Marlon

There’s a ‘Heat Alert’ on this weekend in Seattle. Today’s temperature is set to be 32 degrees Celsius, and yesterday was not much cooler. With the night sky starting to lighten just before 4am it is good to get up early to tackle the chores, or in our case sightseeing, before the heat of the day. I am often surprised that the temperature peaks around 5pm and not nearer to ‘midday’ – one day soon I will google why that is! Yesterday morning’s walk with HG was a stunner – we walked down to Lake Washington about 10 minutes’ walk from our apartment, and then followed the road to Groat Point – about half an hours walk. Most of the houses along this stretch of road on the Lake side have jetties with boats attached to them. The houses are grand as are the gardens so it was the perfect sightseeing walk on a gorgeous morning. As happens a lot of time HG and I are together, and especially now we have no TV, a wee competition arose! It usually starts off with me making a statement (in this case me pointing to a plant saying ‘Nandina’) and HG retorting wittily (in this case pointing to a Birch and saying ‘tree’). Then we get serious ……. and I usually let him win. Although in this case I can safely say my knowledge of plant botanical names, or mores the point his lack of knowledge of botanical names, saw me getting first in this particular competition.

At Groat Point we turned left down a small cul-de-sac to find an architecturally designed home with the most amazing waved roof on the waterfront, overlooking Lake Washington with Mt Rainier in the distance – just stunning. Googling the values of homes in this area I found this particular property sold for USD15,250,000 in 2011 – the house on it then demolished to make way for this new one! That would make todays Zillow valuation of it USD29,776,641 just a bit meaningless! I’m thinking selling Real Estate in Medina would be a great job!!

Still, money doesn’t always make you happy – but seeing Marlon Williams in concert at the Neptune Theatre does! I am so pleased I got a bit cheeky and emailed him asking if he had spare tickets to his fully booked show! To be fair it wasn’t ‘his’ show but Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop’s last night at the colorful Neptune Theatre. But being the ‘guest’ on their show didn’t stop Marlon Williams (and his amazing bass playing partner Ben Woolley) getting a standing ovation at the end of his set. This boy from Lyttelton just gets better and better, and how could you not love him with his voice a mix of Elvis Presley and an angel, and his humbling and quiet stage presence.

When Marlon said “Hi, I’m Marlon Williams from Christchurch, New Zealand” HG shouted a big loud “Yeah!!” Ssssshhhhh I whispered feeling a bit embarrassed by his outburst. However, I did notice I didn’t get the same retort from HG when I accidently yelled a big ‘wooohooo’ and clapped for a bit too long after he’d finished one of my favourite songs! Of course, we sang along to all Marlon’s songs knowing most of the words, until I had to remind HG and myself that the audience hadn’t paid good money to come hear us sing – so we quietened down. No doubt by that stage the audience around us would have known that we knew Marlon well …….. it’s just a shame Marlon has no idea who we are!