It's an Exciting World

Monday was choir rehearsal but at the Welsh community centre instead of the Russian community centre. This time we worked on a really hard Japanese song that is both fast and has lots of tricky rhythms and notes. Tuesday I went over to Zaheer’s place and Zahira once again made a delicious dinner. We played more of the Hell Divers 2 game, but after that I think I’m done with it. It was good, but just became so repetitive.

Wednesday I went to dive club. Diana got a new job, which is amazing for her. I think she’ll be able to grow in the role. The only problem is it is outside of London, and depending on where they end up living could be hard to get to for us.

Thursday I went to Eden’s musical showcase in the same place Maggie did her dance performance. I really enjoyed it and Eden rocked the dance. They had the best facial expressions and crisp dance moves that clearly had intention.

Friday I volunteered at Castlehaven again, and then that evening joined Stacie and her friend Sal for a night at the zoo. We got to see most of the animals, with some already being in their enclosures to sleep. The nocturnal animals like the bats and sloths were more active than they would have been during the day, which was neat to see.

Saturday I went to Shantify, which is a juke box musical with all the songs changed to sound like sea shanties. It was amusing and had a bit of a story to it. It reminded me a lot of Choir of Man, which I also liked.

All day Sunday I went to Sitz, which is where you learn and then perform a full musical in a single day. We got a really great one that was a ton of fun to perform. I was in the choir of about 120, with an 80 person orchestra and 12 really good leads. We had one of the original orchestrators there to listen and he was really impressed. They have a rule of not saying what it was, as that is part of them getting the rights to perform it.

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This week I tried to spend a lot of time outside, as it was gorgeous out.

Monday was a little too hot, when we went to watch the Queen’s Joust at Leeds Castle. It was a lovely day to go out, but it would have been better to spend it in the shade. The grounds were lovely, and there was a lot of shade, but to watch the joust we got up next to the tilt and that was full blazing sun. We had excellent seats, and picnicked while they were between bouts. We got there just in time to see the awarding of points for the melee. Then they had a break before the second to last jousting event. They had two rounds to the joust. First they had riders do accuracy and skill challenges. Challenge one was looping rings on the lance. Challenge two was cutting heads of cabbage. Challenge three was hitting small targets with the lance tip. Challenge four was grabbing a purse of coins and then dropping it into a chest. Then the last challenge was tilting against a target and seeing how many times you could make it spin. These challenges were close, and the Norwegian woman won the skills section.

The actual joust was next. They had one knight each representing France, England, and Norway. The France and England teams were much more experienced, as they have been doing these competitions for several decades vs. the Norwegians doing it for several years. They also had the team captains for France and England participate. They did every set of jousts between the three, and they did that three times. England won by a single point on that round, which set them up to win the entire tourney. I recorded the first few rounds, but then my phone overheated and couldn’t record anymore.

We didn’t stay for the last round of jousting, as it was so hot and Steph and I wanted to get back earlier for a live podcast recording of Betwixt the Sheets. Some of Steph’s favourite historians do a podcast on how sex and women were regarded throughout history. The theme of this podcast episode was how dick pics (and art) are one of the most common and ancient of human art. It was good fun and the hosts are funny to listen to.

Wednesday afternoon I took off and went hiking in Epping Forest. It was a nice walk, but nothing special about the forest. I did really enjoy picnicking for dinner in a field of flowers. The hike was about 14km that I did in about 3 hours.

On Friday I did a presentation for Camden digital inclusion on parental controls, then I went to Castlehaven to do the one on one help. After I got back home, Steph and I drove down to Weymouth.

She went diving for the weekend while I went hiking along the Jurassic Coast. On Saturday I went west along the coast to Abbotsbury Swannery. The trail was a bit overgrown, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that it was nettles that had overgrown the trail in some spots. The swannery had over 1000 swans there, with about 200 signets. They had pens for the couples that were nesting, so that they could have a dedicated area and not fight each other for space. There were some other birds there as well, but mostly swans. They had a few major areas that were full of the swans and lovely to see. I also did their wildflower walk and hedge maze while I was there. The hedge maze was smaller than some I’ve done, but really well made, and of course in the shape of a swan. I caught the bus back and then walked the beach for a bit before heading to the hotel and joining everyone else for dinner.

