Animal Instincts

One thing that Gemma and Dan left us with before heading back to the UK was a pair of tickets to King Kong, a musical production of the classic tale of a giant ape running amok in New York city.  The show has been advertised by the Regent theatre since we arrived in Australia over a year ago, but the show did not open until a week before our settlement and it was the day before settlement that we got to go.  We arrived early as our tickets came with a free cocktail, which I have to confess I broke my abstinence for, it was only a couple of sips so it wouldn't have done any harm, but I do feel a little disappointed that I couldn't manage the whole 9 months completely alcohol free.  I didn't really know what to expect from the show before we went in, although I knew the story of King Kong, I had tried to avoid reading any reviews to reduce the risk of forming any preconceived expectations.  King Kong does not have the best story and the music was good in parts, but it was certainly not the most amazing musical score.  Despite all this I was still suitably impressed the King Kong "puppet", controlled by a massive team of puppeteers moved with a surprising amount of realism, and the animatronic face gave a real sense of emotion.  The thing which really brought the show to life was not the puppet, but the lighting.   The sets themselves were quite basic and very abstract, but by using a unique series of lighting affects the mood and atmosphere was made tangible.

Lucky

We have been in our new house now for 2 weeks and everything is pretty much set up, all our boxes have been unpacked, the majority of the pictures are on the walls and it already looks like we have been living here for years.  So now we can seriously start considering our options for pets, and to help us get used to the idea, we spent the last two nights looking after Sam and Tsaf's dog Lucky while they spent the time down the Mornington Peninsula.  Even though it was only two days it was so nice to have him waiting for me when I got home from work, taking him for  walks and curling up with him on the sofa.  I am now looking forward to getting our own pets even more than ever.