Culture – Page 2 – Mediocre Mum

Outdoor Theatre near Kamloops

Caravan Farm Theatre – Armstrong, B.C.

The Caravan Farm Theatre in Armstrong, near Kamloops has been running for 35 years. I’m trying to work out the first time I went and think it was about 18 years ago. We went again about 3 years ago and again this week to see Head over Heels.

‘There is no theatre building – just the great outdoors.’

When we went three years ago, after walking up a lantern lined path into the woods, there was a clearing in the woods with seating, each set was brought on by their trademark Clydesdale Horses and the musicians were perched in the trees. This year the set was stationary but still just as special and a Clydesdale called Shopping Cart does make a few appearances.

A plane crashes in the middle of nowhere, Oola has lost her twin brother somewhere in the crash. And to top it off, she has arrived in a mysterious, unknown land, where nothing is as it should be, things are not what they could be, and no one is who they say they are. Mistaken identity, backward antics, and madness of love send Oola into a furious frenzy of absolute delirium.

I was a bit uncertain for about the first 20 minutes but then it all started coming together. The skill of the writers and actors was obvious as the story unfolded. The second half came together seamlessly. I haven’t laughed so hard in ages.

There were children in the audience but if I’m honest, I don’t think it was suitable for kids as the content and innuendos would have been lost on them.

It’s a truly unique experience and if you haven’t been you should. Adult tickets are $34 (CAD)

How to eat mussels?

My hubby and ‘ve been married for just over 5 years now. However, we married quite quickly after we first met, within 11 months, so we haven’t really known each other for that long. I’m still discovering loads of his hidden talents……..

Thanks to the lovely folks at Fish is the Dish for the gorgeous Scottish Cooked Mussels in Garlic Butter Sauce, which were supplied by the Scottish Shellfish Marketing Group.

Women talk!

I can’t remember if I read it somewhere or if someone told me that apparently women use about 20,000 words a day and men use 7,000 and that woman from some cultures, for example Italian ladies, use even more. I have to admit that I found it believable but was guilty of stereotyping. However, upon doing further research I’ve learned that this has been discredited and that men and women tend to talk about the same amount and it depends on other variables such as the amount of time they spend in the company of others. This is the bit that I found interesting.

I tend to spend a large part of my day on my own. Don’t feel sorry for me, I like my own company. In the morning I have about 45 minutes with my husband and daughter before she goes to nursery and he goes into the city for work. Then the rest of the morning is spent on the computer, working and gassing until I head out to work. I’m an independent IT consultant in education. On average I drive between 2-3 hours with an hour and a half of training in between. This is really my only human contact during the day until my husband and daughter return.

So is this why I tweet so much? After some careful calculations we worked out that I tweet about 3000 words a day. Is it a chance to get my daily quota of words out? Is this why my friends think I’m a foghorn when I see them? Is this why I pounce on my husband when he comes in from work and natter his ear off?

Congratulations to the Women of Saudi Arabia!

I was absolutely thrilled last week to read that Saudi is going to give woman the right to vote and run in elections. A few years back I worked in Riyadh, Saudi on behalf of the British Council and apparently I was only the second woman ever allowed into the Ministry of Education.

I met some amazing woman during my time, some of the most highly educated woman I’ve ever met and I’m still friends with a few of them to this day, speaking regularly via Facebook. I was openly welcomed into their secret world, even attending a wedding and privy to a very sober hen-do. However, they went out of their way to try to convince us they were happy, not being oppressed and that the Western World had it all wrong. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake the niggling feeling this wasn’t the case, as Shakespeare said ‘lady doth protest too much’.

When I travel I have a policy of keeping my ‘eyes open and my mouth shut’, which you may find hard to believe. I disagreed with a lot that I saw from beneath my Abaya; the school was highly segregated, if we had technical issues they couldn’t be dealt with while we were in the building as the technicians were male. We travelled in separate cars to our male counterparts and they had tinted windows, when we didn’t (this was during the time people were taking pot shots at foreigners at intersections and 3 days before Ken Bigley was beheaded). When we were invited into people’s houses for dinner we were allowed to eat with the men, uncovered, while our new female friends ate with the hired help.

Last night at book club we had a discussion about this, not a heated one, but a few were absolutely disgusted that this was still going on in this day and age. I had to remind them that not that long ago (within a 100 years) it wasn’t that different here. I’m not sure how it will work logistically as woman are unable to drive and they’ll have to be escorted by male family members but I strongly believe that this is a step in the right direction.

What do you think? Is it a step in the right direction? Is it an empty promise?

How to make a Clam-Eye

This is my husband’s 5^th trip to Canada. He tries his best to fit in. However, the English accent is a dead give-away. He’s really taken a fancy to the following Canadian cocktail. Personally, I think it’s disgusting and he hasn’t noticed yet that he’s the only one in the house that drinks them!

For the longest time he mistakenly called it a crap-eye. I don’t think he was far off.