The second day I was tired, but made it east from Weymouth to Durdle Door, a large rock arch in the ocean. I was soooo tired from that hike, and the grade on some of the sections just west from Durdle Door are absurdly steep. It took me an entire week to recover from these hikes, mainly from the knee joints being roughed up from the steep sections. We made it back to London and cuddled the kitties that evening.

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This week Steph was in town all week.

On Monday we went to Yonder together, as they were going to do some electrical work on the building for our flat and the power might go out for a few hours. We had a good climb, although she was still tired from her caving trip. Then we had a nice lunch from the place I like by the station.

That evening was the final rehearsal for the Comicon performance with the choir. I always like the final rehearsals the most, as we just run through all the songs.

Steph and I finished Planet Crafter the game. We also finished the Jet Lagged the Game Taiwan edition and everyone in the betting pool was severely negative based on their guesses. It worked out though and was amusing how far off we all were. We were especially cross with how Sam and Mike were playing, as they were on defence so strongly while losing. We started into The Boys latest season and watched the new 90 minute Good Omens season.

On Thursday we had Roxanne and Alex over to do the last escape room in the ClueQuest building. It was really good, one of the best rooms I’ve done. I really enjoyed the puzzles they had and the tech they used to pull it off. We were able to escape with ten minutes to spare, and only got a few clues.

Friday I did another round of volunteering at Castlehaven as a digital champion. Then that evening was karaoke. It was a group on the smaller side, but we still had a great time. Several people who would normally come didn’t as we had a choir performance at Comicon the next morning.

At the Comicon performance we showed up early and had to coordinate entering with Liz. She got us all in and then we got to hang out in the green room. We went to the stage and did a sound check, so the audio for the audience would be better this time. The event halls are terrible for audio, somewhat on purpose. They are made so that the audio is absorbed instead of all the people inside talking make the volume unbearable. This makes singing a lot harder. It makes it especially hard for people in the back of the choir, as we couldn’t hear almost anyone else singing. We did our best and it seemd to turn out well for the audience.

Sunday Steph setup an amazing outing to a Turkish lamp making event. We took a few hours to plan out and make our own Turkish lamp designs. They are a style that I really like, and we picked out blue and green as the colours to fit into our flat aesthetic. I also chose green to fit with the Ready Singer One colors, and I think it turned out well.

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Steph was away this week, so not much went on.

I went to the normal Monday rehearsal.

On Tuesday I went to Zaheer and Zahira’s place to play some games with Zaheer. Zahira was amazing and cooked some delicious food for us. She made a veggie soup, a nice salad, and some rolls. The food was delicious and filling. We played Helldivers for a bit, and I worked through the Steamdeck setup to get it to use a mouse and keyboard. Normally it wouldn’t matter as much, but with shooters it matters so much more for the aim.

On Friday I did the first volunteer session at Castlehaven. It was nice to help people, and I got to interact with the kinds of people I normally wouldn’t be able to. That evening I went to an improve performance that Nathan was participating in. There were four groups, and Nathan’s group was doing an improv musical. They had two songs that I thought came together well, which is amazingly impressive.

Saturday morning I went to a group of Ukrainian refugees and presented on how to use AI. It went well and I might go back for more specific presentations.

Saturday afternoon I went to Liz and Jamie’s to play some games. We played a round of The Mind, then a round of a racing game. The main event of the day was a new game called Feed the Kraken, which was a fantastic social deduction game. It felt like there was always something for people to do, and the percentage of interesting roles was much higher. There were three teams, two of which are ‘evil.’ The evil teams made up 50% of the players, so it was really challenging. Even so the good team won 2 of the three games we played.

