Easter parade-not!

 Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, it's the end of term!

The Spring term is our least favourite one and now it is over! Hurrah!

Since our current headteacher has been here, we have always had an Easter bonnet parade where the children are invited to make and bring in an Easter bonnet.

I always try to dress for the occasion:

I wore this red polka dot daisy print Dirndl skirt which I bought from Think Twice in Antwerp last February. I wore it last year as well!  This time though, I teamed it with the lovely black cotton embroidered top I bought in a charity shop recently (worn with my embroidered joggers..) and my Clarks black boots.

For jewellery, I wore my daisy earrings and a lovely colourful ocarina necklace- yes, it is a real ocarina and I can play tunes on it! 

For these pics, I added my Green felt Monsoon hat. Like last year, I stupidly left my Easter Crown at school so I couldn't wear it with my outfit to show you. I suppose at least it has meant I have had the same Easter crown to wear for the past 3 years!

My Easter crown was made out of some Display border roll which I rescued from the recycling bin.  I added the daisies that were left over from my Easter Wreath from 2020 lockdown! You'll have to trust me that it is very pretty and rainbowy!

This year, I have been collecting any border I find from old displays and storing it in the cupboard at school. I offered 'Easter crown' kits in Singing Assembly last week to any children who knew that they might not have access or money for buying Easter bonnet resources (phrased in a more delicate manner) and to my delight, I was asked for some 'bits and bobs' kits by about 11 people and I provided them with border roll, sequins and paper daisies (all made from reused display paper and my flower punch).  I enjoyed their makes.

There were some super creative makes out there- there really was a lot of creativity. One boy had used all the materials from their new sofa delivery to make his and he'd added origami animals all over it- it was super!

Sadly, the weather meant there was no parade and a lot of soggy bonnets on the windy, rainy way home!

Today was a strange but lovely day.

Year 3-4 singing assembly was a delight.  The Schools Musicals company offers free songs on their website and all the ones I have tried have been really lovely. I downloaded their Spring songs packs and taught a gorgeous song called 'The Colours of Spring' to all 3 singing assembly groups and they have really loved it.  They sang beautifully in all 3 assemblies this week. I also played them a scene from 'An American in Paris' where Gene Kelly sings I Got rhythm  and has a tap dance break. They seemed to enjoy it.  The year 6's went to watch the LSO perform a Gershwin programme this week and really enjoyed it- that's why I chose this!

Next, I headed to Year 4 to teach.  Normally I have year 6 this morning but because one of our Year 4 teachers (my friend) is leaving today and I had missed teaching her class on Monday because of an INSET day, she really needed some time to finish off all her assessments for the new teacher. Thus, I went there instead.  They are often really lacklustre and slow on a Monday morning, first lesson so it was great to have them on Friday as they were really focused and positive and everyone learnt to play Jewish folksong, Zumgali as well as sing it in various versions. It was a great final lesson of the term.

I then spent some time writing some thank you cards and doing some tidying up. The kind caretakers gave my bike a bit of a service whilst I tidied.

I received an unexpected Easter present from a pupil who sent a really sweet card.

Yesterday, choir performed at another local primary school in collaboration with the other school. We were performing our Royal Albert Hall programme again to allow any parents who couldn't afford to go a chance to see it. In the end, I was only missing 6 children. 

I had to play piano for the concert (and only started learning them 2 weeks ago). Luckily, apart from the first song (I where I was getting over nerves), I played fine. The children did really well and the parents were really positive about it.  It was lovely because the Lead for Music at that school and I used to go to school together (she was 5 years older than me) and we were both flute players so the two of us played in our school production of Joseph when I was 11 and she was 17 (ha! I loved being the chosen one to play with a 6-former when I was in year 7!) .  We both loved working together and it was nice for our headteacher too as he is currently acting head of that school as well as being head of my school!

There have been some lovely positive moments this term in music.  The year 2 children learning Bartok's Andante for Children, the Year 1's learning a Lullaby, the Year 5's learning Drunken Sailor and performing absolutely hilarious sea shanties they composed (the best being 'The Kraaken attacks!, You're drunk,walk the plank! and 'Waking the drunken sailor'), the Year 3's learning Lonely Mountain and the Year 4's learning about Transposition and octaves. There have been lots of hard times but I'm thinking of the joys. 

If you are in the habit of praying, please pray for safety and good health for CBC, myself and his siblings and brother in law as we walk some of the Pennine way this week- I'm a bit worried about my foot (possible Plantafascia or whatever it's called!) and how we're going to walk 17.5miles a day for 4 days!

But before that, I have a Gamelan concert in the city tomorrow at LSO St Lukes.  I'm quite excited for it- we are completely sold out- but nervous- I'm not 100% on all the pieces but ok!

Hope all is well with you!

TARDIS Tuesday - The elusive Yaz Khan jumper from Kerblam!

