In Bella Italia

In the middle of 2006 when Owen was busy in NZ with his Japanese groups, I took myself off to Italy on an Intrepid trip & loved every minute of it. The arrangements for this World Choral Tour had us meeting my sister & her husband in Siena on Monday, but it just did not seem right that Owen did not get to see Florence, given that we now have a granddaughter called Florence. Our flight was changed & we said goodbye to our London family & raced off with high expectations. Florence/Firenze seemed rather worn down after a long hot summer & too many tourists & the aroma in the narrow lanes was far from romantic but we set off with enthusiasm to show Owen the sights. The Ponte Vecchio was seething with humanity & we were entranced by a busker. I pulled out my wallet to slip him a couple of Euros, slipped it back into the bag I wear across my front to be safe & within minutes, while I was snapping photos I was relieved of that wallet & more cash than I should have been carrying. Luckily my passport & a back-up credit card were safely elsewhere or this would have been a sorrier tale. Why are we always so angry with ourselves when people do these things to us?

Happily, after that bad start, it has been all up since. What did we find in Siena’s Piazza del Campo but a choir from Sweden – St. Gorans – who invited us to their stunning concert. Later, over supper, Owen got a chance to talk about the festival. We did a day trip to San Giminiano with a side trip to Montereggioni (& that is another story). We had 3 nights in our own little house clinging to the cliffs over the sea in Vernazza where we walked the Cinque Terre & cooled off in the clear blue sea. Now we are under a benign looking Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii. We did a nine hour day at the archeological site & then happened upon a parade for Saint Bartollo Longo. The saint himself was paraded around the town in a glass coffin with great pageantry – brass band, fireworks & all. A fascinating look at local life!

Being part of the Family of Man

Sitting in another bed, laptop on my knees, this time in sunny London. Early this morning Owen left Read more

Losing the plot, just a little

Brussels – Saturday 19th September, 09
Here I am sitting on the bottom bunk in the tiniest twin bed room I have ever been in, laptop on my knees & every square inch of the floor taken up with our ridiculously large suitcases. Read more

Im Deutschland

Saturday, 12th September

It had to happen. I have to confess weariness has finally set in & I abandoned Owen, happily up to his armpits in choirs in Wolfenbuettel & took myself off for some R & R. I have lost count how many days we have been going now without a break & have decided that it is time for one. I am hoping to persuade Owen that all will be well if we delay our departure for Hamburg & have a proper rest day tomorrow.

The festival in Wolfenbuettel is most impressive. As well as German choirs, there are choirs from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Hungary….the list goes on…. Workshop presenters from all over. It seems so easy to have an international festival here where the choirs just have to cross the border by train. Despite New Zealand’s special charms it is still so much harder for us to convince folk to bring their choirs half way around the world. Last night we enjoyed a stunning concert in the old Petruskirche –the first half a German choir Schaumburger Jugendchor from Bueckeburg– and the second half Jugendchor Yonat from Israel. The minister gave the Israeli group a heart-felt welcome, apologising personally for the Holocaust. The Israelis shared the start of their Shabat with the audience by lighting two candles & greeting all with ‘Shalom Shabat’. It was all very moving. The singing was lovely too. Two excellent choirs with their own distinctive styles. Today the festival was taken outside to the townsfolk all over this pretty mediaeval town.

Yesterday when we arrived in Braunschweig, which is up the road from Wolfenbuettel, I went for an explore. It is a gorgeous town that has been settled continuously since before 800 AD so there is lots to see. Heading back to our little apartment with bags full of food I happened upon a VERY pretty little cobbled lane with houses painted every colour under the sun & I was surprised that there seemed to be no people about. Then I was taken aback by finding myself looking in on a long-legged girl sitting in a window manicuring her toe-nails. Then there was another girl, and another. Suddenly I came to the realisation that I was in a street a respectable hausfrau should not be seen in with her shopping & what is more, from the look of some of the women I saw mincing about in their underwear, there is still hope for me, should I ever decide to change my profession!

Gosh, a few days slip by & how many cities do I have to look back on? We LOVED Berlin! The train station can out Hong Kong Hong Kong. We walked across Muzeum-insel & along Unter-den-Linden to the Brandenburg Gate where there was a ‘get the troops out of Afghanistan’ demonstration. We watched the sunset as Berliners do, reflected in the huge windows of Reichstag & then wandered on to have dinner down by the lovely River Spree. Next day we visited Anna Kovacs, a Hungarian who has lived a long time in the States, at the Berlin Brandenburg International School & we sat drinking coffee in the sun & she spoke enthusiastically about Zoltan Kodaly & rattled off the names of a whole string of choral directors who she was sure would be Most Interested in our festival.

And before that it was Prague – whew!

Auf Wiedersehen Wien – Dobradan Praha

Sunday in Vienna was wonderful, even though we dressed in our finery for church at the crack of dawn, only to find that the Vienna Boys Choir does not begin until next week. [I have a funny feeling I had read that some time ago…] Anyway, dressed more comfortably we headed into town for an explore – wow! Blue skies & gorgeous things to look at everywhere. We were drawn by the voices of angels into St Augustin’s church where we sat & listened to his choir & orchestra rehearsing Mozart.