Sunday was a Mercato performance with the choir. I enjoyed this one more than most, as while we did some teaching it didn’t overly focus on the new material. I didn’t hang around afterwards and went right back home as Steph was going to be coming back.

Once Steph got home we watched the end of the Taiwan Jet Lagged game. Then we played some Planet Crafter for the rest of the evening.

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This week was a ton of fun with meeting people for dinners and shows. Monday was the Ready Singer One performance are Mercato Mayfair. I went to watch, but first had dinner and drinks with Stacie on the roof. We talked some business and then she left as I went to watch the show. It was fun to hear the performance there, as I usually am in the choir performing. The Duel of Fates was especially amazing to hear.

Tuesday we went to Lander 23 with Ballage and Zaheer. Steph and I met Zaheer beforehand at a Nepali restaurant. They had a great set of momo’s and I split a large momo platter with Zaheer.

We went in with the goal of finding the tapes, and we did, but they were hard to hear and get to play. We ended up just doing radiance again and despite the slow start we got 2nd place. I memorised the layout since I was in the lander to start and we really went quick on the second half.

Wednesday I went to choir rehearsal, as the Monday one was cancelled for the performance at Mercato.

Friday I volunteered in the morning talking about the Camden Digital Inclusion, and then in the evening I joined for the start of the Big Screen Hack. I made a short film, but as I used the opportunity to try a lot of different things It didn’t come out as well as it could have otherwise. I used Grok instead of Seedance, and tried realistic style. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj1CqTm2YXA

The other two nights of the weekend were taken up with singing. I went to an Operation Mincemeat event that Nathan hosted. Each person had parts to learn, and I had a lot of the minor parts, which was a ton of fun. Some of the people there had since Operation Mincemeat many times and were experts on it. I just listened to it on repeat for a week with Spotify. It turned out pretty well, despite the musical being on the harder side. Sunday I hosted karaoke. Lots of people were able to join, and I had a great time. Diana and Jose were there from dive club. Giulio and Lynne made it. And from Choir we had Henry, Emma, and Tia. Stacie showed up after everyone and we chatted for a bit.

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The weather this week was amazing, so I decided to try the folding chair work style a bit more. It turned out to not just be relaxing but it helped with concentration and getting work done. There is something about having people walking by, as well as not having the kitties trying to sit in front of the screen or on the keyboard that allows for better concentration.

Monday was a nice day, and I wanted to finally walk the Regents Canal out to Hackney Wick (where I started the Lea Valley hike from). I left from the flat and walked along the canal to Victoria Park and got to see all the interesting gardens and structures they had put up there including a part of the old London Bridge (cicra 1760).

At choir that evening we sang the Jump Up Superstar song, and it was hard to follow along with the music, so I redid the pdf to not have repeats and codas and multiple lines of text. Having the tablet to read the music from makes adding more pages not as big a deal.

Tuesday I had Zaheer over for the Untitled Goose Game. It was a ton of fun and had been long enough since I’d played it that I’d forgotten most of it. I’m really looking forward to more coop games on Tuesdays with him.

Wednesday was a bunch of volunteering. I did my first session as a Camden Digital Champion, but wasn’t able to fully help the one person I met with that day. It was still a good introduction to the work and what it would be like going forward. I signed up for seven weekly sessions after that, so I’ll be getting some good experience as a Digital Champion.

Wednesday evening I went to help with some try divers at the pool session for BSAC. I got the gear setup for them and then took it down afterwards. There were 11 divers in the pool, so it was a busy evening. I chatted with Gokhan while all the divers were going, and it was a chill evening overall.

Thursday I went to hang out with Gokhan at his work around 6pm, and we grabbed dinner together and talked about AI. We grabbed some burgers before heading to Southbank Center to see Romana perform. The music was great for the performance, but the singer wasn’t the best, and the dancers were interesting but strange. After the performance Steph got back from her work trip, and I hurried home to spend an hour with her.

