Goodnight Vienna

We've been in Vienna, living the bohemian life :-) Vienna state opera was fabulous, highlight was Aida - also a fantastic Steve Reich performance including 'different trains' was a real discovery. Waaayyy too much coffee cake and schnitzel - however if Doug is ever to make it as an opera singer he has to keep eating to realise his true potential.




It was cold in Vienna, again - we had a great time, stayed at The Bristol, frequented the blue bar at the Sacher, and Susan found pandas at the zoo which was surprisingly cool for a zoo. Loads of galleries, fine art.







Here's Doug at the zoo !












And Susan at the Sacher cake !










The opera house - Doug's newest spiritual home !

Douggered

As readers might recall, fellow RM lifers Ben & Sharon are moving to NZ where Ben landed a job with Doug's mate Jan (from Insite)....and in true soap opera tradition neither Ben nor Doug knew about the others' plans to leave RM until more or less the same day...........well.....Ben Sharon and Doug held a combined leaving do last Thurs - great to see many longstanding combatants (from both sides!) from over the years, and thanks so much for the well wishes and turning out :-) Doug had a good time....plenty of beer and the chance to make a noise with some mates :-)

Target played at the leaving do - thanks chaps and chapess - Han is leaving Target too, of course ....and Gareth is leaving RM to work for TTS (which he says is still part of RM but no-one thinks that counts).........it's all so confusing but basically everyone is leaving for a fresh start so there must be something in the water:-)

The pics are from the leaving do at the Jericho in Oxford :-) Credit to Ben/Steve/Sharon for the photos, and a link to Ben & Sharon's photos from the Jericho are in the nav bar on the right - all without permission of course :-)

Good to hear Doug will be remembered at RM, at least for the new english verb 'dougger' which means " to take apart crudely and leave in parts, some of which are lost or detroyed" e.g " my tablet PC has been douggered" - though credit to Neil J for inventing the term. Swines.

NYE retro

Here's a flashback to last NYE at The Bays' gig www.thebays.com the band wot Doug keeps raving on about. This gig was in a St James St basement - can Doug be in The Bays please ? Anyway here's a photo of Doug in t'crowd and Andy Gangadeen (clue Doug's not wearing the orange hat)....Andy surely is a stonking fine drummer and let's face it we have seen a few :-))

Doesn't cost anything to register on the bays website, so just do it :-))

Amish waiting for a bus ???

......rarer than 'a nude nun on horseback' by some fair margin, here's a group of Amish peeps waiting for a bus outside San Diego zoo -)..... just keeps getting better !!



Susan discovered the voyeurs' way to skip the crowd and still see the world famous San Diego panda cub.......... and Doug discovered that a pig of beauty really is a joy forever :-)

















Now we're back in the UK for Doug's mum's knee operation:-( but the op went well hoorah ! The NHS is very grim, we suggest you try to avoid being sick until it's all sorted out. Perhaps everyone should spend one night on a NHS ward, or in the zoo whatever......