Finally a message
from New Zealand again. 6 weeks of summer in Europe later, it is
still winter in New Zealand and although we have nice sunny days with
mid-day temperatures close to 20C, at night there are still frosts
and it takes some effort to heat up the house in order to have
breakfast without gloves.
Some spring photos from the garden:
 |
| The peach tree blossoms. Looks like a truckload of peaches to skin again ... |
I had timed my
flight back to Christchurch such that I would be able to participate
in our last choir rehearsal before Singfest on the weekend.
Unfortunately, 1
hour out of Hong Kong, our plane developed “an issue with the
hydraulics system” and we returned to Hong Kong for technical
inspection. So in Hong Kong, where I had already spent 11 hours in a
hotel between flights, we were put into a (very fancy) hotel for
another day before the plane was technically fit to fly again. This
was all very well handled by Air New Zealand and Hong Kong airport
personel, so no complaints, and applause to the pilot who came to
explain the issue and was very friendly. Also I was happy to be in a
plane full of kiwis, who all responded very pleasantly to the
“issue”, something I didn’t think Dutch people would have done.
Anyway, so without
any rehearsal with the choir for me we sang 3 times in various places
in the city centre as part of Singfest, a festival where all choirs
can participate and just sing on the streets for the fun of it and to
entertain the public. We were conducted by yet another conductor, the
choir’s patron, and even though I had never seen him conduct, I
could luckily follow quite well, although he did look in my direction
distractedly a few times, perhaps not used to another alto at the far
end.
We also saw some
other choirs in random places in the city, most notably 4 very good
singers in the women’s lingerie part of the fancy department store,
a balkan choir, and a flashmob of random people from the organisation
including a tenor with a coffee cup in his hand coming out of the
cafe nearby, very flashmob’y.
