A comfortable weekend
That's one with things in it but not too much: any weekend unfrantic enough not to have more than one event at once counts in my book.
Saturday morning we lounged and made pancakes. A luxury.
In the afternoon Eleanor had a friend in for lunch and the five of us went to the Science Centre, to check out the shark exhibit, and the demonstrations by the First Lego League and the Underwater Remote-Operated Vehicle team that the university runs. The underwater robot was a hit, since the kids got a chance to drive it via a video-game controller - they had to watch the monitor showing what the robot-mounted camera saw, not the robot itself, and manipulate the controls to pick up rings and drop them onto posts on the bottom of the tank. We met there several other families with similarly-geeky kids (hi John) and they all had their usual good time with the usual displays as well as the features. (The Bernoulli blower has been either removed or disabled, thank goodness: a cool effect, but it sounded like being in a gymnasium with a running airplane.) The only thing that would make that place better would be an overlooking balcony with coffee shop.
In the evening, Bob and I started to tackle the study. That room was the unfortunate recipient of much of the stuff cleared out of the living room to make room for Christmas, and it's back to pre-tidyup state and worse. It will take several more sessions, but since Bob's doing more and more work at home he'd understandably like to be able to turn around in there.
Sunday morning was church as usual, lunch at Bob's folks', and then Jean and I took ourselves off to the LSPU Hall for the sixth annual Young Folk At The Hall concert. (Bob and Jean went to a birthday party.) This is the finale of a two-weekend free workshop run by the St. John's Folk Arts Council for young singers and players of traditional instruments aged about 7 to 17. They randomly group the participants into fours or fives with a slightly older facilitator; the group spends two Saturday afternoons figuring out a few pieces they all know or can learn quickly, and practicing them together to perform in the concert. I offered Jean the chance to participate this year, but she declined, not surprisingly since she hadn't been to such a concert in a few years and was uncertain as to what it was all about. This year, though, there were several of her violin-classmates performing, and every group played at least one tune she could play; they ended with the full ensemble playing "Auntie Mary", in four different keys to suit the keyed instruments! She clapped and sang along as appropriate and really enjoyed herself. She came away wanting to learn "Newfoundland Spring" and "Sweet Forget-Me-Not", which shouldn't give her much trouble. They sell out every year lately (all those parents and grandparents take up a lot of LSPU seats) so get your tickets early next year for the debut performance of a ten-year-old Suzuki fiddler.