Happy talk, keep talking happy talk.

Happy:

Happy that 1+1=1

Happy that I have done 4 hours of dance this week

Happy that I have spent time with CBC.

Happy to have spent time with my sister.

Happy to have seen my Dad and Stepmum twice in a week.

Happy that I can sleep in in the mornings.

Happy that I bought a necklace for my wedding with my stepmum.

Happy that I have resisted the lure and temptation of buying new clothes except for a red sailor dress!

Happy that it is only 2 months until my wedding.  Just over.

Happy that it is half term.

Happy that I am making cat shoes.

Happy that I can invite family friends to the wedding who I thought I didn't have room for.

Happy that CBC makes nice dinner involving salmon, peppers, chickpeas, leeks, asparagus and that thing that looks like garlic that I can't remember what it is called! 

Happy that you're reading this.  

Happy that I know you!

What about you?x

I can see clearly now the rain has gone...

Hello there!
How are you? 
Fine, I hope!
I've had a delightful bank holiday weekend, hope you have too!
On Friday night, I went over to my Dad's until Saturday afternoon which was lovely to spend time with him.  Largely spent being Electrician's assistant but lovely!  The Saturday night was a quiz night at church organised by one of the teenagers who is doing the World Challenge and needs to raise money for it.  It was a lovely evening, well-organised and fun.  I joined the vicarage table and we came a respectable 4th out of 10.  Our worst round was the Literature round- embarassingly enough!!!

Sunday, we all went to the Big Church Day Out at Wiston in Sussex, which was amazing apart from the coach breaking down when it had finished and only managing to get home at 3.30am!!! They had a good laugh whilst waiting on a dark, cold coach which was the best way to approach it!  I spent most of the 3 hours wait trying to sleep! I really recommend going to this- I'll try to post in a bit more detail about this!

Today, I went to a family fun inflatables day at Orsett House with my sister and niece.  HOW I wish I were a child again! There were so many inflatables!

I think someone somewhere is missing a money making opportunity at running an inflatables centre with ballpools for just adults.  I personally, would book to go there- for a hen night for example!!!

When we came home, we went on the trampoline at home in the garden- great fun at last for the big kid in me after looking on enviously as she played!!

She's gone to bed now, so it's time for grownup fun- wedding stuff and card making!
CBC is off on his stag weekend in Scotland- having a lovely time so I hear, camping on the Isle of Skye!!

I bought this sun-flower t-shirt from TK Maxx a while ago and finally it's been warm enough to wear it!!

Linking to Patti's Visible Monday with this
Hope you are well!xxx

Learning my ABC

I remembered a challenge that Tracy at Depth of Field and Madaboutbags was doing ages ago where she tried to take photos of letters of the alphabet in every day objects and thought I'd like to give this a go.  I've tried not to look back at Tracy's so I can think of ideas for myself.  If you'd like to join me in trying to find the alphabet in photos in everyday objects, then let me know by leaving a comment and giving me a link when you do so!
Here are my first attempts... Tracy takes AMAZING photos by the way, and I don't, so I apologise if you are expecting photographic genius!

L...


O...



B...

(tenuous but I can always find a replacement).
A...


X...

(my teacosy smiled up at me saying, "Look, I am an x!"

Proud



And it's when I see these photos that I realise I rock up to school in creased item most days.  Peter pan collar checked shirt- Topshop via Charity shop, skirt- Monsoon, boots - Primark, amethyst earrings and pendant- presents, cardie- F&F



Tonight was my borough's Recorder Festival.  I took a group of 15 children there last year for the first time.  It's something I took part in myself every year for 11 years of my young life (7-18).  It's been quite hard getting them together this year: the year 4's were particularly flaky (or their parents were) but to my joy, all 18 children arrived on time.  They played really well, including our solo which they danced a Tudor dance to before playing a 3-part harmony version of Branle des Sabots.  I really do love my borough for things like this- they offer excitement, focus and an outlet for what I do. It's a great incentive and I am blessed to teach in my borough which has such a good name for music.  My recorder group started off this year with around 38 children and there are currently about 25 children in it, so I have lost some but still a good core.  My best recorder player in Year 6 (woe is me- she is leaving!) has a younger sister who joined the group at the start of the year but decided to 'quit' (urgh, can't stand the way they use that term!) which I thought was a GREAT shame because she has potential (she plays the piano and is my percussion player in orchestra) but I asked her to play the tambour drum for our solo so she came along (and ended up playing percussion parts for other pieces).  I gave her my spare recorder to play, seen as she was sitting there and yipppeeee, I have persuaded her to come back to the club after half-term holiday!  You have no idea how happy I am (and her Mum who is very musical!).  One other funny event of the evening was, I had to take a stream of children to visit the toilet and I was waiting outside for them and one of the Mums came. She sent her twin boys into the loo together and appararently, they like to go to the loo together, one on either side of the bowl, so she told me! I found this hilarious! Apparently, one pees on the other one sometimes! Still really funny!!!!

