The Knights racked up an amazing 10 wins in a row before their unlikely charge was halted by the equally late charging Warriors, when they too rode home on the tide of a baying, parochial crowd in their home town. The weekend before we'd been similarly cheering, soaking up the atmosphere at the Knights' home ground in the first week of the semi-finals. We got seats quite close to our regular seats except a little higher up in Bay 6 and on the aisle, allowing lots of jumping and hysterical fist pumping as the Knights won in an extra time thriller. We flirted with the idea of making the trip to Auckland, but in the end, we were glad we didn't as the result would have meant a long, sombre trip home.
Jen arranged for some tickets to a fantastic concert at the Civic Theatre just last week, which we duly attended with Jen and Vince in the second row of the dress circle. It was a cavalcade of stars from Australian contemporary music combining to play and pay homage to that incandescent Beatles double album from 1968, commonly known as the White Album. Coincidentally, I'd reacquainted myself with this album about a decade ago when I read a slew of biographies on Charles Manson (weird, I know!) and decided to re-listen to some of the music the madman said "spoke" to him. The individual stars were backed by a 15 piece orchestra, and each song was performed by one of the stars who best suited that song: they matched artists to songs brilliantly. They performed some other Beatles' classics acoustically for the encore. It was a real triumph, and we've been humming a lot of songs for the last week!
Last night we attended yet another interesting MusicaViva concert at the city hall, where yet more scintillating skill and talent was on show. The "Vision Quartet", a string quartet from Berlin consisted of outrageously talented young men who played the entire program sans sheet music, entirely from memory! This wasn't simple stuff either playing a program of Bartók and Dvořák and rounding out the evening with a well deserved encore where they played their own music, a funky mix of folk, jazz and rock, all by plucking and strumming their violins...it was amazing!
We've been walking most days in the beautiful spring weather and I've been surfing a bit more lately too. I've got various issues with my balance and muscle fatigue, but by easing into the surf with some rest days in-between it's progressing slowly. I've also started going to a circuit training class on Monday afternoons as well. On the walk, we always spot something of interest or intrigue, whether it be kites in the shape of Spanish galleons being flown in beachside reserves or spectacular outdoor parties being set up on the hill in King Edward Park. We even saw a fully grown sheep being led on a lead, allowed to graze on clover, then bounding into the back of a small hatchback for its trip back home after a visit to the park opposite. See video above, or here later!
The car continues to astound us with all its tricks, electronic wizardry and luxurious interior. It continues to provide us with a lot of pleasure and we'll be getting more familiar with it soon when we embark on an 18 day journey! We've planned and booked nearly the entire trip for November, where we'll drive down to Victoria, catch the ferry over with the car then do a lap of Tasmania. On paper, it looks like it will work, so we'll wait and see.
Over and out!