Mondayitis....

What is Mondayitis? Different things to different people I'm sure, and for me it takes a few different colours as well. I woke well this morning, after a good sleep, and a very interesting dream which I noted in my thickening Dream Diary, then caught the early bus to town for a coffee at the Memphis. All in order, but I feel strangley flat. However I think it's because the weekend was really so packed with things I couldn't feel any other way. I have a few emails to write, and I must stop regretting I didn't follow-up my meeting with Bev Hull at the ballet. This is Bev whose son danced wonderfully in the much lauded  'Salute' , and whose lovely daughter Beth, who happens to to have mild Down Syndrome was delightful to meet. It just occurred to me that co-incidences sometimes need to be acted upon. 

Here was I, sitting in the very back row in the stalls, with not a bad view. Unimpeded, but distant, and I noticed that three or four rows down were Bev and Beth with two empty seats next to them. So I decided at the first break to wander down and ask if they minded me sitting next to them which they didn't at all. Then at interval we chatted, I discovered Bev was from Sydney with her son John in the NZ Ballet.  As a young boy he had actually danced with Graeme Murphy when I worked with the Sydney Dance Company in the eighties. Beth was so nice and smiling as she cheered loudly at the curtain-call for her beloved bro on the stage, who indeed, had danced magnificently. Probably

all the better for his Mum who had made the big trip over with her daughter just to see him dance, something she did regularly it turned out.

The ballet was just so damned good I would like everyone to see it so I am putting it on FaceBook as we speak, to see if friends in Christchurch might be able to go. It is doing a tour of both islands just for a few days each stop. They are such hard workers these dancers. Bev told me that the boy sitting in front of her was the injured dancer who was replaced by a female  for the Men's Suite, the only girl onstage, doing everything the men did, lifts and all. She happened to be an Aussie too, so we were well represented on stage. She had stepped in at the last minute to do a role she had not prepared for, and had rehearsed only one day and did it perfection. What a trooper!

Kiwi in foreign gaol for being silly...

Dave Armstrong writes for a new flag...

A great ballet company

Interesting article about prevalence of child homicide being four to six times higher in NZ..I thought the reporting was high in this area, and it is true.

Great Irish result!

Conchita from Vienna rules the waves in Eurovision, is she the the future of Pop music?