The Gerrard Chronicles 2003 - Spring

Having difficulty letting our flats, we roped in Hugh Grover, hitherto more a friend than an agent & he filled up the three vacant ones promptly with very nice people, although Ken has had much decorating to do this year, including retrieving one flood disaster.

With the Coliseum about to rebuild, we went to four operas while there was still time. ‘Khovanschina’ was disappointing & if Mussorgsky had been able to finish it himself, he would surely have tightened it up. ‘Rosenkavalier’ was a delight. Poul Ruders ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was a fair attempt but not really adequate to the subject & ‘Tristan & Isolde’ a bit weird (they stayed 30 feet apart in the Love Duet!) but musically splendid.

Bush’s War found us on opposite sides, Avis thinking getting rid of a nasty man like Saddam being a good thing & Ken having more care, being Charter 88, for international law. The GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) gleefully put their spies reports on the Web & Ken assiduously followed it. British industry can still make some things. Iraqi shells went through the American tanks & bounced off ours, although this was not reported in the papers.

Avis works one day a week as a Tate Volunteer & her team came to visit on April 28th. They are busy sorting out the thousands of Private View invitations that arrive for the Director, into individual artist's files in the Archive. Avis has been in correspondence with Nick Serota about the thorny question of skill & the lack of it in the Turner Prize. The brilliant Judy was to die accidentally in September & we went to her funeral, meeting her lovely sons.