Drama on drama or just a case of really bad timing?

As the seasons turn in this north Yorkshire village, so we move from celebrating May Day complete with choreographed pole dancing (!), Feast (without the preposition, just Feast!) in the summer, through to Halloween, Remembrance Sunday and then to the Pantomime.

Each year, it is a joyfully hilarious celebration of gutsy singing, terrible jokes, audience participation, amazing costumes - especially for the dame - and sums up a great deal of what village life is about. Otherwise perfectly normal people paint false moustaches, dress up as members of the opposite sex, slap thighs and take custard pies... well, on the chin. The effort that goes into this is truly phenomenal and if it runs to nearly the length of The Ring Cycle, then so be it.

Normally the final night of the Panto would have been this Saturday but because two cast members of Robinson Crusoe and the Pirates - namely Robinson Crusoe herself and one of the aforementioned Pirates - will be joining us at The Wedding, the Panto started a day early in order to release them for our own celebration. So it would have been churlish not to go along last Friday. Actually it would have taken several wild horses for us to miss it. Who can forget the multitude of nearly completed costume changes by the dame - great wiggle in the Beyonce dress, I thought! Or the orange starfish, or indeed the tightness of the trousers of one of the cricket team... Enough drama to sustain us until our own drama begins this weekend. Or so we thought...

Waking up with excruciating chest pains and an inability to breath at 1.00am that night was not in the plan. I eventually managed to sit up and call my beloved for help. If I said it was frightening I don't think fear actually entered my head. I was too busy trying to breathe against the tightening across my chest and upper arms. My beloved suggested he call the dancing doctor (married to the singing doctor who had been slapping her thigh as Robinson Crusoe earlier in the evening). I nodded, because it was hard enough to breathe, let alone speak. Within a very few minutes (he must sleep with his clothes on) he was there, taking my pulse - 'weak, thready' and taking in my obviously not-looking-my best appearance. Hospital, he pronounced. My beloved immediately said he would take me. I was breathing somewhere near normally by now but not taking much part in events. No, paramedics, now.

OK, I am now alert enough to be panicking myself and all I can see is my beautiful outfit for my beautiful daughter's beautiful wedding hanging on the front of the wardrobe. I might not get to wear this... (My number 1 daughter who read this in draft form would like me to point out here that it was not because I thought I was dying but more worried about how long I might be hospitalised for.) Don't let anyone tell you that the NHS is not brilliant in a crisis. Fifteen minutes later, my bedroom (not that big) is populated by me, my beloved, the dancing doctor, 3 paramedics and a machine rather larger than a microwave which has enough wires for broadband attached to various parts of me.

Now although nothing like this has ever happened to me before, I was feeling a bit of a fraud by now, but no amount of pleading was going to stop the paramedics taking me to hospital for what turned into a night of blood tests and chest x-rays. The long and short of it being that everything came back negative and although I've felt poorly for a few days I am now starting to feel better in time for the big day.

So thank you to the cast of thousands who made the panto so brilliant (see it if you can...) and to a similar sized cast who made sure that I am going to make it to the wedding - although it's only Thursday and so much could yet go wrong... The NHS is wonderful, everyone who looked after me here and at Harrogate Hospital was absolutely fantastic and worth every penny and more that we pay in tax.

So just a case of really bad timing? Oh no it isn't... Oh yes it is!

I wrote this last week before The Big Day which turned out to be the most wonderful, happiest weekend of my life so far. But you'll have to wait for the blog which may turn out to be of similar epic proportions to the aforementioned panto!! 

Wedding Fever - Getting a bit soppy here...

We are now rapidly counting down to the first of our children's weddings - number 2 marries the lovely JS in less than three weeks and it feels as though we have gone from serenely cruising towards the big day to rushing at it headlong. Nearly everything has been organised - most of it ages ago and nearly every detail micro-managed by the bride to be - as those of us who know her would expect!

But the significance of the day, the real meaning of all this dashing about with fabric swatches, lighting schemes, flower and hymn choices, has come home to roost now with me. For most importantly, their wedding day is just the first day of a life together of every days. Whilst we have had weeks and months planning the minutiae, now the greater significance of what lies ahead on November 28th is front and centre - a notion which perhaps one has to have been married for many years to truly understand.

A few weeks ago we were looking for suitable readings for the wedding of bride number 2, aka daughter number 1, who will be making her own way down the aisle at the end of April 2016. In our modern world, readings are not confined to the Bible or at best, the Bard. Now the bride and groom seek out passages and poems which mean a lot to them or reflect most closely their feelings for each other. In the course of looking out some readings for them, I found a number which resonated with me, and having taken out their choices - because it would be unfair to let the cat out of the bag at this point - I thought I would share some of them here.

