Back in the UK for a short while

Sunday Tea Club Korean BBQ with Manu, Crystal & Reuben

It’s still all go, just general stuff, dentist, hairdresser, shopping, sorting through mum’s wardrobe and taking the good bits to a retro store. Emptying and cleaning Ted, inside and out. Brian has polished him again, it made cleaning him much easier, but still takes some time.

We’ve been our usual social butterflies, popping in again on John with Helen and Richard, Abi and Sooty, tea and cake with mum’s friend Joan. Then going out to eat with Helen and Ian, lovely to catch up, have some our first curry and real beer. Sunday tea club with Manu, Crystal and Reuben at an all you can eat Korean BBQ. Absolutely fabulous, though Reuben and I drew the short straws and had the meat between us to do the cooking! We then went on to the Gunmakers Arms, for live music and beer throwing as Brian covered us all in beer!

Live music, real ale and great company in the Gunmakers Arms, Birmingham. Always great to be able to get the train rather than driving to not have to worry about how much to drink

Saturday we woke at Helen and Ian’s, went to Abi’s till after lunch and then went to Fiona and James, for wedding suit fitting, dinner and chat. Three meals with three different sets of people, no wonder I feel fat, oh, and another beer & curry on Monday with the Monday Club!

Suit fitting in Leamington Spa for Fiona and James' wedding. We're not allowed to show the suits as they want to keep it secret, so this cropped photo is all we can show. LtoR is Brian, James, Paul (James' dad) and Chris

Yesterday we had our auditions for the opening/closing ceremonies for the commonwealth games which was great fun. We are both much more enthused about this than we are for general volunteering about which we still haven’t heard, though that’s possibly because we hadn’t had our auditions yet!

At Edgbaston Cricket Stadium for our auditions for the Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies. Nathan Wright (see below), head of choreography is in the centre with the dark red velvet suit. Very pleasant, friendly guy and also very talented

Today we are out to lunch with Joan and her husband Keith, after mums stroke support group meeting, because we’ve never met him, and as a thank you for them taking mum to an appointment in Worcester, and Saturday we take mum to Conwy for a week. We are exhausted, she’s exhausted and it’s not going to stop anytime soon!

This was as we were arriving. First stop was to be registered and measured for uniform, should we be selected. Jackie is in the far distance being measured

This is going to be an odd blog, photos of meals out are never very interesting, yesterday was fab, but they don’t want too much information leaked about what went on at the audition. I did manage to get a photo of Perry, the bull, the mascot of the games on the stage with all the dance captains, and a man who was obviously ‘somebody’, though we had no idea who! Turns out he was Nathan Wright head of choreography and staging director for the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony on the Gold Coast in 2018. Amongst many other mass events. I’ve copied this bit of his CV as it’s fairly impressive! In 2018 Nathan was Head of Choreography and Staging Director for the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony on the Gold Coast. Prior to that, Nathan was the Artistic Director for both Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. He was the Director of Mass Choreography for the 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Sochi, leading a team of 20 internationals and over 10,000 performers. As a Mass Choreographer, he worked on the 2015 Opening Ceremony of The Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea; The 2015 Eleven Arches; The Opening and Closing Ceremonies of both the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games; The 2010 Commonwealth Games Delhi Handover Ceremony and Oman’s National Day. As Segment Director, Nathan directed The Finale Segment Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics Vancouver, featuring Michael Buble; the Athlete’s Parade at the 2007 Special Olympics, Shanghai and the Athlete’s Parade at the 15th Asian Games in Doha. Nathan has also served as Director of Choreography for John Lewis’ 150th Anniversary event, which took place in Birmingham 2014.

There she is, a little bit closer

There are also no photos of the suit fitting as Fiona doesn’t want it in the public eye, and no photos of a ridiculous recording we’ve made for a secret reason that involved much effort and borrowing of items from complete strangers in the village.

Come on number 1103! (I was 1104)

That's Perry the Bull, the Games mascot entertaining and putting us at ease as we waited for the start

Half of the group performing the routine they'd shown us, watched by the other half

And being observed and photographed by those who matter and will make the decisions. The guy in the green jumper has ultimate responsibility, so his opinion is final. It was a really enjoyable day and we didn't feel stressed as it was organised for fun primarily (although we're sure some young wannabe's thought differently as a selection would look really good on their CV's - we don't care, although it would be lovely to be selected and to take part!).