The day was also proud for me because one of my recorder classes (year 3) who have been learning the recorder, very well all year, gave a performance to Nursery and reception (3-5 years old).  They played 7 recorder pieces and sang and danced 2 songs.  They did absolutely magnificently and were so hyped about it.  Definitely something I want to repeat with other year groups! The other year 3 class is performing the same pieces to Year 1 and the afternoon nursery lot tomorrow afternoon so I look with alacrity towards this! (this is definitely part of my 52 weeks of happy!)

The wildflower conundrum

Sounds like it should be a bestselling novel (ooooh, I challenge you to write the book) but in fact is just a description of the current status of my wedding flowers. A while back, CBC and I agreed that we would love to have wildflowers as our decorations at our reception (and obviously at the church).  We then thought it would be good to grow our own in order to guarantee we could get them.  I read in Woman's Own magazine once that a lady sent packets of cornflowers to her guests to grow and bring to the wedding with them with the wedding invites and squirreled this idea away in my mind.  Anyway, so we went to a garden centre in Hexham to buy seeds- we were told my favourite ox-eye daisies wouldn't grow in time, we'd need half-annuals (this was mid-April) so we bought poppies, cornflowers and cosmos.  Under my Mum's guidance, I raked the ground and then watered it and then mixed up the seeds and sprinkled them.  I left them and went back inside to do stuff. When I came back out, there didn't seem to be any seeds there.  I wondered 2 things:  1) they'd sunk into the ground, 2) the birds had eaten them.

Anyway, I hoped for the best and have continuedly watered them each morning as I get up.  After a week or so, when I couldn't see anything (and was still thinking of those potential bird thieves), I decided to do the same again with a different bed (bought more seeds).  Same thing happened.  Still watering....

Then I decided to buy some of those long bedding pot things plant holders and follow the instructions precisely and keep them inside.  I didn't use new compost but used my own compost from my garden.  SOMETHING is starting to grow but I'm not sure if it is indeed the seeds or something that was in the compost.  I've started another of these long pots but put outside with homemade cloches (essentially strawberry punnets).

The thing is- in the FIRST batch of seeds in the actual ground, pictured above, things are growing.  BUT, since I am a complete novice at this (doing it on my own without mum actually coming to look at them), I have no idea if I am religiously watering weeds or bonafide wildflower plants.  OR, marigolds that are usually in that bed!???

Trying to formulate a plan if the wildflowers are no-go! Any ideas?  I was thinking of going to Columbia Road market the day before but apparently it only opens on  a Sunday!


*****

Re the outfit above-
Peter pan collar dress:  Appletree Boutique, Portobello road, Sailor cardie- Collectif, Umbrella- gift, shoes- random local shoe-shop whose name I forget, Chilli-pepper earrings- blogswap gift from Jille.

 Just discovered the HANDWASH setting on my washing machine so I might just wear this dress and cardie more often since I can shove them in the washing machine now instead of them festering at the bottom of my washing basket until I can be bothered to handwash them! Yippeeee!!! Shame about the rain!

FffffFlotsam but no jetsam (SIA)

From Flotsam, by David Wiesner
Watercolor on paper, 2007

HOW awesome is this painting!?!!! I adore it!  What is going on with Robofish on the left?!?!

Anyway, it's the inspiration for this week's Style imitating art with Jess at Animated Cardigan blog






I was all set for plain orange and turquoise and then remembered this awesome t-shirt I bought from Primark in the sale for £1 last year!  They're all unique and show an underwater scene!

T-shirt:  Primark, Skirt- Per Una at M&S, Cardigan- thrifted
Orange and turquoise is a nice colour combination- it always makes me think of dancing costumes from my childhood.  The Tuesday school (I was the Wednesday school) always got the best costumes and the best dances (and they always got props like umbrellas, canes etc!!!!) and one year they did a dance to Greased lightning with amazing 50's jive skirts in different colours with halterneck tops and ribbons in their hair!  I really wanted the turquoise and orange combination that a girl called Janine was wearing so my friend Lucy and I managed to persuade our parents to pay the dressmaker to make us a turquoise skirt each for our birthday present! I wore it for stacks of parties! Who'd have thought that 20+ years on, I'd still be loving poufy 50's style skirts with petticoats!