Steph work up early on Friday and left for another cave diving trip. A few friends took the day off on Friday and we met in Regents Park to go to the new Queen Elizabeth II garden. It was made with a lot of reclaimed cement, so was dry and desert feeling. It was neat to see, and then we found a nice shady spot to picnic. Nathan and I threw the frisbee a bit, and then the others left. I chose to pop out the computer and do more working from the folding chair. It was productive and I made a silly game using the new vibe coding game engine I’m working on. It turned out pretty well I think: https://www.theplaymachine.com/play/autobattle

On Saturday I went to Little Venice for Maggie’s birthday party, then on Sunday we had the book club meeting. It was a great discussion on aging, and I got a lot out of the book Successful Aging.

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Steph organised a night out with her parents and we went to Fallow, one of her favourite restaurants, then to The Phantom of the Opera. I enjoyed seeing it, and it had some amazing costumes. The set was also really well done with the candles coming up and the fog for the underground lake scenes. Her parents seemed to like it and generally seemed to like their trip to the UK. They are thinking of coming again soon.

Thursday I went to a folk band performance in St. Pancras Old Church. The music was a lot of fun and there were parts that we sang along to. It was during a tube strike so not everyone was able to show up. The venue was also neat, as I hadn’t been inside that church before.

Friday was so lovely I had to just get out on a hike nearby. The tube strikes meant it was difficult to plan, but I just checked in the morning and found a good starting point in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. I started there and went north along the River Lea and the canal by the same name. I ran parts of it when I was feeling it and the scenery wasn’t as nice. There were still many flowers in bloom including a few amazing wisteria vines. I also saw a lot of cootlings, gauslings, and ducklings. I saw some swans, grebes, and cormorants, but no babies for them.

Here is the path I took (link), which was about 24km.

Sunday was back to Choir with Mercato Mayfair performance/rehearsal. I had a great time, and we did a lot of songs all the way through. We will need to put some time into learning Jump Up Superstar, but that is for Monday.

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Monday I had choir people and Giulio over for karaoke. It went much better this time, but at some point towards the end of the night a playlist managed to get added to the queue. I’ll refine it more for next time, but it went pretty well. The food also went over better than last time as I had more prepared and dipping sauces. Tia, Raiad, and Paul tried the reaper hot sauce from Paultong and it took them by surprise at how spicy it was. Kyoko brought some amazing fresh mochi, which was delicious.

The next day I decided to work outside in Regent’s Park. I just took my folding chair and found a lovely spot under some trees. It was a little chilly, but I’ll do this on any nice day. I just need to make sure my devices are fully charged before heading out.

Wednesday I took as a long fast day, so I did a 36 hour fast. I like to do these every now and then to help reset.

Steph and her parents got into town on Friday, separately. Steph got back from her 2 week cave diving trip in France. Her parents arrived from their trans Atlantic cruise. Her dad got sick on the cruise, but he had mostly recovered by the time we saw him. We then went to dinner at Indian Lounge. The samosas were bad, but the rest of the food was decent.

Saturday was relaxing. Steph had dinner with her parents while I went to a choir birthday party. It was Hitchhiker’s Guide themed. I went as Agrajag, an obscure character from the later books. Some people got it. They had a fun set of activities, including a bad poetry competition (based on the Vogons) and a task to find people that were assigned to the same set of aliens as you were. The night was fun and I enjoyed chatting with everyone. I stayed for the blowing out of the candles, but left when it become dance time, as that isn’t my cup of tea.

Sunday we met the Lees at their hotel, and then walked to the Canal Museum together. We took the canal boat through the tunnel, which is something I’ve wanted to do since we got to London. I’ve just been saving it for doing with a group that came to town and would want to do it. This worked out perfectly as we could point out our flat from the tour and the weather was amazing with the trees blooming. The tunnel was interesting, and the canal boat ride was nice.

We then had them back to our flat, and I grabbed some soup, sandwiches, and scones from Waitrose. It was a nice spread, and makes me think the subdivided sandwich route could be a good idea for hosting. We had a lovely lunch, then Steph’s parents went back to their hotel for a nap.

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