The Seven Year Itch

Last Rep play for the year. I circulated it among walking friends but none came. We were unable to help with bump out as we were off to India on Monday.

The Seven Year Itch by George Axelrod. Directed by Adrian Smith.
Peter Devey as Richard Sherman, Catherine Ardi Brennan as the Girl/Marie/Miss Morris/Elaine, Oliver Dashwood as Dr Brubaker, Alaina McDonald as Helen and Adam Goldfinch as Tom.

One Act Play Festival

Carnival of Flowers One Act Play Festival
The Perfect Crime by Valda Marshall dir Mark Phythian
The Locals' Spot by Bruce Olive dir Mike Taylor
The Muddy Feet Forest Retreat by Kylie Mulcahy dir Lyn Hodgson

Judas Maccabaeus by Handel

an oratorio in 3 acts
Toowoomba Philharmonic Society at St Luke's. I assume 2016 as the program is not dated with a year.
Conductor Trina Timms, Organ Andrew Doecke, accompanist Pamela Duane
Calista Walters soprano
Clarissa Foulcher mezzo soprano
Nick Kirkup tenor
Jon Maskell Baritone

Here on the Flight Path

by Norman Foster, dir Mike Taylor
Mark Phythian, Fiona Quinn, Halina Wills
We went to this Rep play with Lee.

Atilla Sautov violin

Bach and Paganini solo violin recital with Anna Mooreson piano?
at Philo  one afternoon. It was a strange concert but probably worth the effort to go.
Bach Sonata no 1, Partita 2
Henryk Wieniaswski Caprice-Etudes with piano
Paganini Caprice 1, 14, 24 and Paganiniana
www.atillasautov.com
He is from Tashkent

Into the Woods

A last minute decision to go to Choral Society's production of Sondheim's Into the Woods. It was done in the Armitage Centre so good seats for all. I went on Sunday afternoon and sat on the end of a row next to an older man sitting on his own. At interval we chatted and he was Anne Gralow's father, down from Rockhampton and going to see his granddaughter Shannon in all performances. I also ran into Netta and her husband and caught up on U3A choir news.
It was last minute because I am not so keen on the traditional popular musicals being copied but the venue and music tempted me and the musical impressed.

Attilla Sautov

This was a solo recital at Philharmonic Society Concert Hall on Saturday afternoon.

Nundubbamere Falls

We went back to Sundown National Park on Saturday.
This was our third visit. the first time was in June 2005 when we camped at the Broadwater campground on the long weekend with the Toowoomba Bushwalkers. It is located in the SW part on the Severn River which flows south west from Stanthorpe to join the Macintyre, Barwon and Darling Rivers.
The second visit was to the north-east entry via Ballandean a couple of years ago. We went for the day, parked the car and climbed the steep gravel road to Red Rock Falls lookout then returned via the old road which is a nice walking track.
It is only 2-3 hours from Toowoomba and an isolated wilderness type place which is accessible in part by conventional vehicle.
We had the campground to ourselves overnight. It was incredibly quiet when we arrived around 10-30 and headed down into the creek. There was only a trickle of flow and the waterholes were a bit green but the rocks leading down to the falls and junction with the Severn River were a nice place to be. We climbed up the other side and got a view over the junction, then, consulting our map and contours headed back to try to find the circuit track. We followed the dog fence west and climbed steeply on Mt Malakoff until we had enough. The views as we descended were quite good.
Back at the campground a family group was playing, but they left while we were having a dip in the creek.
Another vehicle turned up at about 6.30 am but they headed down fishing so we did not see them.
We headed east along the dog fence to try to find the walk circuit but the river was not accessible through the fence and private property. Back at the campground we followed a vague narrow track down a side creek which led to the Severn River where the rocks were rough going.
We were ready to depart not long after 10.30 am when we found the battery was flat in the car. With no mobile reception, Emily and I started walking 4 km out to a house. At one point we got some faint reception and called the emergency number which put us through to the police but it faded out so we walked on. Almost to the house, a flat tray 4wd ute with three kids came past. We stopped them and asked if they could give us a jump start and I hopped on the back while Em walked on a bit. After a couple of km, we came across the fishing vehicle, who told us they had got the car started. Another km or so on, we met up with Dick, who had to repack the car, and thanked the kids for their help. The fishing couple also stopped to tell Em so she sat down in the shade and waited for us.
We were only about an hour later than planned in getting to Stanthorpe for lunch.
Next time we will do a day trip to the NE entry from Ballandean and follow the walking track north towards the Severn.
There are no facilities at Nundubbermere, and the road is marginal for conventional vehicles. Walking opportunities are limited but the creek and falls are nice.