You're wondering about the fish? Well, when I lived in Indonesia, my university provided the opening ceremony to the Bali International Arts Festival- the president came and everything.  We were in a massive parade across Denpasar in costume with dancers and instruments galore and some of the dancers were on a massive float (and dancers appeared from inside human-size, fake flowers.  At the end of the ceremy, I and some of my fellow musicians, didn't want to walk back to Uni so we hitched a ride on the float which was covered in these very cleverly hand-made fake fish (out of foam, wool etc) and as we alighted from it, they totally trashed the float, taking off all the fish and decorations (I think it needed to be cleared) and so I took my opportunity and ripped off this big fish.  I then shipped it back with my instruments and books etc! I love to think what the customs-guys made of my inventory, 1 bronze metallophone, 1 double-headed drum, 1 fake gold-fish....

The crab is totally cute- I bought him during my final placement of my PGCE when I was in a year 2 class doing the topic, The Seaside, past and present. The crab was an item 'for sale' in my seaside shop!!!  He was a charity-shop purchase- he's so cute!!! His name is Crabbe (as in HP!)

x

Linking to Visible Monday with the fabulous Patti and a whole host of lovelies!

Send your fire

Today was Pentecost.  Pentecost is the day that Jesus sent his Holy Spirit upon the church and those present in the temple received the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  It is like the church's birthday (the church's birthday- different from Christ's birthday which is of course Christmas Day). 
Our pastor gave a talk to the children about what a birthday has- cake, candles, balloons and of course gifts:

God, when building his church- created a unity- to be a Christian is not just about being with God by yourself, it's about sharing with the whole body- all those who share your faith and beyond.  And he sent spiritual gifts at Pentecost, to help with that.   Spiritual gifts without spiritual fruit are worthless, the apostle Paul said- so if we have these gifts, we need to share them with others.  These are listed as:
1. Prophecy 2. Service 3. Teaching 4. Exhortation 5. Giving 6. Leadership 7. Mercy 8. Wisdom 9. Knowledge 10. Faith 11. Healing 12. Miracles 13. Distinguishing of spirits 14. Tongues
15. Interpretation of tongues 16. Apostleship 17. Helps 18. Administration 19. Evangelism 20. Shepherd or pastor
in different places in the Bible.
The paraphrased list in more detail comes from here.


And we need to share those gifts with love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

A challenge to say the least, but worth the challenging oneself, certainly in my humble opinion (and many others).

At church today, our talented flower arranger created wonderful displays with orange and red roses we came to give as an offering, oil was burnt throughout with flames and the congregation decked in red and orange to represent the flames of the Holy Spirit.  Happy Birthday church!

52 weeks of happy 16-5-2013

1.  CBC had a job interview today and got the job!!!!!
2.  My teeth are white again thanks to my dentist- yucky corsydol had stained my teeth.  It's brilliant for gums but not for nice white teeth!
3.  I had an amazing weekend last weekend- my concert went really well, really well, it was amazing to take part in, such gorgeous fluty pieces.  The conductor sent me the loveliest e-mail earlier about my playing which was really really touching and kind,

And 7 lovely people came to watch it including
CBC...

...WKWTTG
,
My work colleague B and her husband B and my lovely blogging friend Denise who came along with her lovely friend N and her daughter I finally got to meet Denise which was lovely.  She was just as beautiful and lovely as she was on her blog and so friendly!!! Thanks soooo much for coming Denise, it was soooo nice to meet you!!!


4.  I've been eating eggs and bacon all week from my friend's small holding - she's been selling them as this is what she's doing now and they are delicious! All the more so because I bought them from a friend!  Sorry veggies...



What's made you happy this week???

*Not my red wine by the way- just holding it for CBC- yeuch, red wine!!!

Rainbow remix

Oh remember last Thursday which was SUCH a beautiful day!  Who'd have thought I'd be putting on my winter coat, hat and scarf today!  Luckily, I can ALMOST imagine that this is today if I think hard enough!

I'm not hugely imaginative with this vintage M&S madras check dress but I haven't worn it in the same way twice!  This is the first time you will have seen any glimpse of the top half as it usually hides under highernecked tops!

