It's an Exciting World

Not too much going on this week. Monday was choir rehearsal.

Tuesday Steph and I went to a fancy party at Fortnum and Mason for her wealth management group. The food was decent, and the drinks were good. We didn’t stay long. We weren’t the youngest couple there, but I think only one couple was younger.

Then on Wednesday I spent the evening doing StartX interviews. Thursday I tried to volunteer, but I showed up to give a presentation on parental controls and nobody showed up for the presentation.

The weekend was pretty chill with Felicity’s BDay in Greenwich and then Book Club on Sunday. The book had a moderate amount to talk about, but wasn’t the best conversation book.

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This week had Monday as a rehearsal, then Tuesday I performed in the big band concert with Ready Singer One and Geeky Beats.

The volumes weren’t great for the band vs. the choir. The band couldn’t really get any quieter and there’s no way to properly mic 100 singers, so it will just have to be worked on more if we do a concert together again. That said the concert went really well and I had a great time. We were at the Actor’s Church in Covent Garden (also known as St. Paul’s Church). This is one of the venues that I see as part of the heart of London and I was really happy to be able to perform in such a venue. I was all the way in the back, which can be challenging as it was really hard to hear any of the other singers. I ended up just watching the conductor like a hawk to keep in time, and it all worked out.

Steph was out of town pretty much all this week. She went to Zurich for work and then came back for a day before heading off to go caving.

On Saturday I went to Zahira’s birthday party. I’m feeling like an old man when I leave social groups around 10 to make my 10:30pm bedtime, but it is something that keeps me sane and moving forward. I also get overwhelmed by the noise and socialising in many of these setups.

Sunday I volunteered with the Canal and River Trust to clean up the tow path from Kings Cross up to Camden. We only had around 5 people there, but it worked out great and we did a lot of cleaning. There were some strange things that we found, but overall it was just lovely to be outside and cleaning up.

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This week Steph and I were pretty social.

Monday I had rehearsal, and then Tuesday we had Zaheer and Zahira over for games. We played Mario 3D world, which is was Zahira’s first time really playing video games. It was a challenge at first, as the controls aren’t as intuitive as some games. I think next time we’ll do more of the party games to make it smoother.

Wednesday I observed a board meeting and confirmed that I would be joining the Ice Wharf board. It will be interesting and a challenge to help keep the flat complex going. This would be similar to an HOA kind of group in the US.

Thursday we had Diana and one of her friends over to talk about AI and games. It was good to see her and I really hope her new job goes well. The weather has been nice so I’ve also gone out to work outside a few times this week.

Jamie from Choir had his birthday party with the theme of Diva karaoke. It was fun singing, but we were in an upstairs room with almost no ventilation so it was ungodly hot. I did the duet Suddenly Seymour with Eden, and it went great.

Steph and I had a great time making some glass flowers while lamp working. I made one big one and she put together four smaller ones in the time we had.

Sunday was a Merkato day, and I went to sing as one of the last rehearsals before the big band concert. It was great as we ran through the songs quickly, but we did each one twice. The second time for each was mixed parts so I got to hear the other sections more and I really enjoy that part of the singing.

We also did a US states draft for the latest season of Jet Lag The Game. I think we got a good set of the states, and I think we took more factors into account than the other teams when drafting.

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I had two rehearsals this week for choir. The first, on Monday was a typical rehearsal. Tuesday however was the rehearsal with the big band for the concert. This was interesting, especially getting to see how another director handled us and the band. There were some changes for taste, and some changes to help us work with the band better (because they are so loud). It was also great to have the entire choir together for a rehearsal.

Wednesday I spent the evening with Steph and we started A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The show was great and we went through all six of the episodes within the week.

On Thursday, I met up with Marissa. Her meeting was running late so I just wandered around the V&A for a while and got to see all the parts I’d skipped over in the past. Then I met up with Steph to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2 together at Everyman. It was an enjoyable date night.

Friday I went to Becca’s birthday drinks and then packed for our weekend trip.

We headed to the Peak District, basing ourselves in Castleton. We started with Mam Tor, and it was an insanely windy day. In some spots on the peak it was hard to stand, and the wind was blowing hard enough to give Steph an ear ache from the pressure difference of the wind rushing by her ears. We got down off the ridge and it was much better. Then we went to the Roaches and Lud’s Church. While we were in Lud’s Church it happened to have a trail race start and the people running through. It was incredibly muddy at the bottom, and they all were splashing through the mud while we waited in the narrow sections. Lud’s Church is a neat canyon in the rock. While short it is pretty. We grabbed some ice cream and sat on a hill before heading to the YHA where we stayed in a pod. We went to town in Castleton for dinner, which was surprisingly good. Then we had a fire, but the wind was all over the place and we did a silly shuffle around the fire to keep out of it.

Sunday we went to Chatsworth house and grounds. It was more impressive than I was expecting. The house was large and we got to see most of the inside as well as spending a few hours walking the grounds. Their hedge maze actually had a through path, where most hedge mazes are in and back out instead of through. The flowers were out in force, and the fields of wildflowers were especially nice to see. I like getting close up pictures of a type of flower with many others of that type in the background and somewhat blurry. We headed home and had time to finish the Dunc and Egg series.

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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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