The highlight for me was definitely the afternoon with Hundertwasser in his Kunsthaus gallery, his village & his housing project. Now we had seen Dali in Melbourne & he is a genius. Hundertwasser is a genius too but my response was totally different. In Kusthaus Wien my heart beat faster & I felt pure joy at every turn. He is the kind of man who can change the way you do things. After a fuel stop in the café, Owen felt moved to go back to write some emails while I went in for a second helping (of Hundertwasser, not strudel) & then made like the Habsburgs & walked all over the gardens of Shoenbrunn Palace.

On Monday morning we caught the train to Prague. We have only nibbled around the edges with a walk from our hostel to Vysehrad – a hilltop fortress with fabulous views over the Vltava river & the whole city, then down along the river & all the way to Wenceslas Square where the good king himself was looking out over all the tourists from atop his horse just next to Mcdonalds.

Down the Blue Danube

Thirty six hours is way too long to spend getting to a place & we will try not to repeat the experience if we can help it but there is nothing like arriving in a place like Budapest to counteract the effects of jetlag. Our Hotel Kulturinnov was perfect – right on top of Castle Hill in Buda & described by Lonely Planet as “sitting in the belly of the grandiose Hungarian Culture Foundation”. The rooms are modest but we swept up the marble staircase as if on our way to a ball. The discovery of yesterday was the Great Market where we ate sour cherry strudel & marvelled at the huge variety of peppers. Then spent the afternoon soaking & steaming in the famous Art Nouveau Gellert Baths.

This morning we boarded a long river boat for our journey down the Danube to Vienna. The reality didn’t quite live up to the fantasy. The freezing cold, drizzly day didn’t help & the countryside was surprisingly unpopulated – the Waikato with occasional castles & quaint churches to remind you you were in Europe. The two locks were a highlight. So cool going up hill by boat!

Vienna is superb. No problem getting straight from the boat to the hostel by U-bahn. We have a busy day planned for tomorrow starting with mass in the Hofburg Chapel & the Vienna Boys Choir – if we can get in, followed by the Hundertwasser housing project.

Good-bye to Sydney

Today is our last day on sunny St Hubert’s Island before we fly off to Europe. Owen got up at the crack of dawn to go for a row & photograph the birdlife.

Highlights of our stay in Sydney have been a family party last Thursday & a journey into Sydney by two ferries & a bus. There was great excitement when the captain of the Manly ferry lost control of his ship. The alarms screamed, we were ordered to prepare to brace & the crew had to throw out both anchors to stop us ploughing into a café full of startled coffee drinkers. Catastrophe was averted &, after a short delay, we continued on our way. The incident did make it to the national news that evening. We enjoyed a walk around the Rocks, up past the observatory & back down to Darling Harbour where we had a very productive meeting with Hans Hammond who is very keen to be involved in the festival.

Over the week-end we set forth to Bathurst & Manildra on the far side of the Blue Mountains to catch up with more cousins. The welcome was warm but we needed all our layers of wool & polyprop to keep out the icy wind. We stopped on Sunday night at Katoomba which was even less tropical but the walk from the Three Sisters to the Katoomba Cascades warmed us up. There was only one person in the café at the top of the falls & she had a choir!

Melbourne, Hobart & Sydney

On Saturday we had the pleasure of meeting up with old Hong Kong friends. Meg picked us up & took us to the Victoria Markets where we had to look but not buy because we can’t add any weight to our suitcases. She showed us her favourite bookshops in Lygon Street & then we met Annie & Tina in Carlton for a fine feed & a chin wag. All three are looking very well & seem to be surviving life-after-Hong Kong which is encouraging.

On Sunday we had to wake indecently early to get to our 7am flight to Hobart. We had a glorious day. Everything was sparkling in this pretty city & we took a water taxi across the bay to Bellerive to meet the Australian Rosny Children’s Choir & all their attendants. It just so happened that it was manager Judy Crawford’s birthday so that was an excuse for a slap-up afternoon tea. There was lots of positive talk about their attendance at our festival next year.

Monday was a free day, so on Kerrie’s advice, we headed off to Port Arthur – a gorgeous place, despite its rather grim history as a penal colony.

We woke today to 3 degrees & snow on Mount Wellington. Now we are north of Sydney on beautiful St. Huberts Island with Pat & Vicki & whole bunch of noisy rainbow lorikeets. Over the next few days we will have time to catch up with the ‘relos’ after far too long away.

National Children’s Choir of Australia Rehearsal

A day in the Yarra Valley

Feeling a bit loopy after spending far too long indoors trying to get the hang of uploading videos (with slow broadband) and messing with the website &, being our last day with the car, I suggested a nice drive to the Yarra Valley. Now we have had cracker weather for days but the radio was giving us a high wind warning & things were blowing around all over the place. At last we got out of the seemingly interminable suburbs and got into the lush, green Yarra Valley full of bare but elegant grape vines, fine old wooden houses & we were really in the countryside. We went to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary &, braving the cold & the rain, met some of the locals. In the evening we drove to Mt Waverley to the Choral Eisteddfod where we listened to a fine selection of choirs.