guilty....or not guilty?

On 10 March, I was called to the lovely Hamilton District Court for Jury Duty. They had 2 cases for the week. Of course, much to my boss' disgust, I got on the 5 day trial. AND of course, it wasn't to be. It got extended to Monday 17th, as they were delayed on the Thursday. Everyone always asked if we found him guilty. Not so easy to say. There were 3 of them, 15 charges, which required about 25 verdicts. The Police did reasonably good work with the evidence, so there were only 3 Not Guilties.

On to more positive things, my Easter break was lovely! I went to Tauranga to catch up with my Uncle Mark and his wife, who were visiting Mum from Christchurch. We went to the annual NZ Jazz Festival. On Saturday, we headed down to The Strand, where it was just road traffic and 4 stages spread along the grass, plus a couple of stages near bars. They had different styles of bands on each stage, so you could wander along until you found something you liked. We spent 6 hours there, before heading over to the Mount for a nice dinner out.

On Sunday, Mum had bought us tickets to see a drummer. Didn't know anything about it, but went along for the ride. Now, I can't stop raving about him!! Dylan Elise is a 17 year old boy, who has been reading music since the age of 4, had his first tv spot at age 7 and was the drummer of the orchestra at the Michael Fowler Centre at age 9! Must say, he'll be quite good when he grows up!!
Found this video on YouTube from his performance in last year's jazz festival (allow 10 mins to watch the entire video, to get the full effect). He's even more refined this year. Enjoy!