Beyond the Barricade

Tonight we are going to the Fairfield Halls in Croydon to see a musical theatre concert "Beyond the Barricade". We have been three or four times over the years and never tire as the concert is so good and they keep up to date with new musicals.

Yesterday Andy popped into Tunbridge Wells and bumped into his old friend David Fawcett and they had a bit of a natter and Dave asked if we fancied coming along to a show. Andy and Dave have known each other since they played football together in their teens (so a very long time!) and they used to share an office together. Dave produces and performs in the show.

When he was starring in Les Miserables as Valjean in Manchester we went up to see the show for my 30th birthday (just a couple of years back then!) and it was fantastic to see him in the lead role. After the show we went out for supper with the whole cast which was great fun. We also went with friends to London to see the show when he was playing the lead there. Our friends really enjoyed the experience and were almost more excited to be travelling home on the train with Dave than actually being in the theatre. They had so many questions for him.

So, I'm really looking forward to this evening as we haven't seen the show for a few years now. We used to go along when it was in its infancy and they were just doing it for charity at very local venues so it's nice that we've seen it develop over the years. After the show we'll go for a drink with David and as usual I can bombard him with questions about theatre gossip and who's getting all the best roles etc. I also love chatting about the technicalities of singing etc.



Here's a link to their website for anyone interested. I really do recommend a trip to this show if you get the chance. In the videos tab there's a Youtube clip to give you a taste.

http://www.beyondthebarricade.com/mainframe.html

The dogs are nice and tired so hopefully they won't mind us leaving them for an evening. They had a good long walk this morning and Kizzle has been training this afternoon. I was actually allowed to go and watch her training session and I'm really impressed with what they've been up to over the Christmas holiday. Her weaves are looking brilliant, she is picking up entries from all over the place and is about 98% proofed on completing the weaves properly as well. She is looking really good and I want her - NOW.

Abbey is feeling very tired, she has had some extra long walks over the holiday which is good because it helps with her appetite. However, she was a bit ploddy this morning so I think she'll be glad to get back to the slightly shorter walks next week (i.e. 1 hour instead of 2!)

We took some extra time off over Christmas/New Year and won't be opening the office until Monday. Apart from Dogs in Need we didn't have a holiday last year due to house moving and building works so we decided to have two weeks off now. Can't believe where those two weeks have gone. Andy is not looking forward to opening the office on Monday.

I have had an extra present - a new PC. It has a huge monitor which is lovely. At the moment I'm in the process of transferring all the data etc. and then I will have to do the same with Andy's old PC onto my old one so he is getting an update as well. My old PC is only about 2 years old so he'll be getting a much better machine than he's got now. It's amazing how you keep thinking of extra things to do. I thought I'd done a pretty exhaustive audit on the old machine but things keep cropping up that I've forgotten about. Also lots of my drivers are out of date for various applications as they were for Windows 2000 or XP and now I've got VISTA so you have to visit the various web sites and download the correct drivers. It's good fun but at the moment I can't see an end to it and I haven't even started on the business data!