While Tilly was away at her friend’s house, Mummy and I went to a ballet in the theatre. Since it is almost Christmas, we were watching The Nutcracker, a delightful tale that I loved to see in an interesting, foreign dance. Before we arrived at the theatre, we went into a small ballet workshop and started to make some moves. I, however, thought we were going to do studying over the play, learning what it was about, who the characters were, and so on. That meant that when I arrived in a chiffon pink dress that came to my ankles, and a sequin white cardigan, and a cream bow in my hair, it was quite hard to act out the dance, because I kept stumbling over my buckles or that annoying, not-for-ballet hem on the bottom of the pink dress. But when the workshop was over, and when the dances had been created and played out, and the fun for that part of the day out had ended and was gone, there was much, much more awaiting us.
Being a Mummy-and-Lavinia day, we had to go out for lunch. That’s one of our rules. So we went out to the shopping centre just round the corner and had a delicious meal in Pret, one of our must-go-to places whenever we happen to be in the right shopping centre at the time. I got a gigantic Pret Cup of soup, and just in case you didn’t know, a Pret Cup is much larger and better than a Home Cup, which is often tiny and gets knocked over. The soup I had was this amazing, very curry-like Indian soup, which had loads of lentils, vegetables, and herbs in it that made it go zing whenever I had a spoonful. I really want it again and maybe we could make it at Home!
(But then it would have to be made in a Home Cup)… We both had a roll and butter with our soup, because Mummy just had a different time of soup. But unfortunately there was only a single roll left, and Mummy had to go up the counter and ask if they could put some more out for her. Since it took about fifteen minutes for the rolls to come out, one of the chefs gave us a really delicious cookie filled with melted chocolate! We had half each, and figured out that Pret is just the perfect place to buy a melted chocolate cookie – or get one for free!
Then we hurried up to the theatre again, now expecting the performance to begin soon. I was really excited when we got our seats close to the stage, so we didn’t need to hire binoculars or squint to see anything. The actress of Clara was absolutely fantastic at ballet, and she did many spins, most of which I couldn’t count, and she wore pretty point shoes and and started doing this complicated synchronised dance on point with the rest of the actors and actresses. I was so amazed.
The Nutcracker went on for a couple of hours, but I was dumbfounded during the whole performance. Even after the interval when Mummy kept eating all the winegums I didn’t care for all the world then. All the ballet movements seemed so complicated. Once the Sugar Plum Fairy came on stage right next to the edge, facing the audience, and danced to Stage Right. During her dance the man who was previously dancing with her came on stage from behind and ran where she was. Then she threw herself backwards into his arms, and she did not turn round, so she had to hope that he was there to catch her and hadn’t forgotten where he was meant to be or some sort of thing like that. It was fantastic to see how much trust was used – what if he had forgotten?!
At the end I was really tired, but we both drove back home safe and sound.