The Inbetweener

This won't be a huge entry - it's a Blog of the inbetween time - between the two adventures - the South Island and Europe, rather than the tag on or lead into the main stories. The title is a reference to the British sitcom/now movies "The Inbetweeners".

In May -we started our rehearsals for Open All Hours. It was an interesting exercise as being a minor part meant I didn't always have to be there, and when I did I would only be required for about ten minutes and then the rest of the time was watching and keeping myself busy with going through my junk mail etc

I'd been keen for a while to check out an Armageddon expo, and in May there was one in Hamilton at the Claudelands events centre. I had a stroke of luck while I was lining up for a ticket, and was given a free one by a stranger - I think they'd bought a group pass or something as it was cheaper, but had more tickets than people.

When I got in, I had a quick look at who was speaking, as at other expos, such as travel expos that I go to, they always seem to be good value. I saw fairly shortly that Mark Hadlow was speaking soon (as he has recently been in The Hobbit series). I'm not a huge LOTR fan, but since I knew who he was and remember him from his days with Billy T James I thought he'd be a good one to listen to. At one point a guy instead of asking him a question, thanked him for the good times and being part of our childhoods, with Billy T etc. it felt a bit naff, but I shared his sentiment, along with probably most of the room.

I subsequently then went about looking around the rest of the expo. Admittedly it wasn't really my thing, as it was a lot of comic book/graphic novel type stuff and characters etc that I wasn't familiar with - not a whole lot of computer games etc, and what was there was held in a monopoly of 13yo boys. There was the odd cool thing, such as a dalek, and the odd cool costume. In October a friend Bevan and I are planning to go to the one in Auckland as Richard Dean Anderson (who played Macgyver, as well as a character in SG1) is coming. Around this time Bevan and I had been helping each other learn lines, as he is in a production of Grease.

 That night there was a talk on at church entitled "God in a brothel". I went along, it was good. Sometimes it was a little awkward listening to it - basically this guy is a NZ Police Officer who ended up helping an international task force to infiltrate sex trafficking rings. He would have to pose as someone interested in bringing over more friends. In some ways it was cool and sounded very James Bond-like, but I would imagine you'd also have a constant sick feeling, and possibly a worry that you might get a feel for it. 

As per usual if late, June found me going to the Fieldays at Mystery Creek. I decided that I would catch the free bus that the council was putting on out there as things like that should be encouraged, even though it was debatable whether it was more convenient. It also gave me some exercise getting out to the main road, along with the walking around once I was there. From memory there wasn't any great highlight this year, I just cruised for some free bits of food etc.

June also began my serious campaign on Flatmate finding. Admittedly it was a lot harder than I thought it would be, I guess partially because I thought my house would compare favourably to others in the area. There probably wasn't a huge demand either.

House of Travel had an expo, which is always good to go to- I couldn't spend heaps of time there, such as listening to all the speakers - as I had a rehearsal to get to, but I did pick up some information which was good.

Like I was saying, I had a rehearsal to go to, which also involved helping construct the set for Open All Hours. This was actually kind of enjoyable, it took me back to my treehut building days as a youth. It was also satisfying as all of a sudden our set had taken shape, and there was no more pretending where doors and stuff were.

July

The bulk of July was performing Open All Hours, and surviving otherwise. It was a fun play to be in, albeit a little lonely as due to the nature of the cast, and that most were only in one of the two acts and therefore would arrive later or leave early - bonding hadn't occurred as much as it usually would have.

Later in the month I went to a China evening put on by Air New Zealand Holidays. It was interesting but long, and too be honest, I don't have a huge desire to visit China again, I guess I was motivated as I am interested in visiting Hong Kong and Macau, especially after talking with someone at the House of Travel expo.

The first few weeks of August were basically me running around like a headless chicken. Mum and Dad went to Vanuatu on holiday, I finally found a flatmate, I had to get sorted for my trip, and on top of that I ended up with a really bad cough - I believe it is bronchitis. So I was a little stressed.