Good morning!
An excellent afternoon meeting at the Arts Council to discuss Arc's 3 year plan and catch up on the Creative People and Places programme development for Barking and Dagenham - some exciting stuff in the pipeline. And then a gentle meander up from Westminster, through Trafalgar Square and into Covent Garden where I stopped in the sunshine for a coffee and to catch up on emails and Facebook updates whilst whiling away an hour or so before heading up to Gray's Inn Road for our private dinner with our new Patron Jon Snow.
We took the mountain to Mohammed - all 20 of us - Board members and staff and met Jon after his Channel 4 regular news programme at his excellent choice of restaurant L'Osteria at 57 Gray's Inn Road. Jon's choice of this lovely family run - original Italian-home-cooking eaterie made this a perfect setting for the Arc family to meet our new Patron.
We had a very relaxed evening, lots of chat and sharing of good conversation and great food and wine. It was a lovely unplanned celebration too of Olly and Phil's just learned news that they are through to the semi-final of the Westendproducer's search for a Twitter composer (I have to admit wondering if their musical numbers are restricted to 140 characters?). In the midst of the daily pressures and demands of running a theatre company in 2013 its a rare moment to let our hair down and just be together minus spreadsheets and targets! We'll do that tomorrow.
Jon is such a grounded and unaffected man. Given his daily public exposure - he is not a man who holds court, but rather demonstrates his native curiosity about all things human and material! I am so delighted that he has agreed to be our Patron given the tremendous demands on his time. We were chatting about the challenges of responding to a daily intray of over 700 emails (his not mine I hasten to add) and how in this technological era many of us still haven't found satisfactory strategies for dealing with the constant inflow. With that many emails a day its easy to miss some hidden jewels. But Jon has a nose for what's important and a keen feeling for the pulse of things.
It was also somewhat gratifying to find out that he's a lark like me - up at 5am most mornings and writing his blog. I rather like the idea that we share that sacred time of the day - when all is silent, apart from the seagulls and squirrels in my case. No phone calls, emails etc (apart from the dubious ones offering all sorts of medical aids!). We agreed that it feels like a gift of 'extra time' and mornings bring freshness of mind that enable us to write without overcrowded heads. So I like to think now of us both blogging away in our PJs with coffee and toast. Of course I can only vouch for my PJ's! I would highly recommend a trip to Jon's blog at http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/ its full of great observations and questions about an eclectic mix of things.
The downside of being a lark however is that we flag by 10pm and for me I always wish for a tardis to appear and carry me straight home - the arduousness of late night tube travel takes its toll on me - but I managed to complete this odyssey last night very bravely! and was home by midnight. Thank goodness or I might have turned into a pumpkin.
So satisfied with a lovely convivial family evening with our great Arc team, a celebration of the Oliver Gostelow incarnation and an outing for my new Canon 600D I have to ask - what more can a girl want?
Lunch with my daughter at Relish in Barking today - and writing businessy stuff this morning - possibly still in my PJ's. Ah life - you are fun!
Hope yours is too.
An excellent afternoon meeting at the Arts Council to discuss Arc's 3 year plan and catch up on the Creative People and Places programme development for Barking and Dagenham - some exciting stuff in the pipeline. And then a gentle meander up from Westminster, through Trafalgar Square and into Covent Garden where I stopped in the sunshine for a coffee and to catch up on emails and Facebook updates whilst whiling away an hour or so before heading up to Gray's Inn Road for our private dinner with our new Patron Jon Snow.We took the mountain to Mohammed - all 20 of us - Board members and staff and met Jon after his Channel 4 regular news programme at his excellent choice of restaurant L'Osteria at 57 Gray's Inn Road. Jon's choice of this lovely family run - original Italian-home-cooking eaterie made this a perfect setting for the Arc family to meet our new Patron.
We had a very relaxed evening, lots of chat and sharing of good conversation and great food and wine. It was a lovely unplanned celebration too of Olly and Phil's just learned news that they are through to the semi-final of the Westendproducer's search for a Twitter composer (I have to admit wondering if their musical numbers are restricted to 140 characters?). In the midst of the daily pressures and demands of running a theatre company in 2013 its a rare moment to let our hair down and just be together minus spreadsheets and targets! We'll do that tomorrow.Jon is such a grounded and unaffected man. Given his daily public exposure - he is not a man who holds court, but rather demonstrates his native curiosity about all things human and material! I am so delighted that he has agreed to be our Patron given the tremendous demands on his time. We were chatting about the challenges of responding to a daily intray of over 700 emails (his not mine I hasten to add) and how in this technological era many of us still haven't found satisfactory strategies for dealing with the constant inflow. With that many emails a day its easy to miss some hidden jewels. But Jon has a nose for what's important and a keen feeling for the pulse of things.
It was also somewhat gratifying to find out that he's a lark like me - up at 5am most mornings and writing his blog. I rather like the idea that we share that sacred time of the day - when all is silent, apart from the seagulls and squirrels in my case. No phone calls, emails etc (apart from the dubious ones offering all sorts of medical aids!). We agreed that it feels like a gift of 'extra time' and mornings bring freshness of mind that enable us to write without overcrowded heads. So I like to think now of us both blogging away in our PJs with coffee and toast. Of course I can only vouch for my PJ's! I would highly recommend a trip to Jon's blog at http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/ its full of great observations and questions about an eclectic mix of things. The downside of being a lark however is that we flag by 10pm and for me I always wish for a tardis to appear and carry me straight home - the arduousness of late night tube travel takes its toll on me - but I managed to complete this odyssey last night very bravely! and was home by midnight. Thank goodness or I might have turned into a pumpkin.
So satisfied with a lovely convivial family evening with our great Arc team, a celebration of the Oliver Gostelow incarnation and an outing for my new Canon 600D I have to ask - what more can a girl want?
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| This isn't my actual camera - its a google image as I would have needed my camera to take a photo of my camera! |
Lunch with my daughter at Relish in Barking today - and writing businessy stuff this morning - possibly still in my PJ's. Ah life - you are fun!
Hope yours is too.
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