It was NOT a good skirt to wear last Thursday however, being a full circle skirt as it was VERY windy and I had to frantically grab it and head for a wall frequently crossing the playground as it blew up several times.  My year 1 class found it hilarious (as did several parents)!  Mind you, it wasn't so hilarious when they all (and I) got hit in the face by a load of grit and blossom almost immediately after the first occurence!

You can see from the middle photo, that it did exactly the same thing when I was taking shots. Then whoooooooosh!!!
Top- Miss Selfridge, dress- M&S thrifted, rainbow hair ribbon- from Jille swap, Indian shoes- Kush, necklace- Primark, Earrings- gift from work colleague.



My work colleague always finds me really nice presents- she bought these Scrabble earrings for me a while back.  This birthday she bought me a vintage bakelite and silver letter opener!!!

Hope you are well!

xx

Note it down

That Mahler 6 score has got a lot of use in my craft-escapades over the past couple of months- I think you're going to get bored of seeing it appearing on a ever-expanding collection of missives!
Nonetheless, it's fun trying to see how many ways I can use it!

The above card is for a family member who loves birds and enjoys listening to some classical music. I find it really hard a) buying presents for him and b) making cards for him. He's one of those typical men who it's really hard to purchase things for!  I am very pleased that CBC is not a typical man in that respect!

Anyway, I decided to combine the bird and music idea.  I wanted to try and ensure that it didn't look too girly with birds on but not sure if I succeeded or not. I used a free bird stencil from a magazine ages ago and cut two layers of birds and layered them up with 3d pads to add a little depth, rounded the corners of the card using a corner punch.  It looked a little bare so I added some quilling strips (recycled) to frame it a bit.



This one made use of the origami heart technique I picked up when I made CBC's Valentines card this year but in miniature form.  I used some William Morris sample print outs that someone had printed a couple of years ago to show examples to children at school. It was a bit dog-eared and out of use so I squirreled it away for future usage. I gave it to a girl in my orchestra who plays bassoon on Saturday as she is getting married in Wales next week.  She was surprisingly touched by it and didn't realise I had made it. I'm really glad I gave it to her!  Three of us are getting married from orchestra this year, so it's nice we've been able to discuss and compare notes!


Linking to:


Sarah's Super Handmade Sunday


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays


Cynthia's in and out linking party

Em-E

Hurrah, for the preeeeeetty, preettty, preetty and very talented Emmy Rossum who is the muse for Inspiration Monday again with the lovely Two birds! This girl could wear anything and I would just look at those big eyes and cute shy smile!  However, I decided that her outfit was rather nice anyway, so that's good!

Here's my interpretation!



I forgot to bring my bag for the shot and I decided that I didn't want to wear my converse so ivory-coloured brogues would have to do! Plus, the turquoise tights sent me a yearning glance from the washing carousel this morning as I went out to religiously water my empty bed plundered by birds weed collection wedding wild flower bed this morning, so they had to add a splash of colour to it! This dress always makes me happy when I wear it (even if I find it difficult to get out of when it comes to bed time! Oh backzips, you are the bane of life for those who live alone!)

The rather interesting setting for these is the Woolwich ferry in South London- a free less-than-5-minute ferry service that takes drivers across the River Thames if they want to avoid the bendy Blackwall tunnel.  I have NEVER been on it before so it was rather exciting.  CBC deeemed it was a rather more romantic mode of travel than the Blackwall tunnel!  Oh dear, what must the other drivers in their cars have been of the frantic dash across to the side of the boat, taking of outfit shots and frantic dashing back again (all the more frantic because I had taken my polka-dot jacket off in the car and realised I needed it!).  It was definitely blowing a hoolie as you can tell from the super-messy hair which was neat before I was attacked by rapidly-moving-air!

We were on our way to Eltham to meet a couple that CBC has known for a few years who he has always said I would really get on with, but have not met.  They were just as lovely as he told me and an extraordinarily talented pair!  They are both doctors, excellent musicians, fantastic cooks, lovely people! We had the most amazing feast at their house.  She is Chinese and we had a starter of chinese-lettuce wraps, 9 different dishes to choose from for the main meal and then raspberry pavlova for dessert.  He is German and I reallly love Germany/German language/German people so I was really happy to talk to him!  I was in the kitchen reading a card (in German) on the fridge, reading out loud and he commented on my good German pronounciation (yessssss!!!!) just as I was translating it out loud to myself!  We had a lovely chat about Germany and Switzerland (where they went on honeymoon and where we are hoping to go).  It's always lovely making new friends.  We also had a lovely time getting to know their friends who they had also invited!  It's been a really lovely weekend all in all! I do hope yours was too!

