Not tried & Prejudice

The Corn Exchange, theatre, cafe, cinema.

That is a cowshed??? (Sound Beginnings)

Don't knock it till you have tried it.

For me, before I took up residence here in Newbury, "Going to the theatre" meant, St Martin's Lane or Shaftesbury Avenue . " Covent Garden" meant the Opera or Ballet, not the Soup!!!!. "Festival" was Montreux jazz or Salzburg . So when my husband told me that Newbury had a "Spring Festival" I despaired. 

Why?

Well simply because I imagined jam making competitions, local am dram, and school choirs.........!

Was I in for a surprise?

It is awesome! (Still is as it hasn't finished yet, I'm writing this so that if you haven't been to anything yet- Go!!!)

We saw, firstly,  the Piccadilly Dance Orchestra , and took baby. Even he loved it, whooping and clapping. They were excellent. I just wanted to put on my long dress, my dancing shoes, and do an Erin Boag.......but they "weren't my favourites"

Last night we saw Gary Williams. 

Ahhh! It was a touch of Broadway Glamour in our sleepy market town. Afterwards, emerging from the floodlit Corn Exchange into the Market Place , all the locals  were out on the razz, everything from chicks in stilettos and mini skirts to two ducks out for a late night promenade!!! 

Baby and I also went to the Sound Beginning concert, which was something 2 years ago I couldn't have begun to  imagine.

The last pianist I saw in London, "before baby", was Jamie Cullum at the Albert Hall!! 

Say to  a London singleton, "imagine a barn, a Russian concert pianist playing a steinway whilst babies dance and crawl  around to Mozart...." and they would snigger and maybe even laugh out loud, or shiver with dread, quietly imagining dippy hippies and babies covered in cowshhhhhhhhh...... 

So dear reader, imagine my surprise that the best day of my social and cultural year so far was in the said Barn, with baby and the Russian pianist! It was just fabulous!! And for the  Londoners and my singleton friends who are reading, the barn was clean, dry, modern and not a cow pat insight.Though I must admit, we did sit on furry beanbags, ("so retro dahling!" I hear you gasp.)

My idea of the provinces when I moved here 3 years ago, was that the worst thing was, it was too damn far from London. Now I'd say that is the best thing about it!!!

We took the girl outa the city, is the city  finally outa the girl?