...but blogging feels less urgent than it used to be when I lived in Djenne. This is probably because I had a need to be connected then, I was living far away in a strange land and although I spoke to interesting strangers in the hotel every day, and of course to my staff who became quite close to me, I had a need of communicating with my European friends, and the knowledge that many people were looking in on me every day - albeit from a great geographical
distance- was comforting.
Now I am caught up in an absorbing London existence- almost too absorbing because I never seem to find the time or impetus to do anything creative. (Apart from redoing my flat, finally and putting all my African pictures up, as well as repainting the floor canvas to fit in with the new black and white theme above.) But the whole 12 years of the Djenne Djenno blog and my life in Mali is lying there untouched, quietly observing me with faintly disapproving eyes, waiting for me to try and do something with it. A TV series? The Durrells on the Bani? Or perhaps Fawlty Towers on the Bani would be more appropriate..?
But while quietly pondering this somewhere in the hinterland of my mind, I am enjoying London.
Jeremiah is taking me to fabulous things, like the opera reception in the Italian embassy residence above, and his Europe concert in St. John's Smith Square, a wondrous evening this time, with the most spectacular Norwegian violinist: Eldbjorg Hemsing.
I also visited the venerable East End Music Hall venue Wilton's last week, for what should have been Brecht/Weil's satirical sung ballet 'The Seven deadly Sins' but turned into something else for some reason which was never quite explained. Anyway, it remained a medley of Brecht and Weil songs which is always very sexy, dark and passionate, wonderfully sleazy and dangerous, a great feeling enjoyed from the safety of a comfortable theatre seat in the company of jolly friends.
