Sing For Water

Went with a group of friends to a free concert in the Brisbane botanical gardens last night to celebrate the end of another RiverFestival. The concert was made up of a mass choir of about 450 voices from 19 different choirs from around southeastern Queensland, including the Brisbane Lesbian and Gay Choir...who all looked fantastic donning bandanas during their individual performance to create a glittering rainbow of colour!

Other performers included the Briscoe Sisters, a trio from Far North Queensland (FNQ), Troy, Trevelyn and the Tribe, which featured a traditionally decorated Aboriginal man playing the didgeridoo and a Zimbabwean woman as co-singer with the Aboriginal lead guitarist.

The drawcard performer was the lovely Kate Cebrano. The aim of the concert was to celebrate the role of the river in Brisbane's life and the importance of water to us all. It was also a fundraiser for WaterAid, funding and supporting water projects in Papua New Guinea.

A fantastic evening, wonderful talent and, of course, with a name like Sing For Water, what did it do half way through Kate's set but start to rain!!!

Thresholds

I took this picture in Bhaktapur, Nepal as part of a photographic essay I'm working on based on doors and windows in Nepal. Check out my website at www.geocities.com/ldimmock for more photos of my travels in Nepal

A spring in the step

Smithy got the all-clear last week from the chiropracter to start walking more frequently, so to celebrate we headed off to do what we call the Kangaroo Point Circuit, a slightly more arduous walk than what we have been doing, and incorporates a 106-step staircase cut into the cliffs. We had gone no more than 100 metres when I fell into a grass-hidden hole and sprained my ankle!

Ouch! Hobbled home and applied an ice-pack. A week later, it still is not happy. Grrr! It's been one damn thing after another for both Smithy and me. Good job we still have 12 months before embarking on our big Himalayan adventure! We gonna need all the time we can get to get back into peak condition!

We bought a small home gym resistence machine on Saturday and had a fun time slotting Part A into Section 3 and tightening with Bolt z! It all looks very impressive and at least I can work on my quads and biceps whilst waiting for the ankle to heal.

We also bought a wind-up torch each. Fantastic idea! No batteries required! We first saw them advertised in the New Internationalist catalogue as part of a range of items, including radios, that all work on the wind-up concept. Revolutionary technology for developing countries! People don't have to worry about affording batteries, or disposing of them. We bought ours from Bunnings Hardware. 1 minute spent winding gives 30 minutes continuous light. Just the thing for those late night dashes from tent or lodge room to the dunny!