Linking to the lovely Patti at Visible Monday and the Twobirds

52 weeks of happy today!

1. Wooop, woop, my orchestra got a mention on a Guardian blog post!  It's about our soloist, but still, tis nice to have a mention!  Tres excited that I get to meet one of my blogging friends, Denise, tonight at the concert!

2. Last night, we went swing-dancing at a church in Primrose Hill, which a friend of CBC's had invited us to!  It was a surprisingly brilliant venue for it! The church space is really versatile and we had a huge amount of space to dance.  A small, friendly crowd who had lots of fun.  I danced with a couple of guys who have learnt Ceroc, a French form of jive, I believe, which was really interesting and did a couple of fun dips with CBC's friend.  CBC and I danced lots and practised some moves.  There was a bit of a slippery-slip in the middle of the church- a super-slidy tiled section, which made for some interesting skids!   I really enjoyed it and it was nice to dance in such a scenic setting.
The highlight was seeing the vicar (female), finally relent and dance rather brilliantly with our friend -she'd not swingdanced before!
3.  Invitations are out in the post and we've already had some replies!
4.  Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with Year 4- FINALLY perfected the worksheet for the first lesson- they seemed to enjoy watching the piece!
5.  The gorgeous blossom around- it's SOOOOOOOO beautiful and I never fail to be overwhelmed by its splendour!

What's made you happy?

SIA- Feeding the Ducks

Feeding the Ducks, by Mary Cassatt

Drypoint and aquatint, with monotype inking, on paper, 1895

I do enjoy the Style Imitating Art challenge with Jess and Salazar.
I learn a little more about art and have some feeling of 'ownership' over that painting if that makes any sense at all.  Often, I like a painting but don't remember it- but the SIA paintings stick with me and I feel I know them more!
Thoughts on this one:
Beautiful colours, interesting characters, fun cartoon quality, hilarious outfits and DUCKS- one of nature's most hilarious animals!
Is that my Mum in the yellow top in the painting!  For some reason it makes me think of her!x
The print on the lady in peach's dress makes me think of Alex and Char's #Wardrobe zoo - I can't work out what the print is though!
Little girl- nice headband, just about to pitch over into the water! Cue screaming mamas!

Here's my take on them.

Left and right are surely obvious- the print on the trousers actually matches the lady's skirt though hard to see at the distance (they are F&F at Tescos), blouse (vintage).  When I wore this, I wanted to wear a flower headband like the little girl but didn't think the white went with it so opted for Sunflowers!  Lots of 'Peaceman' comments at church! Duck earrings too if you look closely! Flower belt (River island) supposed to represent the swans as it has feathery petals!

The central dress is vintage Laura Ashley belonging to my Mum which combines little girl's colour with the shape of peach lady.  A family friend was wardrobe mistress for one of our local Amateur operatic societies for years and housed their costumes in her loft.  She's a great source of costumes herself any way (and helped me with the dalek dress).  Recently, because she had resigned from the post, someone came to collect the costumes.  She remembered that my Mum had given her 2 Laura Ashley dresses if the society needed to use them at all and so she kept these.  I was wildly excited when she told me this and clearly, if it hadn't been midnight when we spoke,I'd have run round there instantly! I mentioned it to Mum the next morning and she immediately said, "Oh it must be your Laura Ashley pink floral bridesmaid dresses."  (from when my sister and I were 7 and 10 respectively).  You can imagine I was a bit gutted.  So when I went round there to see her (forgot my front door key and she has a spare) , when I opened the bag and discovered two adult Laura Ashley dresses, I was delighted!  (she also gave me late birthday presents of handmade mini-hat  fascinator, homemade piccalili and a mirror!).  Obviously, this isn't the type of vintage dress I am going to be wearing all the time, it's a little too "costume" for that, but I am still chuffed! Definite possibilities though! 

Now, if only her brown 70's maternity dress turned up, then I'd be a happy bunny- it was an AWESOME dress which I remember from childhood and from beautiful photos of my Mum that I found at my Grandad's house!

These are a few of my favourite things

It's probably no secret that my favourite colour is turquoise.  It does tend to crop up in this blog periodically.  And, just a little sneak info from our wedding- that the bridesmaids are this colour which I am really pleased about because I didn't think CBC would go for it!  I think it all stems from my dancing years where you had costumes for dances in different colours and I usually got assigned turquoise or blue- the first one I remember was a dance called 'Hold my hand' where I had a turquoise satin dress!  I still remember that song now- one child got to stand in the middle at the beginning and sing that song before the others came back.  I missed the auditions because I was on holiday and the girl who got it mimed.  I did get a second chance for it but didn't get it!