Hi there,

Greetings from a tired individual! 

For TARDIS Tuesday, I am looking at an outfit I have used as inspiration 2 times already but here's my hat trick. I last considered this outfit here in April 2022, so quite recently.

It was worn by Yasmin Khan in Series 11 episode, Kerblam.  

It features her ubiquitous All Saints leather jacket and black skinny jeans.  She wears grey trainers (possibly Reebok) and a coral scalloped jumper by House of Frazer label, Maison De Nimes.

https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2018/11/05/doctor-who-series-11-titles-and-synopses-for-episodes-7-and-8/

Here's my most accurate rendition to date:

Whilst Yaz has not achieved the cosplay popularity of previous companions Clara and Amy, this outfit of hers, namely the jumper, has become an item which is incredibly difficult to locate.

Last time I considered this outfit, I wore alternative jumpers but I was luckily enough to find the screen accurate jumper (for £5 inc postage!) on Vinted in January.    I haven't seen anyone else with the actual jumper. I also found it in a pale blue alternative colour. I like its cute scalloped hem and it fits very well.

Do you recognise 3 elements from my past few weeks of TARDIS Tuesday outfits?  

The much-used ASOS black trousers

The black Ash Bowie trainers

The bargain fake leather jacket!

My choir are going to perform this Thursday. I'm quite sad that now they've had their Albert Hall experience that suddenly the commitment is gone and lots 'can't make it'.  I'm thankful for those and their parents who do understand commitment. It seems to be an attribute in shorter supply these days.

Hope you are having a good day!

x

Crocheted catchup

 It's been a long couple of weeks!

I've looked back at my blog and realised I haven't really said much for a couple of weeks!

I thought I'd start with today's outfit:

This was worn for a day at home. I didn't leave. Not once.  I completely missed church since I woke up at around 11am, despite having set my alarms. The clocks going forward didn't help,nor did my Saturday adventures. More on that anon.

Outfit first.

I love my Seasalt corduroy trousers- these ones are the Asphodel trousers and they are super comfortable. I own them in Onyx and Burgundy shades. I teamed them with a River Island stripy turtle neck I bought secondhand from LorelaiLQ. I really like this top. Then I added my 2nd hand handmade crocheted waistcoat.  The Dr Martens boots (also bought from Lorelai's instasale) were just worn to go out into the garden for some teabag ripping and composting and the photos.  The black velvet hat was secondhand and I wore it indoors all day.  I love it because it reminds me of my 90's black velvet hat that I used to wear for Windband on a Saturday morning at the Music centre. My conductor, Mr Beal used to call me Paddington Bear when I wore it. Nostalgic vibes of happy times.

So...what have I been up to?

Well, on Monday 13th March, I took my 33 children from the Year 5-6 choir to the Royal Albert Hall in London to sing at our borough's biennual choral festival.  I realised that this was my 30th year of taking part in this concert (should've been in 2022 but for Covid putting it back a year).

The amount of prep for this seemed quite alot, not helped by travelling by coach with 2 other schools to save money (they asked us to join us me on our coach).  We arrived a little late as there were several annoying road closures which weren't on the SATnav so the poor driver had to loop around several times which made us waste about 20minutes.  We ate our lunch outside fairly swiftly then went inside.  We were placed right in the middle of the choir stalls so we had a really good view.  There was some annoying kerfuffle over putting coats in yellow bin bags. I had come prepared with my own big holdall bags.  The kids were really excited and I have to say, they were the best-behaved choir I have taken to this festival in 16 years. I didn't have to tell anyone to be quiet at all- the headteacher of a local school even complimented them to my headteacher a couple of days later. I was amazed as the rehearsal was really long and involved lots of sitting around so they did really well.

After the rehearsal ended around 5.15pm, after the children having been in the arena (apart from loo breaks) since 12.50pm, we went outside, hoping to go to Hyde Park for a play.  Alas, it looked like rain so we sat on the steps and ate our second packed meal of the day. We managed to take a team photo before the rain started and we had to head inside. Typical!

After the toilet break and putting our bags in the fancy 1871 bar area, we went up to our seats.  Every previous year, I have been envious of schools who had made a banner to hold up so this year, I'd got the children to make individual letters in our school colours from cut up cardboard boxes (ever the recycler) which we held up. Unfortunately, the photo I was hoping for wasn't quite achieved as we couldn't get a photo with everyone in face on without lots of other schools in the way.

It hit 7pm and the concert began. The children were excited and sang brilliantly. I was very proud of how accurate they were with their singing, counting and rhythms (they commented that other schools weren't doing some of the rhythms correctly! My pedantry over their counting seems to have been passed on to them!) The theme of the concert was the Queen's life and Jubilee with some other pieces thrown in for good measure.  To make things even more exciting, we had been given tiny LED lights in red, white and blue to wave during 'Sing' by Gary Barlow, flags to wave during the National Anthem and our own flags to wave during Sweet Caroline. 

