I'm back

SORRY to have been away for so long, but I'm not really sure who reads this anyway. It will be brief unfortunately.

The trip was wonderful -- P&B and I drove from Melbourne staying at Port Fairy and Beachport before hitting the Coorong. There we stayed at accommodation run by the local aboriginal people; it was magnificently situated on a promontory and, apart from the wind in the evening, was a terrific place to stay. We used it as a jumping off point for exploring the area: we saw lots of bird life and even a couple of pink lakes (really).

The Ring was superb; Elke Neidhart's production was very intelligent and taking notice of the text and stage directions (which many productions don't) without being conservative. The orchestra played like gods and the singing, with very few exceptions, was outstanding. In particular Lisa Gasteen was wonderful (I'm running out of superlatives here).

Adelaide was hot (as it was the last time, and for Parsifal) but we managed to keep cool and had some lovely picnics in the intervals. We also had a trip to the Barossa on Tuesday where we managed to track down Torbreck winery and buy some bottles of a wine we had tried and enjoyed at Cicciolina.

Then on Friday we left and headed east reaching Newstead around 7.30pm. We stayed there until this morning and I arrived home this afternoon, being greeted by Kate at the door. She seems to have enjoyed herself -- I really appreciate her staying.

While I was away the modem for the ADSL arrived (it's now up and running) and messages were left from a couple of people about replacement of equipment and DVDs after the burglary which I will look into tomorrow.

More soon.