Maybe you'd find this outfit a bit matchy-matchy though I do like coordinating!  I  love this dress- it's from Whitestuff and it is reversible- I usually wear the other side, not this one.  I wonder if you'll recognise it if I reverse it!?   I think you'll get a bit bored of my Toms this summer- I am wearing them ALL the time, whether they match or not!

I am currently watching The Apprentice on I-player- they are so silly!!!!!!! I do find the arrogance and bombastic nature of these people hilarious!! If I ever act like this, please tell me!!!  I also love the fact that this episode, the background music has been Dave Brubeck- Unsquare Dance and now Blue Rondo Alla Turk.  Now we have an extract from A Midsummer night's dream!  It's interesting consciously registering the background music in programmes- do you ever do it?

The day of 4 rainbows

In my previous rainbow outfit post, I talked about 2 childhood memories connected to rainbows.  Aren't they beautiful?  I love the biblical symbol of a rainbow being a promise. A promise of God never sending another cataclysmic flood like that.   I took this photo of a rainbow in Basildon a year ago or so and have finally managed to get it off my phone via bluetooth, CBC's smartphone, to my e-mail and then my flickr!

Anyway, have you ever seen one of those days where you get two rainbows?  One fairly bright one and then a secondary, paler. According to Wiki

In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colours reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets.

 Those days are few and far between- I've only ever seen that a few times (once fairly recently, when I was in Basildon) but it's extra special.  Well, there was one extraordinary day when I was in primary school where I saw something extra special.  It had been a rainy day and I was coming out the main office entrance from school, not the usual gate entrance, when I looked up into the sky, where now there was sunshine.  And there was not one, but FOUR rainbows.  Literally 4 arcs across the sky.

I remember being wildly excited.  I had no idea this could occur (and as I've discovered, it's very rare!).  The first one (the primary one) was of the most intense hues I had ever seen, it was almost solid in its colour.  The secondary one was fairly strong compared to normal but much paler and then the third one was much lighter and the fourth one very very vague, barely visible but still perceivable.   I was transfixed.  In retrospect, that must have been a very auspicious day.  Alas, but for a camera image, it just has to stay as a closely-treasured memory in the keepsake box of my mind.

Never again have I seen more than 2.  As I thought about rainbows on Tuesday,  I looked at WIki again to find out about it

Tertiary and quaternary rainbows:

In addition to the primary and secondary rainbows which can be seen in a direction opposite to the sun, it is also possible (but very rare) to see two faint rainbows in the direction of the sun. These are the tertiary and quaternary rainbows, formed by light that has reflected three or four times within the rain drops, at about 40° from the sun (for tertiary rainbows) and 45° (quaternary). It is difficult to see these types of rainbows with the naked eye because of the sun's glare, but they have been photographed; definitive observations of these phenomena were not published until 2011.

So I saw something really rare and special.  I treasure it.
Have you ever seen a multiple rainbow?  How do you feel about them?


References; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Multiple_rainbows
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/bowims.htm  An amazing gallery of rainbows
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/ord34.htm Accounts of 3rd and 4th order rainbows

The colours are there if nothing else

Two weeks in Inspiration Monday with the Two birds where I shuffle my feet and try to pretend that I am wearing something similar to the inspiration model.  She's called Jennifer Laurence- no, I've not heard of her.  I actually have several long white skirts and a grey t-shirt but I wasn't feeling it today.  Instead, I have the colours..  Pity I forgot to swap my handbag to my basket bag that Sophie bought me

Broderie anglaise dress- Next via Oxfam.
Cardigan- Oasis
Shoes- Primark.
Daisy hairpins- Poppydaisy

How nice it is to have a Bank Holiday (and NO Year 6- HURRAH!).  What have you done with yours?   I've not done a huge amount so far- at CBC's house.
We've had a fairly chilled weekend- a swing-dance lesson on Saturday morning - I am officially rubbish but I still love it!  We learnt how to do the transition from a lindy-turn to backwards/tandem charleston and how to get out of it again which was cool though lots of time still spent on our basic technique!  We then headed to town to look for some brogues for CBC and I ended up buying my mum a birthday present I hope she likes- it's very useful!  Saturday later on, we wrote our wedding invitations and did some dance practice!!!  So exciting and fun to have sent invitations- we're pleased with how they've turned out!!!
Yesterday,  I had a lovely church service which had a good sermon that I had a really good point I remembered well, based on the book of Ezra and how things go well if the hand of God is with us and why his hand might not be with us.