The Last Romance

Last nights Rep play, The Last Romance by Joe DiPietro, may have been the best we have attended. There were 4 actors, one of whom appeared as a 'ghost' and sang opera excerpts nicely in a young tenor voice. There was also a dog with a minor role. It all came together really well with a good script and a good audience.

Methodists

We got an email from a Sergeant family person, which led me to a supposedly autobiographical novel by Adeline Sergeant called Esther Denison. Adeline was the daughter of a Methodist minister and our Sergeants were chapel people in Lincolnshire before emigrating to South Australia in 1838.
I think this book prompted me to next pick up Adam Bede by George Eliot, from our bookshelf. Published in 1913, it is inscribed from my grandfather to my father on his 19th birthday in 1937. It could be seen as a cautionary tale from a widowed father to his son?
Again it deals with Methodists, and on reading about John Wesley I see the story of Methodism in her novel.
Both women writers used this medium to educate and broaden the minds of their readers in the changing roles of women in the nineteenth century.
Other ancestors such as Robert Simpson and Thomas Scales, Dickenson, Davies and Schoen were also influenced by these religious movements of the eighteenth century, as well as the Steels and Harts in Glasgow.

Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra

A Concert for May Day held at Peter Doherty Theatre at Indooroopilly High School
Ian Aitchison plays flute in Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra.
Mozart overture Idomeneo
Mozart Horn concerto in D Emily Newnham
Saint Saens Morceau de Concert
Beethoven Symphony 1 in C
conductor Nathaniel Griffiths

Shostakovich 5

conservatorium Symphony Orchestra
conductor Natalia Raspopova
Kelly Lee Dvorak Cello Concerto Op 104
Shostakovitch Symphony No 5

vegetables for winter 2016

At last I have tidied the compost and dug the garden for broad beans and sugar snap peas. How could we survive winter without these? The last corn crop was tenuous and fortunately we got a late one after early germination failures. Sweet potato continues to turn up in abundance when I clear the garden for planting, but otherwise our spring onions, leeks and capsicums/chillis are struggling through neglect and fruit flies in the latter. I did sow some seeds early in March so I have some small seedlings of radish, beetroot and ruby chard which I planted out yesterday after Graham suggested that I did not need to dig over the whole bed, just holes for each plant.
Today I added seeds of endive, spinach and kohl rabi. I wonder if any will germinate? They have been in the fridge a long time.
The sun is still very hot and things are very dry, but the tanks are full, due to neglect of the garden and lack of watering.

Worm farming to feed composting

The worm farm has been awaiting a cleanout for quite a while. As a result the worms have received little food and, with the sun moving back to the north, become quite dried out.
Now I have washed it all out with lots of dark liquid to the fruit trees, azaleas and vegetable garden. The solid remains and some liquid have gone to the compost heap which was recently consolidated after a period of neglect. I no longer get horse poo, and tried poultry manure pellets to boost the N for C:N ratio breakdown, but I think the worm liquid may provide the N required as well as other biological activity.
Now to feed the surviving worms which are quite small, unlike the enormous ones I find in the compost heap.

Esther Denison

We received an email from Norway this week, from a woman researching Sergeants. It led me to Adeline Sergeant a novelist and her 'autobiographical' novel Esther Denison, published in 1899. She was the daughter of a Methodist minister and it depicted a bleak impoverished childhood. I continued on through themes reminiscent of Jane Eyre but with ideas of socialism and the changing role of women. We know little of the Sergeant family other than they were chapel people from a small town in Lincolnshire who emigrated to South Australia in 1838. Adeline's father Richard Sergeant was a younger brother of our emigrant farmer. He married the daughter of a Methodist minister, whose brothers became shopkeepers in Geelong in the 1850s. Thomas Sergeant Hall of the next generation was Australia's first native-born palaeontologist, and first cousin of Adeline Sergeant.

India: the siege within

India: the siege within Challenges to a Nation's Unity by M J Akbar
published in 1985, I borrowed this book from Lee who studied Indian history at UQ
It took me a long while to get through this book but towards the end I settled in and found it interesting re Sikhs in Punjab, Amritsar and the assassination of Indira Ghandi, Kashmir and Muslims in secular India post 1947.
It was good to follow my reading of Ghandi from 2014 with this book and also another one I borrowed from Lee and finished quite a while ago, which I also enjoyed.
Naipaul, V. S. (1977). India: A Wounded Civilization