Shania Twain
October started off strong with a concert of childhood dreams. Emma and I went to the Shania Twain Now Tour at the O2 and it was sick. The crowd was awesome and diverse, lots of men and older people there as well as middle-aged and younger females. There was sparkling lights throughout, a fancy techy set and a LOT of leopard print. If you happened across my Instagram stories from that night, I kind of apologise for my awful singing but also #noregrets. We sang at the top of our lungs the whole night and almost lost our voices. My favourite performance was ‘That don’t impress me much’ and it probably got one of the biggest cheers, second only to the finale ‘Man, I feel like a woman’, which was great, however bittersweet because everyone knew it was the last song. Shania is still a great performer and it’s easy to see she still got a large and enthusiastic fan base.
Wales
Go to Wales they said, it’s beautiful and green, they said. They weren’t wrong, we just had poor timing. Our roadie to Wales with Emma and Matt for an autumnal hike was altered when Storm Callum turned up. There were heavy weather warnings and flooding throughout southern Wales but we were determined to give it a go.
We set out early on Saturday morning, hiring a car out of town before driving west. We had some good road trip snacks and songs to keep us busy and the Welsh border came pretty quickly. Brecon Beacons National park was where we planned to hike and we stopped off at a pub for some fuel. We tried traditional Welsh faggots which we found out after we ordered them that it was meat offcuts and offal meat made into meatballs. They were not too bad and delish with gravy and mushy peas. Side note: I’ve surprised myself with becoming a big fan of mushy peas while over here in Britain, they’re so practical, they don’t roll around your plate, they’re very easy to eat and still pea-y and yummy.
Anyway, once fuelled up we drove further into the National park where the flooding got worse, the river was very high and the rain didn’t look like stopping anytime soon. We made our way to the hike we were going to do, one with a good view. It was particularly raining but we’re tough kiwis, a little drizzle wasn’t going to put us off. We set off for ten minutes before realising we were going the wrong way so we walked ten minutes back to the car, past the car and 2 minutes down the road. By this time we were soaked right through, the clouds were looking more ominous and no one really wanted to be the one to back down. I’m not sure who it was that said maybe we don’t, but everyone was thankful for the voice of reason.
So we bailed on our hike, concluding we would be cold, wet and miserable and have very little view to enjoy at the top given the low lying cloud situation, not to mention the risk of being flooded in the National Park. We spent the evening cooking up a mean feed at our Airbnb, a few beers and ciders and some cards. The next day the roads we had driven on the day before were all closed for flooding. The Sunday was spent exploring Cardiff and the Cotwolds. I loved Cardiff, a nice small centre city and they love rugby too. Cotwolds were quintessentially British, we explored one smaller village which was had basically to ourselves, there was no one around. But there’s also the touristy ones as well which are a lot busier.
John Butler Trio
One of James’ faves played in Hammersmith in mid-October, we had a wicked Wednesday night listening to incredible guitar skills and chilled out music. I’ve never heard a crowd be so quiet and respectful and enthralled in an instrumental performance but when John played ‘Ocean’ it was unreal. Naturally, there was cheering throughout the song but it came in waves as he went through the song. Damn that man has some outstanding guitar skills, what a champ.
Book of Morman
Now this West End performance may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it’s insanely outrageous, inappropriate, sweary, and rude in every meaning of the world but also hilarious! I’d heard a lot about how great this play was and bought tickets without even thinking what I thought it was about. The Book of Morman follows the story of two young newly-graduated morman males in their quest to share the book of morman with the world. I must admit I didn’t crack up as completely as I expected to, there weren’t any times I was completely loosing my crackers (as those who know me, this can happen reasonably often) but I was consistently smiling and laughing throughout the show. I would recommend to anyone who can handle a bit of inappropriate humor, please don’t go if you’re easily offended.
Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition
New Zealand is the major partner in a new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The exhibition is called Oceania and it displays artefacts, objects, art, tapestries, statues and more from many of the islands of Oceania. Anyone with a New Zealand or Pacific Island passport can get in for free. It’s worth a bit of a nosy. There was a lot of neat things on display and it was awesome to see so many people getting amongst Pacific culture and art. As it’s the academy of arts, I felt it was more of a display as opposed to information and story telling, a lot of the artefacts felt out of context and I would’ve liked to know more about how they were used or why or who by. However, it was still interesting to see a display incorporating Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Easter Island, Cook Islands, New Zealand and more all together, and so far from home.
October felt like a slightly more cruisey month for us. I feel like recently it’s been odds and evens with our months; one month is crazy busy, the next is more chill and then crazy busy again. Now we’re cracking into November and it’ll be twenty nineteen before we know it. And most of all it’s only six weeks until my mama and papa swing round to London for a few weeks and I can’t wait! London won’t know what’s hit it.
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