It has to be said that perhaps they would not have been my choices thirty one and a half years ago. Shamefully, I cannot remember the reading we had on the day and my memories of the service are fleeting at best. Perhaps it takes the roller coaster of life together to shape one's thoughts and emotions on what it means to love and be loved, and to marry and be married. So here are a few which I thought were particularly beautiful. Not chosen by either of the current stock of brides but, you never know, by the end of April it will be two down and two to go so perhaps they will yet get an airing...

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, and they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring with your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes!’
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand alone in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back....

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. 

Love. How to describe it? So that it endures - not gouged out like a scar on the all-too-visible soul but encrusted on the heart like a secret jewel. Sometimes only seen or felt by the two of you. And then at other times, it will shine like a beacon and other folks and fools will tell you how lucky you are. 

Don’t listen to people who tell you how lucky you are to find love. Perhaps your meeting was luck... or perhaps it was written in the stars. But what lies ahead has nothing to do with luck. Your commitment to each other - spoken here in front of those who love you more than you can ever know - is so much more than a moment of words. 

Love lies in the determination to face life’s challenges together. It lies in taking the bad with the good. On a sunny, happy day, you cannot imagine the mountains that will have to be climbed in unsuitable shoes.

You commit to each other a lifetime of making a home in your hearts - perhaps it will need to be big enough for a whole family. You commit to being the best you can be even when all you want to offer up is your worst. You commit to making decisions which are best for you both and not just for yourself. Harder than you might think. 

Love each other every day. Forgive each other for all your failings, however miserable. Share all the joy in equal measures for each other. Laugh together. Be the missing pieces in each other’s jigsaw. Not just for this blissful moment, but for always. 

Rugby, Ball and Tough Mudders!

So now all the Northern Hemisphere nations are out of the Rugby World Cup, it's time to tot up the positives and negatives of the whole experience - at least from my point of view and accepting that others may disagree.

The first positive is that we didn't pay stupid amounts of money to go to Twickenham. We went to two great matches - one at Elland Road: Scotland v USA. Lots of running rugby, great atmosphere and ... happy men in kilts in quantity. For women of a certain age, this is perfection. The second match was at St James' Park in Newcastle and it was great to see the All Blacks play for the first time  (for me) and was part of a rather eventful evening of which more later.

Also no Stuart Barnes on the commentary team on ITV. Joy! He is surely the biggest killjoy of English rugby. Yes we were, and are, fabulous hosts but realistically we cannot cut the mustard in the world game anymore.

So the honest negatives: the pool of death - why did they do the draw three years before the event? Also being pragmatic, when the winner of the European player of the year for the last three years is English (one of those being Jonny obviously) why would you not get over yourself and pick Nick Abendenon and Steffon Armitage? Then there's the decision to let a player from another code cut his teeth on international rugby in the World Cup. Daft. And finally, what bright spark thought Paloma Faith should murder "The World in Yoooooooniyon" umpteen times a day? If I was Henry VIII I would have had her beheaded by now.

So on a more personal note, a week ago we managed to combine three of my most favourite things: seeing my gorgeous children (two out of four ain't bad), watching top class rugby and grooving round the dance floor with my beloved. A few weeks ago, the aforementioned told me we were going to a ball in Newcastle on a Friday night. No, I told him. I have an appointment with two hakas - All Blacks and Tonga - at St James' Park. So after a little toing and froing, we agreed that my beloved's partner for the ball would be number 4 child who would come down from Edinburgh and I would go on from the sub's bench after the rugby which I was attending with number 3 child.

But first we had to check in to our hotel which was - bonus for me! - full of Samoan rugby players. In fact, we conclusively proved that only 3 Samoan rugby players will fit in a standard hotel lift with no room for anyone else. And they were lovely, posing for photographs with the twins and generally being delightful. Alesana Tuilagi who plays for Newcastle Falcons and therefore a properly lovely chap, posed with both children.

So number 3 and I headed off to St James' Park, watched rugby and had a great time (another negative - see above - no Guinness! Rugby should always be accompanied by Guinness, surely everyone knows that!) and then returned to the hotel where number 3 was looking very gorgeous and had had dinner with my beloved and his delightful colleagues. It took less than an hour to walk from St James' Park, change out of my England rugby shirt and jeans and into my posh frock and be on the dance floor with my beloved. Not bad, eh?

