More from the hills

Here is Steve examining a hole dug by wild hogs, they are angry wee fellahs and like eating roots, which is unfortunate for all the native plants. All these feral animals, cats, fox's, pigs etc were all introduced when white men came to oz and are responsible for destroying nearly 80% of native wildlife.

Pigs mark their territory by scraping teh bark off trees with their tusks, this one was as high as my knee, just to give you an idea of the size of these pigs!

Here is part of a pig trap we built. The pigs get in and cant get out, then Steve has to come down and sort them out.

A day out on the farm....

So, the other day i went up to a national wildlife sanctuary to hang out with a buddy for a day and see a bit of the ozzie countryside. It is a national sanctuary of native plants and animals so Steve's job is to control weeds, fox's, feral cats, rabbits, wild pigs and goats as these animals compete and are slowley destroying the native plants and animals.

Here is the view from his front garden, he lives on the land, which is approx 5000 hectares of bush and nearly 18kms of riverside, which he has to patrol regularly and set traps etc.

Here i am with a 263 calibre rifle, it goes BANG and can accurately take out a rabbit from nearly a kilometre. Steve has to be really careful with this as if he misses, the bullet will keep travelling and is dangerous for another 4-5 kms.

Paul Potts Gig

The Paul Potts gig went well, we were playing along to a backing track so I sounded like 14 viola players, and we were on stage so we had to smile and look interested, which was a HUGE change from 3 months of slouching away in the pits of Saigon. He did a great job, very down to earth and sime nice jokes between numbers. This was the big one, Nessun Dorma, the crowd went nuts for that one.

Doggy facilities

Just a quick post, check this out. Its a water fountain for people, then a little one for dogs, they think of everything over here.

how (NOT) to promote yourself in 1 easy step....

Welllll, it all started like this. Jane and Ann and I went to a really great jazz gig last night, everybody who is anybody in the perth jazz scene was there including this guy, James Flynn, who i am gigging with in a few months. So, after the gig and a few beverages we were waiting to get a cab outside and James was walking to his car so i tactically intercepted him, introduced myself, complimented his work, informed him that i was booked to play with him as part of a string section in a few weeks in the burswood and asked if i could have a few kick-ass viola solos during his set (verbatim). He was pretty cool about it all, informed me pretty much that hell would freeze over before he would alter his arrangements, took my card and escaped the beer enlightened midnight carpark rantings of a crazy irish violaplayer.

de hounds

Its been a few weeks since i posted the lads, so here is Reilly and Fionn in their favourite perch, the doorway between the kitchen and the bar.

Hot piece of grass

Check this out, its Adam with a pallet of grass, and below we see him modeling his new lawn around the side of his house, (note outdoor kegerator to the right)

This has inspired us to fix up our front garden, i kinda killed it a few months back. It was getting kinda overgrown and we dont have a lawnmower so we hired the local mowing dude to have a whack at it, he did a grand job then recomended that we feed'n'weed it before his next visit, so off i went to the local DIY store, picked up a 4 litre container of the good stuff and went nuts, sprayed it everywhere, then i read the side of the bottle "do not use on buffalo grass", sure what are the odds of me having buffalo grass, thinking that there are loads of different types, well, there are 3 types of grass in australia and yup, you guessed it, i had the buffalo. So its been about 6 months and now that the winter is coming there should be some rain to help the ol garden get back to its former splendour.

Saigon Snaps

Just went through my phone and came across a few photos from a few weeks ago. This starbucks poster was up on the noticeboard outside the actors dressingrooms on the last week of the show.

One night a lady with her 8 month infant sat right behind the conductor, and he had them moved as he anticipated much wailing and other baby noises/smells SO the following night we had this doll at large in the pit, here it is conducting before the show.

Images from the last curtain call, after the bows the main actor thanked the sponsors and producers etc, then everyone started flinging coloured streamers about the place, this is my view from the pit of the streamers suspended on the safety net.

More of mgt river

This was the routine, get up and have breakfast in the nearest village, then hit a few wineries. They all close arounf 4-5ish so we would aim to be arriving in the last winery of the day around 330ish so have a meal. This one was our favourite. Cullen winery had the best food of the entire trip, you could taste every ingredient. It was incredible.

The routine in every vinyard is the same, you rock up to the counter, taste a few wines, then decide on which one(s) you would like to buy. This place (mad fish) is al old favourite of ours, for its lovely wine and also for this wee fellah, Hamish the wine dog. We have a calender of dogs at home, each dog is from a different winery in the area, Here is Jane with Mr. May.

Driftwood, another fine winery. We arrived late in the day so we missed the food, but the cheese and wine was enough for us at that stage

Holiday Snaps

Jane and I headed down to Margaret River for a week after the show finished and we had a fantastic time exploring all the vinyards in the area. Here are some pictures of sunset on the evening we arrivedHere is some dudes fishing by sunset.

