In Vietnam

We're enjoying some time in Vietnam right now and finding it to be a really interesting country to discover. We appreciate the warm welcome wherever we go and are looking forward to the concert in Saigon tomorrow evening - the main purpose of our trip!

Here, we are standing in Hue, with the Perfume River in the background. Read and see more pictures in Gill's day to day blog, An Elegant Sufficiency - link in side bar.

Long time no post

It's been a busy couple of months. Since we returned from Antwerp, we've been on our travels again.Gillie and Edna spent a wet week on the shores of Lake Maggiore, where they met Tonie, Peter and Kathy for lunch and enjoyed catching up with them.

We spent a great evening hearing Edward sing in the Grosvenor chapel, London. Sadly, he can't continue with this superb choir due to the commitments of his new job.

The day after the concert, we flew to Chicago, one of our favourite cities and spent a great time there.

Next stop was the Big Sky country of Montana, quite a contrast after all those skyscrapers. Yellowstone was wonderful.

Further west then, to Sea Ranch, a community on the coast north of San Francisco near Gualala, where we spent happy and relaxing days with our good friend Mary Valentine. We loved our magnificent house - well, not ours, of course, but that of mutual friend Elizabeth - which overlooked the sea and had the most amazing views.

We couldn't leave California without some time in our favourite place - Santa Monica. We spent more happy days with Mary, pootling around familiar haunts and hanging out with friends.

We are now at home for a while, allowing a short time for our Vietnamese visas to be issued. Yup, we're off again next month!

More photos and further details on our SmugMug pages and in Gill's Elegant Sufficiency blog.

In Antwerp

One of Raff's symphonies will be played tonight, so here we are!

Stuart Singers on tour

We took a familiar route to join the Stuart Singers in the Netherlands, where they were singing together with a couple of other choirs for a concert to celebrate the liberation in 1945. We sailed over on The Pride of Hull to Rotterdam and joined them in Arcen, a pretty little town in Limburg.

The weather was fantastic and small, impromptu performances in the De Locht open-air museum and in the grounds of Arcen castle were very well received, as was the main concert in Wanssum. We also enjoyed some fantastic food at De Boogaard and De Hamert and, since it's May, plenty of Asparagus!

Happy Easter!

We are spending Easter in New York, where quite a few people chose to dress up for their morning walk along 5th Avenue and where there was a flurry of snow this afternoon. Brrrrr.