buy another couple of batteries.
Was a lovely day. After taking pictures of Cleopatra's Needle, and Les taking a quick rest on Hans Christian Anderson's lap, we headed out again and finally found a bar after walking 20 blocks in the driving wind, keeping our mouths closed to avoid inhaling the dust, leaves and rubbish that was flying around. After a few beers (Les), a Corona with an umbrella in it (Mike) and a half of Guinness (me), I headed off for my evening commitments, all set for another early start this morning.

And, picking up on the rubbish news reporting again, this morning in the gym I had the treat of watching NBC (channel already set by someone on the treadmill behind me), and they had a reporter from Baghadad (not Baghdad as normal). How very reassuring on quality control and checking! We also had the Governator of California talking about the arsonist over there (something along the lines of "we must catch the scumbag"). The rest of the news here is solely about George W Bush and the mid-term elections in just over a week. Given W is not even up for election, it is really all about how he is being used by the opposition to try to discredit Republican candidates... So there has been lots of footage of him talking about the "Internets" and how he uses "the Google". Always ample fodder for next year's book of "Bushisms".