Jessica Dean and Anthony Hunt

Well, we have had our first few whirlwind days in London! (And finally been able to sit down at a computer and make a post to this website!)

Whirlwind is probably an understatement for the past three days.  The packing and the flight was was the easy bit!  Of course, the most important piece of information on arrival was the Tube strike - perfectly timed for our arrival, of course!  This we successfully navigated to find our little flat in West Kensington, in time to have a quick breakfast at a nice local cafe before meeting the landlord.  Given that this is London, this cafe, I think, deserves the award for “most-freakishly-clean” cafe in the world - it is pristine inside, but the staff go the extra mile; not only do they do everthing with plastic gloves, but they use tongs to take the money off you, and tongs to pick up the notes and coins from the till, placing them carefully in a plastic tray which they then pick up with the tongs, tipping your change into your hands.  Kinda weird, it leaves you feeling dirty for no reason!

Our flat is excellent - small, but not tiny thankfully.  Probably it’s biggest drawback is the noise - it’s right on the corner of Hammersmith Road (a busy main road) and North End Road (another pretty busy road.)  The living room/kitchen looks out over Hammersmith Road, and with the windows shut, the traffic is a comfortable dull roar - but it is so hot here currently (it doesn’t need to be very hot temperature-wise for London to feel VERY hot and muggy) that windows open are a must (the British have no concept of air-conditioning), so the noise is pretty in your face much of the time.  That said, it’s amazing what you get used to.  We put on a recording of Pavarotti to have a listen to the late and great man, and didn’t really notice the traffic until a truck-horn rudely interrupted the glorious top-C in “Che gelida.”

If you don’t already know, we are sharing this flat with Eleanor Blythman, our good friend and soprano who is also studying here, but at the Royal College of Music (the OTHER great London institution!) and her husband Clint, who is just about to start a stint teaching, at London’s largest Sikh school.  It’s nice to have those friends as support while we’re here in the “big unknown” - although it doesn’t really feel that unknown thankfully, as we’ve been here a couple of times at least.

Probably our most thrilling (?) experience so far has been that of Argos.  When you need home-appliances, and you need them quickly and cheaply, we were told Argos was the way to go.  I knew it was a budget shopping experience, but I didn’t realise quite HOW budget!  Never again!  The shop front itself if very small - you walk in, pick up one of the telephone-directory sized catalogues, browse for the products you need (such as a kettle for £4!), and note down the catalogue numbers.  Then you take your “order” to desk, where you pay for it (having never seen or touched the product) and go to the “pick-up” desk (see photo), where your ordered items turn up on a conveyor-belt in a few minutes.  This sounds like an efficient, if unrewarding shopping experience, but in practice it seemed anything but efficient.  Surrounded by crying children, frustrated and overworked staff, and angry customers, it was a horrible shopping experience.

Oh, and we’ve been to the first couple of “freshers” introduction days at the RAM!  (Surely that’s important?!) These were great fun - lots of information to soak up, but it is such a friendly and welcoming place.  More on all THAT later!  Meanwhile, I eagerly await the arrival of my digital piano from Australia, so I can start practicing all the various things I need to.  It will be a pretty unpredictable sort of time I think.  The Royal Academy Opera is run a bit like a company, and you get your schedule for the following week on the Friday before.  It is a constantly changing sort of schedule, seems to be stuffed full of all sorts of coachings, with all the coaches at the RAM, not just your regular coach (of which Jess’s is Mary Hill,) plus a LOT of movement and acting classes in the weekly schedule.

Excitingly for me, I seem to be the only repetiteur on the course in my year, and there is one rep in second year - so just the two of us, I think I’m going to be BUSY!

Enough, as unfortunately I think I have a mild dose of aeroplane-flu, and must confine myself to bed for a little while.