Gwardium not Gaudium

Somewhere around 1977 a few singers got together for a song or two. Then someone said maybe we can get paid for this.   So if you are going to sing at weddings then we'll need a name.  So 40 yar later the Gwardium troupe had a leisurely lunch at the Great Northern Pub.  No one had aged a day since. Well maybe a couple of days.  Once a muso always a muso. The connection with music was alive and well with most.

Jesaulenko you bueaty

5 Stones

This is literally a stone building exercise  where two teams have to either rebuild or prevent from building a stack of 5 stones.  First of all the stones are dislodged using a ball then the building team scatters over the field as they can be run out if hit by the ball.  While the defending team is busy trying to run someone out, another rebuild member can sneak into the building site and try to restack the 5 stones.  Can get very energetic.  I will opt for Finska next time.

23 different snags for Molly's 23 birthday

Beware the VAT

Just had a session ordering tickets over the internet.  The first lot were Shakespeare 'As You Like It' . This theatre is like a Spiegletent but without a roof, although these seats are under cover.  Since I was on a roll I had a go at the Queen tickets for next March.  I ended up on a Resale site which had a pair of tickets for $1000 which was a bit steep so I aborted.  I went to the official site called 'viagogo' which had a pair of seats for $500 but by the time I had got through to the final payment they told me it was now $922.65 which was mostly VAT (value added tax) so I aborted for a 2nd time, however I got all these emails about how to download tickets etc.  The bank said that the transaction was started but did get cancelled.  So don't buy anything via a UK web site like 'viagogo'.

Hugo (Book) Weaving

Rode over to Northcote armed with my Hugo list.   Went through the Allsorts SciFi shelves which were a bit of a mess but I found two more titles.  A few doors down is the Brown&Bunting store which is highly organised, I found three more titles.  The musette was getting a bit full so I will have to go back to see if there are any more titles.  I have  spread out over three stores now and $8 seems to be the average price.  Wilburs is a cafe/hamburger  business that I stopped at on the way back. Try a different one next time.

Well organised

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

What if everybody who ever lived could all be resurrected onto a planet all at the same time?  My estimate of everybody who ever lived is 80 Billion. In this book 36 Billion people are resurrected to live beside a very long river and they all remember who they are and at what time in history they lived.  The main character is Sir Richard Burton whom we ran across in Trieste.  Many aspects of his real life are mentioned in this tale.  The question pursued by the swashbuckler Burton, is why bother with all this?   I never got the answer because this is book one in the River World series.  When they give out Hugo awards, its only for one volume, so the rest of the books are not on my Hugo list.

Resurrection Bubble

Austen Tea Rooms

We revisited the Austen Tea rooms for an 82nd High Tea celebration. It was Shirley, Gordon, Violet, Trevor, Leanne,Mitchell,Debbie and Neil. We had to show some Sense and Sensibility about how many sandwiches and cakes you could eat in one sitting.  It's a good thing we did not have any lunch. The three tiered cake stands were in use on multiple occasions and all coordinated in design with the tea service crockery. First pies and cucumber sandwiches then after that they reappeared laden with macaroons, merengues and slices, all washed down with as much tea and coffee as you wanted.  Just when it was all finished out came the plates of scones, which were huge.  Just when all that was finished out came the even huger Black Forest cake for the birthday song.

Vernier Cake Measurement

High Cake

A Case of Conscience

This is no 7 on the Hugo list.  The book gets into the  religious aspects of sci fi and asks if God had time to make other planets as well.  So much so that a priest performs an exorcism on a whole planet just in case. Turns out that one of the offspring from the planet shakes up the culture on earth by becoming a combined evangelist/shockjock of sorts. All very deep.