Coppelia

Monday, 13 August 2018

Good burglar deterrent!

With Margaret and Milton

New tree required!  Also new fence.

Warm-up class

Scene change

Breakfast guest

Another week has disappeared and we have less than three weeks remaining in Cairns.  The weather continues to be fine, sunny and hot, although a bit of fine misty moisture early last Saturday had us worried for a time.

Apart from our usual routine, we enjoyed another walk around the Botanic Gardens, appreciating the cooler temperature under the trees as well as the variety of vegetation in flower.  With the hotter weather, butterflies are much more prolific now, too.

On Wednesday, Himself had his final visit to a specialist (we have certainly helped the economy of the medical fraternity this year!) and received the all clear to drive home without having to undergo treatment beforehand.  Hopefully, we will only have one more doctor’s visit before we leave.

On Thursday, we collected my cousin, Milton, and his wife, Margaret, from their unit at Trinity Beach and spent a very pleasant time over lunch at a restaurant on the boardwalk overlooking the marina before having a stroll followed by coffee.

We received a telephone call from our next door neighbour on Friday afternoon, just to let us know that our wattle tree was now in his back yard - a rather nasty gale happened on Friday!  Our insurance company wanted an additional $1,000 excess payment to repair the paling fence, as we were away (the tree would have blown down anyway, whether we were home or not).  Fortunately, Nick is taking care of the repairs in the meantime.

With tickets to an outdoor performance of Coppelia by the Australian Ballet on Saturday evening, we were a tad worried by the misty weather early on Saturday, however, it cleared by lunch time and we were able to join the many thousands at the Munro Martyn Park late in the afternoon.  We arrived well before the gates opened, so that we would be able to obtain a good viewing position and had no trouble securing a spot right in front of the stage and on a tier so that we could look over the thousands seated on the flat area.  As the outdoor stage does not have curtains, we were treated to the cast performing their warm-up class in full view!  Also, scene changes between acts were also fully visible, apart from one small section that was screened off manually during the first interval.  Whilst the audience were very well behaved and quickly settled at the beginning of each act, we are looking forward to the new performing arts theatre opening in November.  Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take photos during the performance.

We have been visited a couple of times this week by people we have met a few years ago and who knew we would probably be in our usual spot again this year.  It is becoming rather difficult to remember names, faces, dates, etc after a brief encounter a couple of years ago, but evidently we must have made an impression!!