A fine restaurant, the company of good friends, and an evening of Sibelius with our world class NZ Symphony Orchestra…
Yes, I hopped up quickly from my computer and sewing machine, and off we went last night.

There was something rather special about listening to our excellent orchestra playing Finnish music under the baton of a Finnish conductor with a Finnish virtuoso violinist who did such a magnificent job of the one-and-only violin concerto that Sibelius ever wrote. He played the entire 34 minute piece without music, and received well-deserved tremendous applause.

Right at the back of the orchestra, just behind the big drum and the cymbals, below the massive pipes of the permanently fixed pipe organ, I noticed a small mirror.
It gave me an excellent view of the back of the Principal Flutist with her intriguing tangle of thick curly tresses.
But no matter how hard I tried, keeping within the proper boundaries of personal space, I was not able to bring into view the face of the conductor as his black beetle-like back energetically darted all over his 3 foot square podium.
But as far as conductors went, he did have the essential bouncy hair which can be effectively tossed this way and that to always end up more-or-less in the same style that it started - thick, straight, short, definitely layered and very definitely bouncy.
In that regard he was just like my favourite Andrew Davis who has often conducted the British Proms in London.
With so much expression from the back, those beetle-like coat tails swishing everywhere in contagious enthusiasm, I am sure his face would have been just as good to watch as well.
But one can't have everything, I guess.

An evening of Sibelius kept us talking well into the wee hours of the morning.
Finland… the land so far north… Kalevala, Finland's national epic of old folk poems and mythology that so inspired Sibelius… the melodies, harmonies, tonal poems, flavours of Wagner, the powerful emotions…

Oh that's right, it was to be light and fluffy omelettes for breakfast this morning.
Well, I did get in that bit about the conductor's hair.