Boxing Day. A light lunch outside on the patio followed by a dip in the hot tub.

For dinner barbecued buffalo steak with roast potatoes and parsnips, peperonata and best of all a scrumptious Christmas Pudding hand carried from England by Andy and with some of the finest custard Emma has ever made. Yum.

Watched my christmas present from Emma, Pirates of the Caribbean

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Came home and did the UK 2003 tax forms. Oh joy. We would have submitted them online but found out that once you register you have to wait for a snail-mail hardcopy "activation PIN."

The pool was a bit fresh this morning, 27.5C.

Did not play at all well. Kept getting distracted by runners waving. However on the way home in the car, it came to me that it did not really matter as I had experienced something a bit special. What we did was much closer to the original spirit of Taiko than putting on a stage performance. I am not saying that playing poorly does not dismay me or that I don't want to put on a polished performance, but this was different. This was booming out the village drums to advertise, encourage and celebrate. I saw one guy walking along in the distance. He heard the drums and started to run again. People would come past us tiredly and then grin and wave as the sound of the drums washed over them. And you could hear a single drum half a mile away. I wonder how far it carried when we played all five in synch? Five? Oh yes. After dark, when no one could see, Emma hid in the middle of us and thundered along with the rest of us...

Fue class a bit sad as I had not practiced.

Had lunch with Emma and Mark Rand, a close colleague from Honeywell UK visiting on business. Wonderful to talk about home and abroad and holidays.

Reached 38C/99F yesterday. Fortunately Mark brought a few British clouds with him so it didn't reach a hundred today. Can't last much longer though. Have started using fans and air-conditioning.

But first we went and had lunch at the Coronado Cafe at the corner of Monte Vista and 7th St downtown  Phoenix. We drive past this place every time we go to Taiko class just north of Monte Vista between 10th and 11th). Emma took Marzia and Stefano there and enjoyed it. Now I have too. Excellent simple food and very friendly, competent service in a wonderful "at home" sort of atmosphere. The streets there are wonderful too. Full of small houses in quiet, narrow streets with really well developed gardens featuring lots of mature palm trees.

It is also very close to the Heard which is only a mile from Esther's Taiko dojo. Emma was taking me to the museum to see a firing of pottery. It turned out it was a shaping and painting which was still interesting and we used up some more time taking in the new glass exhibit and the exhibit on the ceramics of Maria Martinez of Santa Clara pueblo. Replete with beauty I was dragged to my trousery doom and an inevitable showdown with back ache. Ah well.

Revisited the first X-Men movie. Still very good. Discovered that Belgian Chocolate Rum cake tastes even better with Belgian Chocolate, Choc-Chip and Rum and Raisin Ice Cream over it :-)

Saw X-Men 2 which was very good, especially Magneto's "Mandor Moment" for Amber afficionados. Dashing from fue class meant we were seated right down at the front which leads to an overpowering and distorted view as the screen fills your field of vision and is at an angle.

Sabakurai, Desert Thunder, 'The Buddhist Ladies' (TM), Tony's students did a set after us and were really sharp. THEY got loud applause! I heard them doing "Silk" and I saw them doing a cool original up-drum piece called "Torai" which means arriving. They had wonderful choreography. Emma didn't catch this because the heat and sun was making her feel quite unwell so she headed for the shade of the Fushicho Daiko booth.

Loaded, delivered and unloaded the drums back to the dojo before retiring 'tired but happy'. Couldn't bear to wait two days for the photos so splurged on one hour developing :-) When we arrived home the pool was soooo inviting and restorative (34 C). Finally able to go in without flinching!

We started an Amber campaign game at our place in the evening! We had huge fun with Troy and Heidi, GM'd by Jeni. I'm hoping to write up a game log.

Surprisingly enjoyed the Californian Sumo demo. They use 'International Sumo' rules rather than the professional Japanese ones. Their ring etiquette was sadly lacking but their technique wasn't bad for amateurs. Only two of them were huge (260 lbs/180kg/18.5 stone) and only one of those was not particularly muscular. In general they seemed quite fit and endearingly enthusiastic. The USA ladies lightweight champion at a hundred and five pounds (less than 48 kilos/7.5 stone i.e. smaller than Emma) and clad in a scoop necked leotard was very fetching :-)  While game and with quite good technique she just could not prevail against the ladies heavyweight champion at a fit and muscular if slightly chunky 170 lbs (77kg/12 stone i.e. just a bit heavier than Murray). They did the usual Jungyo (provincial tour) stunts; technique demos and explanations, comic pre-arranged bouts and hilarious contests against kids which they almost always let the kids win. They did let one twenty year old idiot in the ring and trounced him easily making him look a complete fool, which was all he deserved. The only unattractive thing, apart from the lack of polite bowing, was that they all wore cycling shorts under the mawashi (loincloth) 'in case', which I think just proves they don't know how to tie it properly (or that American audiences are just to too prudish). Mind you, I'm not sure what else the ladies would do. 

Also found a traditional split hanging cloth to cover the top half of a doorway. This is universal in shop doorways. I have no idea if it is traditionally used anywhere in a private home, but it seems just right to adorn the opening between our dining room and kitchen (in the absence of going to ridiculous lengths to set up real shoji!).

All the sumo made us get out and watch an old Sumo tape from the 1990 Aki Basho. Lyall Watson was a stunning commentator.

Walked into Tempe and had dinner with Beth another regular Taiko student. Not only did this mean we were able to try the RA Japanese restaurant but we could also talk without taking time out of a lesson. We shared crabcakes, beef terriyaki and potstickers and interesting deserts; cinnamon ice-cream tempura, coconut creme brulee and apple ginger vanilla custard crisps.

 Spoke on the phone with Marzia and Stefano to plan what to do during their visit. Switched the solar heating for the pool on to see how warm it can get before they arrive. Maybe we can get it to the point where we can boost it to swimmable with the gas heating for a couple of days? Keep fingers crossed.

Having passed a pleasant couple of hours we arrived in time for our real reason, a Taiko workshop, by our sensei, Esther, at the dojo of Taiko Sonora, some of whose players came to workshops in Phoenix before Christmas. It was a beginners workshop but learning a different song. It was a very cheerful affair. It was nice sharing a meal afterwards with Rome and Karen from Tucson and with Esther and Beth.

Received an email from Taiko Masala that our drum has been shipped. The fedex tracking shows that it left New York at 17:30 yesterday and arrived at a New Jersey sorting office an hour later. It left there at 20:30 today. No sign of the Eddie Izzard video yet.

Over dinner watched "The 13th Warrior". Beautifully shot, interesting character ideas, very spooky intro to the evil. Ultimately not a transcendent film because it does not delve into the characters enough and the bad guys are not consistent with the setting and not explained well enough to get away with it. A "must see" for anyone interested in Vikings. Emma thought most of them were very handsome too.

During the week Emma has painted the downstairs hall/corridor white with terracotta arches and one turquoise arch/wall. With the pictures back up it now looks very cool and modern, if you like that sort of thing. Gulp.