Roger DB's blog #3

Still hot and dry - the rain that has been predicted has held off, although the last few days have been very overcast.

Rehearsals continue to be completely absorbing, and the script and story details are in constant flux so close attention is the order of the day. As a rule we have three hours or so free in the afternoons to lunch, learn and relax before the evening rehearsals. Even walking back through the streets you start to notice butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas, small groups of House Swallows and, in the evening, a number of large bats high over the rooftops (no, we're nowhere near Transylvania!). Two or three Common Kestrals seem rather wary of persuing the bats, but there is a charming family of Laughing Doves regularly haunting our area, so tiny and neat and fearless enough to walk literally up to one's feet. Perhaps the grandest sight was a group of Eagles (probably Lesser Spotted) miles high abouve our nearest ridge, effortlessly soaring on their 6ft wingspan and drifting eastwards in the bluest of skies. Magnificant!

Tbilisi traffic is something I'll find it hard to forget. Every other car is a taxi, and a minibus passes every 15 seconds or so, and all of them stop on demand wherever they happen to be. Cars pull out to overtake and block the oncoming lane. Horns immediately blare forth, and what seems like total gridlock somehow magically returns to normal. A manhole cover disappeared from the middle of the road at a busy intersection. A bus became immobilised with a wheel stuck in the hole, and when the bus has been cleared away, two leafy branches neatly marked the still gaping hole until 36 hours later a replacement cover arrived. No-one turned a hair!