Navarra

Last Saturday off to Dorking Halls, for the first time for a while, to hear, for the first time, the Navarra String Quartet. They have, we were told, been at the Halls before but no record of it that I can find here or in the other place. But then, we did not go at all last year, the string quartet component of the programme being missing or failing to attract, and the year before that we were a bit preoccupied with other matters. But we learn now that the Navarra have been around for around a decade, like to be photographed on what looks like Dungeness and also perform, or at least are to perform tomorrow, at St. Luke's.

So on Saturday we had Mozart String Quartet No.1 in G major, K80, written at the age of 14. This went down well enough, despite the scarily early age. Must be a dangerous business being that good at that age, although we were interested to read just yesterday about how Shirley Temple survived being a child star at 6, going on to what looked like a normal and successful life as an adult. Unfortunately the obits. we saw were a bit vague about how she pulled this off, beyond marrying a successful businessman, which one assumes steadied her down a bit.

(Having thus prompted myself, I am about to be the owner of a paper book published by an outfit called http://www.charlesrivereditors.com/, better known, it seems, as a publisher of electric books. I was off the case enough to mistake the name for that of a person, with the way the thing is presented in Amazon being some excuse, but I shall report back on what I get in due course).

Rather to my surprise, rather disappointed by Borodin's second string quartet. Not sure whether I was off form or they were, but whatever it was it did not seem to hang together, to go anywhere.

But no such problem with the last piece after the interval, Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 Op. 74, known as the harp and which we last heard, almost exactly a year ago from the Endellion at the Wigmore Hall (see 16th February 2013). And as it happens, on that occasion it disappointed, but on this occasion it went down really well. Left the Borodin well down the field.

Back along the A24, through the Mole Gap, alongside the rather swollen Mole to find that the Burford Bridge Hotel was being refurbished and would be shut until the Autumn, so no toasted tea cakes for us. We learned afterwards that the place was flooded by the Mole on Christmas Eve just past. There are pictures of the scene from the BBC, but we knew nothing of it at the time.

Instead, we thought to give the rather grand looking Holiday Inn in the car park of the Chessington World of Adventures a try, last visited on or about January 9th 2009 (see the other place). Where they were unable to do tea and toasted tea cake, but the bar was able to do tea with two portions of small warm donuts served with a sort of chocolate custard. Pleasantly served and the donuts went down better than they sound; perhaps we were hungry. The clientèle on this late Saturday afternoon was thin in number and rather like that of the nearby Horton Golf Club (of Jungle Island fame, see 22nd August and 29th December). Locals, rather than guests, who find the place a handy substitute for a pub, rather as they find the nearby BP petrol station a handy substitute for a shop, and who use the place to watch the footer. We took the opportunity to inspect the Jungle Restaurant and its menu, to find it a bit thin too. More or less standard Holiday Inn fare dressed in vaguely African clothes, despite being equipped with the latest thing in island kitchens. It looked to be directed at customers for the World of Adventures rather than at people with business or at conferences (there was a conference suite), and might well be rather dull on a winter lunchtime, which was when we were thinking of giving it a go. So we sha'n't. But I still like the way the place has been dressed up, with the vaguely African clothes suiting the décor better than the menu.