I would never give up an opportunity to travel. So when it looked like I could take a week to make it to London (to meet my wife before our Spanish adventure...!), I went for it. First stop, Los Angeles. There I met with some very fine people in the music biz that until now I've never been able to meet in person. The aim of course to keep strong connections and talk possible future work.

There's things to love about LA, and things to drive you completely loopy, but what you gotta admire is the vibe that anything is possible. Most people are there to make their dreams come true, not surprisingly mostly as actors, but what's awesome is that there is so much opportunity for that to happen. And for the bulk of whom are still waiting, they're still friendly, still optimistic and still driving Ubers - and they're okay with that.

Also while there I managed to catch the LA Phil in concert. Sadly I missed Gustavo Dudamel, but instead I saw Santtu-Matias Rouvali conduct Mosolov 'Iron Foundry', Dvorak 'Cello Concerto in B minor' with Johannes Moser, and Sibelius 'Symphony No. 1 in E minor'. Amazing.

I then travelled to London and hung out with the legendary (and delightful!) music copyists Jill Streater and Ann Barnard at London's Air Studios. There they worked me hard collating parts (or 'running around the table' as we called it!) for the Kong: Skull Island score being recorded there. Being a music copyist in New Zealand is rather solitary most of the time so to meet and hang out with such legends is wonderful, and reassuring too to know that how I do things is pretty much how they do things.

I first worked with Jill in 2012 when she was the Supervising Music Copyist for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. A year or so later I visited and observed her work at Abbey Road Studios. What fun.

Finally, I met up with several friends in London to catch up on times gone by and to round off my time there... oh, and I saw the musical Aladdin.

As much as I'm a great fan of working remotely, basing myself online and sending music all over the place, there's still nothing like a face-to-face meeting to strengthen relationships and to get inspired by others' passion for what they do. For this reason, I hope it isn't long until I next head away to catch up with some of the amazing people I get to work with.