And here is the sun setting behind the ridge

drive in cinema

Ok, the photos are terrible, but you get the idea. We went to a drive in cinema one night of our holidays, it was great! We drive right up the front and tuned our radio into the cinema frequency and we watched 2 films. It was just like going to the regular cinema except we were in our own 'cinema pod' with control over the temperature and volume.

More photos

Here is the bootleg brewery, one of the few non wine producing vendors in the Margaret River area. Nice beer, not even close to teh domestic high standards of Charlsberg brewery though.....

And yes, we popped into that deer shop again, and no i didnt crack the "are the sausages dear" joke.

Here is a view from Wills winery, 150 acres of grapes. Thats a lotta pickin'

And another favourite of ours, Amberley. Fine wines and again, amazing food.

more holiday snaps

Here we are in driftwood estate enjoying some cheese and wine

Here is the only place we went to that didnt serve booze! They make olive oil, in many varieties, tasty stuff! Here is Jane in an olive tree

And below, another highly recommended winery Voyager Estate, lovely wine, great venue, our second favourite after Cullen. It was raining that day, and we arrived right in the middle of a downpour, yes thats right guys, it rains here occasionally. Apparrantly tis the wettest April in 25 years.

The Fall of Saigon

It finally ended. The curtain closed on 3 months of asian rock opera last sunday night. It was a fantastic run, with lots of laughs and thousands of dollars worth of crotchets. Here is a picture of the pit crew backstage before the final performance. Jane and I took off to Margaret River (wine region of western australia) the following for a week, hence the lack of bloggery so watch this space for details...

Cork Youth Orchestra

You probably know that the CYO (Cork Youth Orchestra, the primordial soup that has been a springboard for most of the best musicians ever to come out of cork) is 50 years old this year and is having a few anniversary events. The first will be on April19th in City Hall. All past members are invited back. There are over 100 of the past members who will play for a 20 minute slot in City Hall along with the current members of the orchestra lead by Daniel Lehane under the baton of Tomás and then Terry is going to take the reigns of the Junior CYO, the evening will be hosted by the hardest working woman in showbusiness since James Brown bit the big one in '06, and one of my heros, Evelyn Grant. The programme has all the favourites, Mars and Jupiter from The Planets, Pirates of the Caribbean, a bit of Tchaik (who remembers all the words that Brian Murphy thought us all those years ago...) and of course my personal favorite, The Dambusters March. I have great memories of my first time playing that ditty in a concert somewhere in kerry, picture the scene, back desk of violas with Eoin Schmidt-Martin, sitting right in front of the trombones who were particularly generous with their supply of "condensation spray" from their instruments, by the time we were on the last few lines, the sheet music was drenched and all the ink had ran down the page rendering it illegible so we made up the ending. ALSO not to forget all the sing-songs on the busses and staying up late sneaking out the the pub AND there was that time when Eoin and me got in serious trouble for taking banjo style solo's during a 4 bar rest of jesus christ superstar, happy days. There is a website here and here if you want to contact the orchestra to wish them happy birthday OR to sign up for a tune or two. Keep an eye out for the mother and daughter desk of violins too, my mom and sis are signing up for a play. Happy Birthday CYO!

Overdue update

Well blogfans, just another week of this show then normal service shall resume. In the meantime here is a quick update of a gig we did last week. It was a 12 hour wedding. Yup, 12. We played the ceremony in Kings Park, then went off to fremantle to set up the rig at the hotel. Here it is below. When the guests arrived we stood in anothe rroom and played about 30 mins if instrumental stuff, then came into the ballroom and sat and played for their meal. Then after the meal we did the full band gig then after all that we got to DJ the party for another 2 hours. It was hilarious!!!! It was all going normal, then around about 1130 we decided it was Hammertime, much shenannigans ensued including a full on boys vs girls dance off, cartwheels, full lenght of the dance floor knee slides, kung fu fighting, the works. It was the best fun we have had in ages. I ran the whole gig from the laptop, with the other laptop as backup in case anything microsofty happened AND i think i have finally found a gig easier than playing the viola!

Heres the settup, we had to play different entrance music for each couple of the bridal party and the bride and groom robot-walked in to intergalactic planetary by the beastie boys. Classy!

Other than that all i have been doing is teaching and playing this asian rock opera so nothing much has happenned in the last few weeks other than that. Highlights of the next few weeks include, 2 weeks of total bliss as I hang up the ol viola for a fortnight and take it nice and easy, then a gig with Paul Potts (another link here) in the burswood followed by another with ozzie jazz crooner James Flynn, then back to regular giggery with the band so this years "gig of the year" competition is already off to a good start