JetPlane

Michael’s on his way home! Looks like he’s about 1/3 of the way to Madrid, as i get out of bed on Sunday morning!

Trains were up the spout again this weekend so it was another trip to Liverpool Street to get into London yesterday. One benefit was that my day travel card to go to Colliers Wood was only £11.90. I was about 20mins early at Colliers Wood Community Centre for Christopher’s concert held in aid of Shape. Christopher put together the programme and he, Matthew and (I guess) friends from the Colliers Wood Chorus decorated the hall and arranged lovely food at the end.

We were treated to a two hour concert of local arts:

• Streatham Voices
• Footsteps School of Dance and Drama
• Morden Park Choral Society
• Carlton Dramatic Society
• Mark Northfield
• Elaine and Christopher (performing a Noel Coward duet)
• Colliers Wood Chorus
• a Mass Choir Finale

Jan was there with her double bass, and also serving behind the bar at the end. Matthew had set up a HD video and it was all put together very well! Christopher was a great compère, joking with the audience about them putting the ‘camp’ into campfire! I didn’t have long afterwards to sample the fantastic array of food at the back of the hall: but enough time for a glass of wine and a lovely plateful.

Some photos:

Technorati Tags: Concert

Melanie gave me a lift to Bury St Edmunds for the East Anglian Beer Festival. Melanie doesn’t drink beer and I went with Aled and one of his friends, Graham. The start of the evening was a chilly 90 minutes queuing to get in, entertained with a couple of pints of IPA from The Nutshell, probably the smallest pub in the UK. Once in there was plenty of space and time for a quick pint, before I had to leave at 9.30 for the last train back to Cambridge!

So I only had time for one beer: Might Oak Simply the Best, which was a good beer, but a bit too hoppy for me. I had been trying to grab an Old Chimneys Golden Pheasant but it was finished. Aled tried the Old Chimneys Medium Dry Cider—it was rank!

Technorati Tags: Beer, CAMRA

We had one of our last internet chats tonight: he’s back home on Sunday! Very exciting. The photo is Michael in the fortress at Ollantaytambo, which sounds amazing and is apparently pretty quiet. He’s off to Lima tomorrow for a couple of nights before he he heads for home.

Watched Brokeback Mountain (again) and loved the romance of it. Found a very nice photo of Jake Gyllenhal to use as a desktop image for a while, from one of the more romantic movie scenes.

Well-written novel by one of my favourite authors. The characterisation is good—the mail character, Newell is very likeable. The edning was quite sudden. Not a twist, nor a shock, just an abrupt ending.

“Boulevard” (Jim Grimsley)