First Week in Mountain View - all go

We've completed our first week in Mountain View (Silicon Valley) visiting Emily, Greg, Ella and Flynn. It was all go as we visited an endless number of parks and other entertainment venues for the grand-kids who were having a ball. It was also fun trying to squeeze five of us into a Toyota sedan as we waltzed between venues, especially as it was my job to sit between Ella and Flynn in the back where their capacious child-seats left little room for me to sit. Anyway, here are a 'few' pictures of where we went and what we did. In the 15 months since I last saw Flynn for his second birthday party, he has grown a lot more active and assertive - a human dynamo. So, here goes:

 

Building a Leggo sky-scraper, which Flynn promptly demolished and Flynn digging in a sand-pit. He is an avid reader of books about machinery and construction.

Steering a ship, and taking off on their scooters for a park.

 Contemplating a rapid descent. Flynn now has little fear of sharp drops.

Wrangling over who should sit on top.

Reading time. They're both avid readers / listeners of our renditions of books - sometimes five in succession.

Playing trains - Flynn has an extensive set of wooden track with little engines of the Thomas the Tank Engine variety.

Circulating in the Mountain View farmers' market where we bought lots of fruit and veges.

Which way to go? Finally, a ride down the slippery dip.

Ella using equipment in ways possibly unanticipated by the designer.

Racing along the equipment under light supervision.

Using equipment in innovative ways, as one would expect in Silicon Valley!

Practising base-ball, while Ella prepares for her first ballet lesson. She looked sweet in her pink outfit.

Flynn climbing at their gym class, followed by more baseball practice, walking across a metal bridge, and climbing through a tunnel.

Ella's swimming lesson

And she's very proficient on the monkey-bars.

Art and music combined. They played with star-fish (not real ones), more trains, sang a long together, added colour and glitter to paper fish covered in glue, and crashed cymbals in the noisy conclusion to the music segment.

They're so lucky to have caring parents who offer them a continual wealth of experiences. A day later, Ella turned 4 and her extravaganza of a party features in the next post.

AS

Another Wonderful Concert

Armidale has a rich musical life and, last Thursday, we attended our second major concert in 5 days. This time the performers were the ACO2, or in longer terms, the Australian Chamber Orchestra 2. This ensemble comprised five of the orchestra's younger members plus six 2015 emerging artists and six emerging artists from earlier years. The guest director and lead violin was Australian Benjamin Schmid, one of Europe's leading violinists. So we saw just the 18 very young performers shown here.

OK, if you count carefully, one is missing! They all had a ball during their performances, especially Aiko Goto in the front who was so small she stood on a box. She was smiling and moving around so much that I feared that she'd fall off with catastrophic consequences! That didn't occur and the ensemble was triumphant. Their timing and cohesion was exemplary despite torrents of notes from some complex works.

The four works played were: Bach's Concerto for Violin in E major (BWV1042); Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence (op 70); Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings (Op 11) and first conducted by Toscanini in 1938; and Herbert Berger's Metropoles Suite for Violin and Strings. Believe it or not, he's one of Austria's leading jazz musicians and, since he was born as recently as 1969, the work must be only 20 years old at the most. Berger's work was delightful and brought together the music of several different places. The first movement, Insomnia, portrayed Salzburg; the second - El Largo Adios - took us to Barcelona; the third, A la minute, reflected Paris; and the final movement. Avenida, portrayed a street scene in Maputo - the capital of Mozambique. Many people do not like modern music, but this work was an eye-opener. Give it a go if you can find a copy.

By the way, ACO2 should be spelt slightly differently but I didn't have superscripts and subscripts to put together the right combination. It should read A, C superscript, O, 2 subscript!

AS

Last Night of the Proms

I seem to recall that the Last Night of the Proms (LNP) always takes place in August at the Royal Albert Hall. Not in 2015! It actually took place at the University of New England yesterday on Sunday 10 May. A large audience witnessed some 80 performers with the Armidale Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Gee, a local, plus dozens of singers with two local choirs - the Fiori Musicale and the Armidale Choral Society. There must be few regions of c. 25,000 people a long way from anywhere who can command those forces. The audience was also equipped with coloured streamers and a combination of Australian and British flags to throw - or wave- at appropriate moments.

The concert was in two distinct parts. The first was purely orchestral and comprised two very popular works: Brahms' Academic Festival Overture and Dvorak's Symphony #9 - from the New World. The orchestra performed superbly with tempi that matched the best in the world. The renditions were really exciting and nuanced. The youngest performer, by the way, was the grand-son of a friend of yours and we estimates his age at about 12. He played the trumpet! And a brilliant local drummer, James Walsh, who accompanied a trio of local Pipers, first performed with the orchestra when he was just 8 back in 1997! He has since performed with at the World Pipeband Championships with the North Belfast Pipeband in Glasgow - and he'll be back there this coming August. A special guest representing Britannia was Ruth Strutt - guess what she sang. James participated in the second part of the concert.

And the second part of the concert matched the traditional (LNP) fare: Handel's Zadok the Priest; Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March #1 (played twice with Land of Hope and Glory added the second time); Arne's Rule Britannia with Ruth as soloist; Taylor's Naval Flourish - with James among the drummers; two traditional Scottish items - one a Hornpipe and the other the Strathspey and Reel (performed by the pipers already mentioned); Home Sweet Home; and Parry's Jerusalem. To these, the program added a medley of Australian Tunes devised for our Bicentennial in 1988.

The second part saw lots of flag waving and streamer throwing, along with audience participation in many of the choruses. However, I did observe a couple of alien flags! On was definitely the the Scottish flag and other, believe it or not, was Finnish. I surreptitiously took a few photos during the event and these are shown here. The quality is not the best, but I couldn't use flash and the focus was often far-distant. We'll start with getting ready.

Part of the programme and my blue streamer - Dot had the flag.

David Gee addressing the audience.

Audience participation in the second part.

Ruth Strutt as Britannia.

Percussion section - they were worked hard - and note the exotic headgear worn by some of the orchestra. Other items included a bowler hat and a police helmet.

Three pipers and James, the drummer, on the left. They were all fabulous and note the full regalia for the blokes.

It was a great social occasion and everyone departed smiling and chattering loudly.

AS

I Love Japanese Gardens

In recent years I have travelled widely in Japan, visiting such cities as Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Kanazawa, Okayama, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, and many smaller places up in the mountains. And, when I have visited such places I have always been on the lookout for Japanese gardens, which I love for their design, colour, flora, and peacefulness.

What is not widely known is that Australia has a formal Japanese Garden in the little town of Cowra in the NSW Central West. And I was able to show it Brian and Daphne on our trip to Canberra. They were impressed, like me, in its high quality - in many respects on a par with the beautiful gardens I have seen in Japan itself.

But before I show-case Cowra's contribution to the Genre, I m should explain why the gardens are located there. That's simple. Cowra had a PoW (Prisoner of War) camp during the second world war and housed Italians (presumably captured in North Africa) and Japanese. Moreover, the Japanese staged a famous, though unsuccessful break-out in 1944. Many of those who escaped were recaptured (Cowra is a long way from a major city) or committed ritual suicide. The gardens both commemorate these events, but also the spirit of reconciliation between us and them in recent decades.

Let's start with some views of the camp, of which little remains:

The gardens are located nearby and I'll let the pictures talk for themselves.

Lovely, aren't they? I could have spent hours walking the many paths taking in the views, looking at water features and traditional Japanese images - bridges, icons, plants, and even a little house with sliding partitions and tatami mats. The only really jarring feature was the Australian Eucalypt, not widely observed in Japan itself!

AS