The Von Trapp Singers...

Last Saturday night Stuart I watched the gayest event of the year. No, not Eurovision. It was The Von Trapp Singers as presented by Pink Martini at the Barbican Hall in London's glitzy Barbican Centre.

We were intrigued to see what Pink Martini had done with the singing quartet - the great grand children of those mountain climbing Austrians.

We didn't wonder long. The every youthful Von Trapp Singers were great. Beautiful close harmony pop songs sung in French, Japanese, Rwandan, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish, oh and English. Fab.

Naturally we were treated to a sprinkling of songs from The Sound Of Music too but these were only some of the highlights among many others. In wasn't just a night of cover versions either. The only boy in the troupe August had written some new songs. And these were all pretty damned good.

During the performance we kept catching their eyes. Maybe because we were front row middle, three feet away and applauding rather too wildly for rather too long.

Icing on the cake was a guest appearance by Meow Meow. She all but stole the show.

They even did a nod to Eurovision at the end and sang Abba's Fernando. In Swedish.

Great grand mother Maria would have been proud.

Jen and Maurice Wedding...

On Friday we headed off for a long weekend in Ireland. Jen and Maurice were getting married in the beautiful Kilronan Castle.

We drove from Dublin for three hours and got wonderfully lost en route. It was well worth the drive though - the castle was fab and there were amazing views across the loch.

The wedding was just perfect. No detail had been unattended too - the full Catholic Mass ceremony was complimented by both Maori chanting and west African singing. The reception was delightful and the weather perfect. Five course silver service, great speeches and a live band made the day complete.

On Sunday we headed back to Dublin to drop off our hire car. Whilst waiting at Dublin Airport Terminal 2 the tannoy sprang into life, "This an announcement for Jedward. Will Jedward please stop representing us at Eurovision. Thank you." Got a big laugh and a cheer.

Eurovision 2011...

Stuart and Luca kindly invited us - and a bunch of other Eurovision fans - to watch the show on Saturday night. They laid on the nosh and booze, we brought the thinly disguised xenophobic mumblings. All great fun. Blue sadly lost. Azerbaijan won. We had a rollicking good time.