Absolutely knackered. Today was scheduled as an all-day event at the Institute of Contemporary Art on The Mall, planning our Fourth Plinth exhibition event. We met in the freezing cold by the Fourth Plinth itself in Trafalgar Square and went on a ‘listening walk’ through the streets and into the park before ending up at the ICA. Highlights of the listening walk included a woman walking by tossing bread to the waterfowl who instantly went berserk, and the horse guards (presumably – guards. On horses) went by in their lovely red uniforms and tall plumy helmets.

We checked out the exhibition, had a coffee & discussion about the listing walk in the cafe then headed up into the ICA’s studio where we spent about 3 hours generating ideas for our pieces, presenting them, working out who’s performing in which and so on.

ICA had kindly given us free tickets to see a film in their (very plush!) cinema, The Hunt. A cheery tale about a man who is falsely accused of being a paedophile. Danish, I think. A truly excellent film. We all emerged totally harrowed, to the extent that 2 singers and I felt a shaky but urgent need to repair to the nearest pub, which we did.

As a bonus, as we passed back through Trafalgar Square, they lit up the Christmas tree to the delight of us and a rather frozen amassed throng. Lovely!

Pub was good – mulled cider and lovely chat, then back to the station by way of Hotel Chocolat, who were giving away rum & raisin chocolate samples and small glasses of Prosecco, and I am now heading home, feeling raaaather merry 🙂

Anyway, merriness aside, I think I’ve developed quite a strong concept for my piece and I’m thing I can probably pull together a structure for it over the next week, then work with my string players to see how happy they are with improv and what level of control I should exercise. So good work done!

Now home to eat an M&S ready-meal and watch many episodes of Black Books to recover from the harrowing film!