And now a week on and I have today done my first Tough Mudder. This was one of Acorn's last events as we are winding up the charity next year so somehow I found myself not marshalling which was what I had intended to do, but running with Lady H. We started at the back (but that's not where we finished!) and headed off over fences and obstacles, struggling through ponds which had water shoulder-high for short folks like me and up hill and down dale over muddy terrain for a full 10k. So not last, but nearly - but more importantly, a year ago I could scarcely walk to the bottom of the garden and this week I have had my final cancer treatment (nurse with comedy-large syringe!) and now I can do a Tough Mudder! Happy me!

Barcelona... as Bookends.

So we've had three glorious days in Barcelona - one of our most favourite places  - and this time it has had a special significance.

This is our third visit to this eclectic, exhilarating city and each time we find new places to explore and old haunts to revisit. We have our 'must-do' restaurants and bars, shops and sights but this city of wide tree-lined boulevards and twisting narrow alleys always holds surprises. Why do we love it? Because it embraces the cosmopolitan (more later!) whilst remaining passionately Catalan. Because every museum, shop and bar packs a welcome to all whilst remaining sleek and stylish (can you imagine saying that about Leeds or York?) and the Catalan is very much on show as we arrive the day after the local elections. There are flags in the upstairs windows of every building declaring their allegiance to the independence of the red and yellow stripes. 

New things to us this this time included A Walk with Gaudi which having spent so much time at La Sagrada Familia on our last visit was the perfect way to try to understand Gaudi's use of light, colour and the shapes of nature. We also visited the underground Roman city and walked amongst its dye shops, wineries and laundries. But the highlight was certainly the Xavier Miserachs exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. The Blanc i Negre exhibition of photographs from the early 1960s is an emotive tour of the faces and life of those times in Barcelona by the celebrated photographerhttp://www.macba.cat/en/el-born-barcelona-1964-serie-barcelona-blanc-i-negre-4382. 

But as this is a short break with my beloved, it must also be a gastronomic tour. Included then is a return visit to Agua where the bustling city meets the beach culture and the superb food is accompanied by watching people learning to walk the high wire tied between two palm trees - just for fun! This is where we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in 2014. Returns too to two very contrasting tapas bars - Catalana on the Carrer de Mallorca where you fight for a seat at the bar amongst the suits and the tourists and the tapas and wine are delivered by expert and rapid bar staff. And to Irati, another tapas favourite which nestles in a narrow alley near Las Ramblas and could so easily be missed. Here you point to the tapas on the bar top and help yourself, waiting for the moment when the delicious hot tapas come from the kitchen and you hope that they make it far enough down the bar to reach you. Each succulent morsel has a cocktail stick in it and when you're done they just tot up the sticks and present you with a bill. 

And our new gastronomic discovery is an Argentinian restaurant where the steaks are sublime and the service quirky but very generous. And we have found indisputably the best best rooftop cocktail bar at The Majestic where I may have had one too many cosmopolitans...

So why is this visit of such significance? In April 2014 when we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in Barcelona I found the lump which was the start of my year of treatment, and by going back to Barcelona - perhaps not quite the same person as I was then - I feel I have put a full stop to that time. Enough... I may not be as brave or full of energy as I once was but I am here and looking at life in a new way. Even if I don't look the same (still getting used to that...)

Back in glorious Yorkshire walking across the fields of stubble with two dogs whilst the woodland shows the first glimpses of autumn colour I know that that chapter of my life is now complete with Barcelona as bookends. Fingers always crossed...

The Canny Chanter

Sometimes you book something so far in advance that it feels like it will take an eternity to get there and then, blow me down, we're suddenly here and off! This was very much the case with my beloved's Christmas present - mine to him in this case - and having booked this a good ten months ago we found ourselves on Wednesday night at the Sage in Newcastle for an evening with Art Garfunkel.

Who doesn't have a Simon and Garfunkel song somewhere stored in their memories of good times, bad times, sad times? For me, this varies from America to Homeward Bound to Old Friends with so many more along the way - all wonderful and surprisingly, Art can still sing them all.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First we had to get there... How hard can this be? Number 3 is at university in Newcastle, we regularly go to the rugby there - what could possibly go wrong?

Now that my beloved works away from home during the week a plan was hatched that he would train up to Newcastle and I would get on the train (he with my ticket as well as his own) at Northallerton and join him. Yes, I got to Northallerton in plenty of time. The platform was quite busy and I checked my phone that I was due to join my beloved in Coach D in seats 17 and 18 - how's that for attention to detail?

A few moments before the train was due to arrive, a train drew into the platform with Coach D right in front of me and everyone on the platform made a dash for it. I followed suit and by the time I had established that I was not married to anyone in Coach D, the train was on its way to Middlesbrough via Yarm and Thornaby. So now I was going to places I've never been before with no idea how to change my route. It's surprising how enticing the communicating cord or emergency brake looks when you find yourself heading the wrong way on a train!

