A BUSY FEW DAYS...

Our flight from Luton was an hour late, which meant we had a slightly frantic flat-out drive from Milan to Genova, meeting the post-work rush hour traffic around the Port at just the wrong moment. The Palazzo Ducale is a wonderful building, with a high ceiling and marble floor, so the long horns were in their element. We managed to unload, go up three floors, unpack and get the sound-check done in about 30 minutes, which is probably some sort of record. The Festival Director, who was planning to read our introductions, had to hand the job to his brother at the last minute due to losing his glasses, but all was well and we discovered a mis-translation which has been in all the introductions since they were first done, which is helpful to know! There were around 300 people in the audience, who were all very enthusiastic, and our only real problem was the heat, which was extreme and made life pretty uncomfortable for the dancers. A picnic dinner in the resplendent surroundings of the Palazzo Ducale and then to our hotel where we were welcomed by the proprietor and shown to really lovely rooms: only sad that we had so little time inside them! We were in our rooms by around half past midnight, and up and back in the minibus for the drive back to Milan by 6.15am! The flight was on time on the way back to Luton, and the transfer went smoothly. After a motorway service station lunch, we arrived at the Royal National Hotel for His Holiness the Dalai Lama's birthday celebrations, organised by the Tibetan Community in Britain. It was a great evening, with speeches, dances by the children and older groups and chanting by the monks, finishing with a performance of Shanak - the Black Hat Dance - using for the first time the new costumes brought from India this year. Speakers included Sogyal Rinpoche, Satish Kuman, Alex Norman and Alison Reynolds, and after the formal part of the evening, we were given a delivious dinner. We left for home before the real business of the evening (Tibetan dancing!) began in earnest, and reached the Round House by about 1am. It's good to have had a rest day today ready for our trip to the Channel Islands tomorrow. We are well and truly on tour now!

At last by 6.30pm it was cool enough to do some rehearsals in the garden for Italy. This is a great group. Tomorrow we visit Gaunts House to set up one of the tents, and on Friday we leave for Genoa with six of the monks - those who have got their Schengen visas.