After hand-delivering some invitations, I headed over to CBC's where we went for a lovely walk and got on with some work things.

If anyone is in London and fancies something cultural, come to my orchestra concert- it's a gorgeous programme of:
Debussy- L'apres midi d'un faun (gorgeous big famous flute solo for moi!)
Ravel- Mother Goose suite and Piano concert (more nice flute)
Rautavaara- Canctus Arcticus - Concerto for birds and orchestra (more nice flutes and hilarious recorded bird song!)

It's at St Peter's Church, Kensington Park road, Nottinghill Gate on 11/5/2013 at 7.30pm. Wine in the interval.  You could go shopping on Portobello road and then come along! Tickets are £10!

Destiny in a blue cloak

On Thursday, CBC and I headed up to Knightsbridge to attend the performance of a new musical by our friend.  She wrote a musical based on Thomas Hardy's 'Destiny in a blue cloak', renamed, 'The girl in the blue coat'.  It's always so wonderful to hear the creations of friends, especially talented and modest ones! Her musical had a really wonderful Stephen Sondheim feel to it in places, particularly the lyrical songs in 3/4 time. She adapted the story so it had a nice ending but the tension built right to the end about whether Abbie, one of the female leads, would have to marry the old farmer.  Horrid Hardy to have married her off to him in the real story- just like Tess of the D'Ubervilles which had a horrible ending for again, a female main character! I want to read it now, though I will probably get very cross with Hardy!Have you ever read it?  So if you ever get to see it in the West End, I was there first! She premiered it with her teenage school children and most of them were around 12-13 with the oldest at 16, so that is an amazing achievement for them!

It was such an amazingly warm day on Thursday, I definitely enjoyed basking in the sun!  Here, we took advantage of pretty West London townhouses for a setting!  The majority of the outfit is Primark with the blouse thrifted from Hobbs with ribbon added by me and trusty Toms!  It's definitely been Toms week!

Thanks for all your advice and comments re the camera- I am investigating the option Rach mentioned thus far and will contact Canon etc if all else fails! xx 

Want to cry

I am so so so annoyed and upset with myself.  I just broke my lovely camera.  It was on its tripod and somehow, I don't know if one of the legs slipped on it or it swayed in the wind but it fell and hit a plant pot (if only it had been 2 feet to the right, I probably would have caught it) and now the lens is stuck out and it said 'lens error' and it shut itself down.  And the stupid thing is, I have no idea where to take it.  Because of course, nowadays, no one wants to mend anything, they want to sell you a new one, one of the things I despite about our society with technology. So please, anybody- do you have any idea where I could take it to be fixed.  It's a Canon Ixus high defnition.

:-(

Swing when you're winning

Last weekend, I was luckily enough (did I mention it enough times) to go to the Brighton Lindyhop festival which I have been super excited over!
We set off from my house at about 8.30am and arrived to The University of East Sussex for around 10am where we went to register.  It was all very exciting and mysterious as we didn't know what ability level each group was- each person was given a coloured wrist band- red, yellow or blue (everyone had to fill out a registration form in reference to our ability) and we went to the Sports centre for a united warm-up.
It was when we got chatting to some lovely Brighton, fairly new lindyhoppers of 3 months (but still REALLY good) that we realised that CBC and I had different wristband colours!!!!! Disaster!  I appeared to have the same colour as our new friends.


The tutors (all except the main leader, Lizzie) arrived to lead a warm-up in a big circle- all to swing music and based on dance moves which was hugely fun and gave an interesting introduction to all of them.

Then the groups were split up and we were still unsure what ability group we were but eventually thought we had it sussed that we were Intermediate.  CBC stuck with us.

The first class was led by Ichtis and Solveiga and was a fun Lindy-charleston based routine which we built up bit by bit.   One thing that struck me about the people (who were mostly Brighton-based: I didn't meet any Londoners) was how delightfully open and friendly they were as I swapped partners around the table.
The lesson moved at a good pace and the tutors had a wonderful energy.  Ichtis came to dance with me when I was in a space once (more men leaders than women followers) and he had a great energy and brilliant smile and eyecontact when dancing that was great fun!).


(My fiance has a 'great' sense of humour by taking angled shots of the University of Sussex sign to mock me!)