No guard in attendance so I sat next to a very nice lady who was going to Thornaby and told her my tale of incompetence. She was very helpful and supportive (thank you!) and told me to get off at Thornaby and get the Darlington train which I did. Of course, I had to confess my incompetence to my beloved and after all the years of getting children on to right trains I no longer have a leg to stand on in terms of public transport.

Thornaby to Darlington and a very cold wait on metal seats (why?) on the platform and then on a train from Darlington to Newcastle. All of which took £12.50 and nearly two hours.

But we made it to Art almost on time and heard his beautiful voice in the acoustically wonderful Sage. Worth every minute of the unnecessarily fraught journey and something I will never forget.

On the way back in the taxi to the station with my beloved, the driver referred to Art as a 'canny chanter' which just proves that in Newcastle there's music in everything - including their speech.

Art Garfunkel now and then.

"Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington" Part 2.

When I came back from the Edinburgh Festival a couple of weeks ago, as soon as I got home, I knew that the buzz of the Fringe had got under my skin and I wanted to see more, do more and be a part of it for a bit longer. Also there is something so liberating being in a city of strangers. So some appointment-juggling later and I whizzed back up on the train with number 4 for another slice of Fringe cake!

This time there was a bit more forward-planning and two shows which had been sold out on my previous visit were booked and along with another chance to see The Solid Life of Sugar Water http://www.graeae.org/productions/sugar/. The first production we were going to see was on Wednesday morning, Shakespeare for Breakfast which apparently is on offer every year and takes place at... breakfast time. So early night required and snuggled up and fast asleep by 10.00pm. At 12.30 am my mobile rang. It was number 3 who was home alone with the dog.

Pause... If you are a child of any age ie anyone with parents who are alive and kicking, please note that if you telephone your parents between 10.00pm and 6.30am they will assume one (or all) of the following:

1  You've had a car accident.
2  You've burnt the house down.
3  You are in hospital/the police station.
4  A close family member is involved in 1, 2 or 3.
5  The dog is involved in 1, 2 or 3.
6  The dog is dead.

Actually number 3 needed my access code for my emails in order to track down his British Tennis Association membership number so he could book Davis Cup tickets. This activity is not covered by numbers 1 - 6 above and he was quite surprised by the ticking off he got from me. I, of course, was practically hyperventilating at this point with a) panic that it could be one of the above and b) rage that he had woken me up for none of those reasons.

Moving on...

Shakespeare for Breakfast with children 1 and 4 was Hamlet combined with Star Wars combined with a drama student's desire to make his first film. Very entertaining, and coffee and croissants were included. Then, leaving my children to get on with their busy lives, I headed off to see Austentatious. Now this is a belter! Standing in the queue, the cast, dressed in classic Darcy/Elizabeth Bennet garb, approach you asking you to write a title for a Jane Austen novel - no, to be clear, not one she actually wrote but one you think she should have written. Then once inside the large inflatable purple cow (venue for the event and I am talking very large!) the cast pick one title out of the hat and improvise the story as Miss Austen might have written it. It must have been improvised because the cast as well as the audience were cracking up.

Then it was another chance to see The Solid Life of Sugar Water http://www.graeae.org/productions/sugar/ and the production has moved up to even greater heights. It is so beautifully written and the acting is sublime (biased I know but at least the critics agree with me). I loved it. Then off to Dusit which is, in the opinion of this family at least, the best Thai restaurant in the UK. Family celebration with two of my girls and such special times. Full of great food we made our way back to number 4's flat and into bed by 10.00pm.

Then my mobile rang at about 10.30pm. It's number 3. No, it's not any of the above listed reasons to wake anxious parents but, to give number 3 his due, it is a legitimate reason. We had 60+ sheep in the garden. Given that I have been busting my a**e to make the garden lovely for number 1's wedding in April, this was not good news. I gave him the farmer's number (owner of the aforementioned livestock) who was less than pleased to be woken in the middle of the night when he has to get up an at ungodly hour to do the milking but at least the sheep issue has been sorted.

Pause... there is a seventh reason to wake your parents...

7  The garden is full of livestock.

Son-in-law-to-be, Alex with two of my beautiful girls post-production in Edinburgh.

Postscript: Number 4 child is doing The Great North Run for Cancer Research next week having watched me being treated over the last year. Please support her and Cancer Research if you can: https://www.justgiving.com/Sabrina-Barr

'Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington!'*

I sometimes get asked whether it is difficult to watch number 1 daughter when she is in an acting role. Given that her acting career has had and continues to have some moments that are not in the conventional mother-and-daughter spectrum of activity I guess that's a reasonable question.

