Another City Visit

More than a year ago my wife and her sister bought tickets to "Romeo And Juliet" performed by the Australian Ballet  The tickets were for seats just a few rows from the orchestra pit and the stage.  Covid delayed the performance and then sadly my sister-in-law passed away a few months ago.  So this afternoon I attended the ballet with my wife instead.

Prior to the show we grabbed some lunch in the City, crossing the swollen Yarra River due to the recent floods, and also visiting City Basement Books.

City Basement Books always seems to have a good turnover of books.  

Today they had a hardback copy of "The Politics Of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels To The Big Screen" by Jeremy Black which I have only ever seen previously online.  I managed to resist purchasing it though.  There were also several Bond continuation novels by Robert Markham, John Gardner, Anthony Horowitz and Jeffery Deaver.  No purchases from me today though.

As for the ballet, I've previously seen "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake" and to be honest I thought they were meh, but this ballet was fantastic.  I guess it also helped already knowing the story too.  I know my sister-in-law would have loved it too.  Here's a couple of photos I took before the performance:

Book Store Visit And New Addition To The Collection

It's been a while but yesterday I visited Helena's Curiosity Shop in Bentleigh again.  As I entered the store Helena recognised me and said 'James Bond books' and I commented on her amazing memory.  Unfortunately she told me she had no Bond novels at the moment but I still had a hunt through her huge collection of paperbacks and hardbacks just in case.  No luck for me this time but I will be back.

Next my wife and I travelled to the City.  We visited Dymocks and I touched a copy of Kim Sherwood's novel "Double Or Nothing" for the first time.  This book is set in the world of James Bond and features other Double-O operatives.  I now have a new paperback title to add to the PizGloria.com website.

We also visited the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) to attend a Picasso Exhibition.  It was always intended to be a visit accompanied with my wife's sister but sadly it wasn't to be.  At least it felt like she was there with us and we knew she would have liked the art on show.

There were no direct James Bond references in the exhibition however there was a painting titled "Invisible sleeping woman, horse, lion" by Salvador Dali...

that reminded me of the dust jacket designed by Tom Adams for the Robert Markham (Kingsley Amis) hardback "Colonel Sun" published by Jonathan Cape in 1968.

And finally, here's a couple more photos from the Picasso exhibition: