Christchurch Idol

Last night was so much fun. Caroline, a friend from back on the Barge in London is a good mate of Sarah's, the women's worker at St John's. She's over here at the moment coming to the end of a one month sabbatical thing with a bit of holiday thrown in. With my dad being here and Jo going over to Oz and stuff last night was the first time we'd been able to all get together. It was worth the wait.

It started with dinner at Sarah's. Tasty food (balsamic chicken with couscous followed by chocolate brownies and fresh pineapple - actually the pineapple would have worked really well in the balsamic chicken dish, but that's another matter). It was just loads of fun. We laughed so much. It was great to catch up with Caroline properly and hear how she's going and how everyone back on the Barge is doing and stuff as well as being great to spend some time getting to know Sarah better. What I really liked was getting to see another side of them both, a side of them that only exists when they're together. As I say, we laughed so much.

The evening climaxed with a trip into town to the gloriously titled 'Christchurch Idol', a real Japanese-style karaoke bar. One of those ones where you hire a private room to do it rather than embarassing yourself (in my case) in public. An hour and a half later we were all sung out. Solos, duets, a group effort on 'The End of the Road', the evening had it all. A particular highlight was the emotion Caroline poured into 'Sorry seem to be the hardest word'. I was almost quite choked and nearly rather moved. Again, we all laughed so much and were more than a little hoarse by the end of the night. I am glad the machine seemed to reward effort and enthusiasm rather than talent though. At least I think it did. It's the only way I can explain my scores in the high nineties for my Bon Jovi cameo.

This morning Joanne and I got up and headed over to Lyttelton. We'd arranged to meet Tim and Christine over there for a wander around the farmers market and a coffee. It was a nice little place, lots of fresh produce and locally grown and made stuff. Sure it was no Borough Market, but taken for what it is, it did it well. Plus, as a real bonus, we met a butcher there who is willing to make me some Lincolnshire sausages! I have a recipe I found online so all I have to do is phone him on Tuesday to let him know sage and pepper proportions and he'll knock up a 10kg batch, 5kg for us (we had to take 5kg to make it worth his while) and 5kg that he'll take to the market next week to see how they sell. Mmmm, Lincolnshire sausages. I'm drooling just thinking about them.