After the 1:45 of class, we broke for lunch and CBC and I headed over to the slope by the University sign overlooking an Archery club meet-up, to share our picnic I had prepared:  goats cheese and cucumber sandwiches, olives, cassava crisps, tracker-bars, apples and water.  I, being the dutiful blogger I am, was eyeing up the sign thinking it would be a funny background for some photos.  CBC dutifullly took photos with little resistance at the time- I now know I should have been suspicious as to why he didn't complain!



With time to spare, we headed off to the Student Union for the common room where we chatted to Jenny and Sarah and new friends.  They had a great idea in the Union called a 'Free shop' where you could leave things you didn't want anymore on shelves, organised by category and anyone could take them- books, shoes, tennis rackets, whatever!




After that, we headed back to the sports hall for our next lesson with Simon and Jess.  The aim of this session was to improve following and leading and general techniques and signals. For CBC and I who have had some private lessons was Simon, this was definitely more of what we needed- though I think it was a bit hardgoing for some of the others who just wanted to dance!  I felt a complete twit though because he'd told the women to shut their eyes for one exercise so we'd rely on the hand connection rather than visuals and I idiotically assumed that we had to keep our eyes shut for all the next exercises and dutifully went round to my new partners and shut my eyes.  It wasn't until half an hour later (or more!) that a partner finally said- "You don't actually have to shut your eyes!".  DOH!!!!



A very slight break lead to our final class with Lizzie and Rina who led a 'silly moves' class which was outrageously funny, very very silly and somehow, the perfect end to the lessons- we learnt, The dirty old man- a hilarious lindy-charleston move involving big legs, the hijack- a move where the woman decides to duck the man's arm during a lindy-turn and takes over as leader briefly (I LOVED this one and I was quite good at it!), the lindy-turn jumpout (not so good at this one) and the most outrageous was The Fish which basically involved being swung through the man's legs, ending up lying on the floor, he jumps on you, you roll over and then proceed to swim across the floor.  Sounds totally dodgy, looks a bit dodgy but once you realise the aim, is totally hilarious!  The lesson ended with a 'FISH RACE' across the room.  I was totally awful at this one as I cried, I was laughing so much!



After this, most headed for the showers to get ready for the dance in the evening.  It was total girly bonding time everyone put on their finest.  I missed the memo that said it was going to be a 20's theme so I'd gone in fairly-tame 50's-ish teadress in white florals whereas most were in dark-coloured Great-gatsbyesque attire.


A 3 course dinner in the canteen (very tasty except for slug-soup) and lots of chat and then the party began, first with a charleston taster class.  Sadly, because we weren't staying till Sunday, we didn't get to join the flashmob shimsham and Charleston on Brighton pier, though we learnt the routine and I've FINALLY sorted my charleston foot-swivvels!


I'm afraid,this horrid unsmiling flash-shot is only clear one I got of my outfit, comprising of Laura Ashley dress via Charity-shop, mini-pillarbox hat (in complementary shades, courtesy of Florrie (Festivities prize), white and floral brogues -Primark, white, pearl, lace and floral cardie- Portobello Road, pearl collar Dorothy Perkins, Pearl Earrings- Craft fair, floral handbag- Topshop.
The hilarious thing was that SO many people came up to me saying how much they loved my little hat and could not believe how well matched all the elements of my outfit, down to the floral trim on my brogues.  Surprising since I felt SO the odd one out in white!

CBC and I had a jolly good few dances though I did get bruised ankles when CBC tried to do jig-walks without giving me the signal and he jig-walked into my ankles with his VERY hard John White brogues!



The floor was awash with dancing talent- the Brighton lot are REALLY good dancers!



At around 9.30pm, the teachers on the course gave a cabaret starting with an amazing Charleston lindy-dance routine by the London-based teachers like Simon which was incredibly witty and brilliant!It was amazing to actually watch Simon dance live.  More often than not, he's DJing, teaching or the dance floor is so crowded, it's hard to watch! All the other tutors danced too!  Rina is a total maverick and also ignored the 1920's memo and did a giggle-inducing charlestony routine to Play that funky music white boy


More dancing, lots of chat, including to a 19 year old Bio-med student who competed in the Friday night Brighton Lindy-competition, donuts, brownies and cookies at midnight and finally CBC and I had to wend our weary-way back to London. 
It was an amazing, amazing weekend and I can thoroughly recommend it!


Hope you are well!

Oh and I totally forgot about my 8th blogiversary prize.  The winner is Ang so please contact me with your address so I can send you your beret and gloves!!!xx