Tech talk with Kath

We all slept in and breakfasted late this morning, then went into town on a shopping expedition - well, it was so for Kath, Anto and Rhiannon, as their usual busy work schedule rarely permits such an outing into nearby Coventry, Leamington, or Birmingham. So, bank holiday Monday shopping is on the to-do list, even if there's no urgency to purchase. It's leisure for those who often shop on-line.

While the others took the bus, Kath and I walked in together through the park, taking the opportunity to talk about future Wiggledance plans. They are putting together a project in which they'll work with a research scientist investigating the nature of touch. Dance is an activity which involves a great deal of physical contact between participants, and touch is such an important element in healthy bonding between parents and children. Wriggledance specialises in working with young children in dance, so all sorts of possibilities will emerge as the project develops.

She also told me about her recent experience of becoming an Apple Mac user with her co-director Lucy, as a result of their 'Colours of Me' show. This made use of video projectors driven by software written only for the Mac, requiring the company to procure Mac Minis, which both of them can now use for administrative purposes, in between times. As a small scale arts enterprise they've acquired free Microsoft Office 365 software for the Mac, as this gives them the scale of on-line storage they need for their work. She's delighted with how it all works, now she's got used to the Apple keyboard layout.

The downside of the Mac is that her physical PC back-up drives aren't compatible with the Mac without paying for additional software patches. She still has to rely upon her Windows 10 Acer laptop when she's out and about, and can back up to that from OneDrive cloud storage. You can't be too careful, when there's so much at stake. Despite being reasonably equipped, Windows 10 on the Acer is still a source of frustration to her, because of the latency of some of its file system read and write operations. This had been my experience too. I'm not surprised so many business users don't want to upgrade from Windows 7. It was quicker.

We met up for coffee and a light lunch at the Queen Street Costa Coffe shop, then went to the clothes shops. I took myself off to hunt for a sun-hat to take to Spain with me, as I left the one I usually wear in the Winzerkeller we visited in Rüdesheim last week. I found a suitable white cotton cap of a design I feel at ease in wearing in TK Maxx, after fruitless visits to several other stores. By this time it was drizzling, so I took a 61 bus home, which arrived conveniently, given the diminished holiday service only minutes after reaching the stop.

The others arrived home a short while after me, then Kath, Anto and Rhiannon left for Kenilworth, leaving us to ponder on a happy family weekend, and start thinking about our next travels. I have some flights to book for locum assignments in Montreux and Mojacar, for later in the year.

Colourful dance performance in Warwick

We were out and about bright and early this morning, driving to Warwick University Arts Centre to see the latest Wriggledance Theatre production entitled 'The Colour of Me', which has been devised and co-produced by our Kath and her colleague Lucy, with all the music making, sound effects, both live and recorded from Anto. They are now a third of the way through a tour which takes them to venues all over England, and this has been our first opportunity to see it. When they toured with their first production, a couple of years ago, we didn't get to see it until the very last show, so it was good to be able to share their early pleasure and excitement, with their new creation.

We were blessed with fine weather to travel in both directions. To avoid delays from threatened road works on the Worcester bypass, and ensure arriving in good time, we took a different route from the M50 junction near Strensham, going south three miles to the A46 to Stratford via Evesham instead of north to the A422 turning to Stratford outside Worcester, as we've habitually done for the past fifteen years. It's a quicker road and slightly shorter and easier to drive. The A422 is definitely 'the pretty way' passing as it does through the landscape of 'The Archers' mis-en-scene, but it's a slow slow road in any weather. At a fairly relaxed pace, we arrived in the same time as our usual route takes us to Kenilworth. Amazing, it's taken so many years for me to try an alternative route.

Warwick Arts centre was very crowded, due to a weekend of family arts events taking over the entire building. The multi story car almost full, so it was just as well we got there early enough to spend time hunting for a parking space on every one of the six parking levels. Old fashioned parking space sizes, the abundance of oversized modern saloons and SUVs in this part of the world made it extra difficult. I found a space one floor down from the top, big enough for an ancient Golf to manoeuvre into, not  big enough for a more modern vehicle. Interesting that moans about the size of car parking spaces has been in the national news this week, with excuses from manufacturers, but no serious debate about what can be done either to re-size spaces, make larger car parks, or take steps to reduce the number of vehicles congesting and polluting our environment.

'The Colour of me' is a beautifully crafted hour long exploration of primary colours and the near universal association they have with human emotions, through dance and music. It's both simple and profound, as accessible to parents as it is to young children, the target audience. It makes use of state of the art stage lighting technology to create a stage for an interactive event. I was impressed to see so many under fives relaxed, absorbed and involved in the performance. There was little of the restlessness one might normally associate with a group of children in this age group, being asked to sit of their own free will and watch a performance.

The words 'enchanting' and 'magical' will arise when people think about describing this performance, but what's so wonderful is that this doesn't dominate. It's just a means to create a playful environment that relates to children's real experience. With minor linguistic tweaks it could be taken to any country on earth and appeal to children and their parents. Needless to say, we're immensely proud that our Kath and Anto are part of the core creative team which has made this innovative production possible.

After a quick lunch with Kath and Anto in between performances, we set out for Cardiff again, and reached home as the sun was setting, giving us a complete evening to relax, cook a meal and watch the latest Scandi crime drama on BBC Four before turning in, tired but happy, after a wonderful trip.