The answer is normally, whether it is television or short film or stage, that there are a few moments at the beginning when I can only see her as my daughter and the thoughts that flash through my brain generally relate to having everything crossed that she will be wonderful, not forget her lines etc, etc - not that she ever has!  And then I become so absorbed in the drama that I almost (but never completely) forget that she is mine. Until the latest production...

When my beloved and I stepped into the theatre at the Pleasance Dome in Edinburgh last Thursday, as part of a packed house, she and Phil (Arthur really, who plays her husband) were already in bed - vertically at the back of the stage. It's a very clever piece of staging and although they hop in and out of bed during the 80-minute two-hander, there is no sense of adjusting mentally from the virtual vertical to the horizontal. So because essentially the action was waiting for the audience merely to sit down and the lights to dim, there was no time to go through the usual mother/daughter collective of thoughts. She just was Alice from start to finish.

The play is shocking, stunning and probably the most beautifully written piece she has ever done and because I am shameless (see later on...)  I absolutely agree with all the 4 and 5* reviews the play has had in the national press. It is a tour de force.

So last week for me was Edinburgh Fringe week with number 1, wedding dress shopping - also with number 1- and flat-moving with number 4, also in Edinburgh. A tight schedule of activity in which my beloved joined on the second afternoon. Some forward planning had occurred because there is just so, so much to see at the Fringe so I had booked a couple of things a few weeks ago - a Noel Coward review which was lovely but too much Ivor Novello and not enough Noel Coward for me - and a speed-dating 90s music musical which was very funny and involved modest audience participation. Those of us who have been to the theatre before with number 1 know that she needs to be at the front to hear and lipread so she brazenly walked to the front of the queue (there are no reserve seats) and explained and there we were to all intents and purposes sitting on the front of the stage with four Spice Girl-alikes singing and dancing just inches away.

We had also managed to pack in two wedding dress shops where number 1 demonstrated why she is so classically different from the other bride in the family. Number 2, whose dress is now having final alterations, stood like a bride at the altar for every one of her try-ons. Like a beautiful statue. Number 1 decided that each dress needed to be tried out for dancing so, as a consequence I not only have pictures but video too! No choices made yet but we have an idea what suits at least!

The next morning, having slept at number 4's very nice new flat and met her really lovely flatmates, she went off to do her shift in a care home where she works to supplement her student funds and I went to meet number 1 for a spot of flyering - or as I renamed it, shameless flyering. Every show in town is being promoted by bright young things thrusting leaflets in your hand about their productions. "Would you like a flyer?" is sometimes met with a weary "No". Number 1 is doing the polite thing and asking nicely whereas I am going into full-on embarrassing mother mode. It goes like this... "Can I tell you about this play? It got 4*s in The Times yesterday. It's by Jack Thorne..." (mention Harry Potter, Shameless, This is England, etc). "My daughter is in it and she's brilliant!" Cue number 1 slinking away. Having already got The Solid Life of Sugar Water mentioned on Chris Evans' Radio 2 show the day before, I am on a roll. Isn't it wonderful to be somewhere away from home where you can behave really embarrassingly and no one knows you!

Surprisingly (!) number 1 abandoned me and I went off to see Spectretown which was a fabulously well acted but not very well constructed play. Perhaps not a great choice, particularly as it barely gave me time to get back across town by taxi to meet my beloved outside number 4's flat where he had Bertha, the Land Rover, full of her stuff. And then I left my phone in the taxi... I can now never tell my children off for leaving mobiles in places where they shouldn't but the taxi driver very kindly brought it back to me. Thank you.

Which brings us to our visit as very proud parents to The Solid Life of Sugar Water which surpassed all our expectations by some considerable distance, after which some family-style celebrating was called for - need I say more?

So our final act before returning home was to move number 4's 'few bits' from her halls of residence into her new flat. Her 'few bits' turned out to be so much stuff that there was only room for my beloved in Bertha and she and I had to walk from her halls to the new flat before humping the stuff up two flights of Edinburgh-style stairs.

So we're back home now for a week's staycation and the only news at this end is the arrival of two new pets. Well, not ours actually but we have officially been adopted by two peacocks who are now named Richard and Henry which goes to prove that if you hang around here long enough you will either get a nickname or have something named after you!

*One of my favourite Noel Coward songs which was featured in the review and, under the circumstances, remarkably apropos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ay6E345e0

 Barr girls and wine... like that never happens! 

Richard is on the left with his head in the Russian vine and Henry on the right.