We’ve been busy the last couple of weeks and haven’t had time for an overnight at the beach. Plus, it has been very warm and humid, with heavy rain for about three days. But, this weekend has been better, partly cloudy, still humid, but a bit cooler. Stephen had his first G&S rehearsal tonight. He has a small role in Pirates of Penzance. We decided to have a picnic lunch and tea before dropping in for his 15-30 minute call at about 7.00 p.m. Oddly, we’ve never been to Whiteman Park and it is reasonably close to Nollamara where the G&S Society have their headquarters.

I cooked some chicken, one of the flavoured packets from Coles, which we had with salade and bread and butter. Also, some fresh fruit. We had lunch, a rest, afternoon tea, then a short walk at Whiteman Park. I

t is pretty dry at the moment, although there is some green around, but the ‘wetlands’ are totally dry. There are multiple attractions in the park, including a pretty wonderful children’s playground. It was just far enough away that we could enjoy the sounds of children playing without it being disturbing. Apart from one little boy who decided to come into the van to have a look around. I was welcoming until I realised that I had freshly made cups of tea on the table which were still hot. His granny came to pick him up.

We plan to go back when the weather is cooler and the wetlands wet. Although the park is new to us I think Matthew has been there fairly often, we must ask him. I’m surprised that we didn’t take clients there when I was working in Yokine.

During the afternoon I took out the drone and after the usual updating process took it to an open field to have a bit of a play. It confirmed two things, I should use the iPad mini as my screen as the screen of the iphone is a little small, and that it would be fund to take it out where there are some nice views. Although the park is pleasant to be in with twisty paperbarks abounding, what I really want is a reason to take the drone up high enough to take a good look around. Although it is legal to fly the drone in that area I was still a bit concerned as there is a rule about being a certain distance from people. There were just a few people still around in that area.

Here we are parked up outside the G&S headquarters. We arrived in time to have our evening meal, with Stephen getting more and more anxious as it got time to go in for his first rehearsal.

We’ve had an interesting time recently, going to some of the free events at the Writer’s Festival last weekend, going to French classes on Wednesday mornings, and enjoying a couple of opera performances. The first one was the Opera in the Park rehearsal where a performance of Hansel and Gretel was staged, with the help of projected images. Then yesterday we went to the Concert Hall for Beethoven’s Fidelio, not actually staged, but performed by a very good cast. With no props whatsover, or special lighting effects, we still felt all the drama. I was pleased that when the villian came to take his bow everyone booed, then applauded. Of course, he was just the actor/singer, but it showed our involvement in the story.

We have two French classes, one called French through Song, not singing as I had thought, but our teacher chooses songs for us to translate. The second class is called Beginners plus. In both classes I’ve quickly realised that I should have done Basic French first as I’m way behind everyone else. Still, Stephen is helping me with homework and I find learning grammar to be very boring. As someone has said, French isn’t that difficult to read and understand, but the pronounciation is difficult. I’ve pledged to try out one sentence this coming week. The week after I will be doing a presentation on a famous French person. That won’t be fun, but I will give it a try. My person is Marie Cure and her life is pretty fascinating. Such a pity that I will have to make it very, very short! All I can say is that the teachers are gentle and encouraging and most of our fellow students don’t feel confident.