A friend of our family just had her 18th birthday, and I was asked to perform a magic show for the party.

Of course, worry and a little trepidation followed.  I hadn’t done a show for many years.  However, another friend also asked if I wanted to perform for his bowling club, so it looked as though my retirement from magic would have to wait!

Firstly – to repair the old magic case.  Boy was that thing in pieces.  Redesigned it entirely in the computer and, calling on the ancient gene of carpentry that was left in my veins by my Grandfather, started making!

Looks like it turned out OK!

A quick whip around the shed revealed a lot of my old tricks still intact and a couple of trips to the hardware store, party shop and a games shop replenished the rest.

OK – 2 months to practice!  Back to false shuffles, coin switches, rope manipulations and lots of reading.

Came up with some new tricks as well as re-polishing the old.  It was great to see the old sense memory still worked.  Do you think my work colleagues might be getting sick of picking a card?  Nawww!

Came the performances, all went really well.  Ropes, Cards, Cup and ball, and to top it off, a fantastic audience that applauded and laughed in places I don’t remember being funny!  Awesome confidence boost to get back into it again.

2nd show was amazing – ½ hour of tables and a 15 minute stage show.  The motto I use for my tricks is “Pack small, play big” and it seemed to work out well.  Still need to polish the chop cup routine, but they loved it and had a great time.

Looking forward to the next one now – Hopefully not facing down a back yard full of over-tired-red-cordial-infused 7 year olds, but hey, you never know right?

Good to be back.