Unfortunately, as we were in the middle of singing a song called Hope, when all the lights were on us, composed for this concert by my school friend Kayleigh, my lovely choir assistant L turned round to me to say that one of our pupils, a boy with ASD had just said he felt sick. In the moment I stood thinking, "Where is the sick bucket?" and "Should I take him out now?", he then proceeded to projectile vomit in about 5 directions!!! It smelt very strongly of smoky bacon.  There was absolutely loads of it. As she led him out, I went to try and find some paper towels (I had used our supply during the rehearsal to clear up a spilt bottle of water.). I managed to find a roll outside. By this point, the performance had moved onto 'Sing'. Myself and our Assistant head were on our hands and knees trying to clear it up during the song. It was awful! It was absolutely everywhere including inside L's carrier bag on her cardigan, down the back of a girl in the school in front, all over her chair, under his chair. I felt really helpless! In retrospect, I should have just carried on singing and waited to clear it up (apparently, it was allvisible to the audience according to our parents and Head who saw everything!)

During the interval, I went out to go and find out what was happening with the boy.  He still felt sick and had thrown up again in our bucket. He had some icy water from the First Aid team.  I felt really bad for him as he is not always able to express his feelings. He looked very sweaty. After a while, he said he wanted to go back in. I took him but then thought better of it, so the ushers allowed us to place a chair near the door so he could exit when he needed to.  Our kind Assistant Head told me she would sit with him as I needed to be with the kids to sing.   Apparently, he was continually being sick during the second half but really wanted to come back in to sing.  The  AH was one of the best people to be with on this trip as she is so good humoured and just laughs at stressful situations (whereas I spent the whole second hand fretting). 

The concert was amazing- the children were so excited and buzzing about their experience.  2 of our children had been filmed for an interview about preparing for the concert and they said some really beautiful things!

At the end, we had to wait for an usher to tell us when we were allowed to exit our seats.  The concert had ended some 30minutes later than it was due to and then we seemed to not be called to leave. I was getting worried about leaving so we tried to make our way back to the Bar where our coats and bags were but the exit we'd been using had been blocked off.  We ended up going on a massive wild-goose chase right the way round the hall to get back there with an usher and eventually got our coats.  When we finally made our way back up to the top and kids had been to the loo, we tried to find my AH and the sick boy, but our sick bucket had gone missing whilst being washed.  We were worried as he was still being sick. I tried to call a parent who was coming back on the coach with us and the coach driver to find out where he was.  It was so stressful getting out as there were still masses of parents and children waiting.  As we walked, one of our parents started to ask me if she could take her child and I'm afraid I was rather abrupt in my negative answer in my anxiety to get the children safely to the coach. 

We got on the coach and I hoped and prayed that we would not hit awful traffic like we had done in previous years.  The sick child was thankfully sleepy so he started to go to sleep (though he did wake up to vomit once later....).  I was so thankful that we didn't hit traffic and only got back to school around 30minutes late, 11.07pm exactly. All the parents turned up! 

I got a lift to my interchange station with my AH as she lives near my midpoint train change station. We were almost crying with laughter at her hilarious retelling of the events of the evening despite how tired we were. I had to wait 25minutes at the station and got home after getting a taxi around 12.50am!!! Only 6 hours till I had to get up again!

That whole tiredness stayed with me for the rest of the week.  We had 2 days of teacher strikes that week but this time, we opened for a few classes so I did have to go in (my union didn't strike). 

I had a really useful gamelan rehearsal on the Wednesday night- there were only 6 of us there but we got some focused practice done.

Thursday, I only had the Year 6 children because of the strikes but I had decided to organise a second performance of our Albert Hall songs with another local school for the parents who couldn't afford to watch the concert so we tried out the songs with some of our children singing the parts the secondary children sang including solos.

At the weekend, CBC and I headed out to various towns to try and get some supplies as well as camping gear for our forthcoming trip to walk some of the Pennine way.  We ended up at Lakeside to visit Go Outdoors as other camping shops had closed down.  We managed to get a few supplies and then had a look in TK Maxx too. We bought a new Bamboo chopping board as our Joseph Joseph one had snapped last week.  We ended up in a Thai restaunt for dinner which was yummy.

On Sunday, I headed over to my Mum's for lunch to give her some Mother's Day presents. It was so nice to see her. I ended the day at a Gamelan rehearsal in London.

Sadly, my Monday flute quartet rehearsal was cancelled due to illness.  School was busy this week.

We had a rehearsal at the local school for the choir concert next week. Their piano is dreadfully out of tune! I managed to play all the piano parts for the songs.

This weekend had two more Gamelan rehearsals on Thursday and Friday. The Friday was great as one of the Balinese dancers had bought cooked Balinese food for all of us! It was amazing!

On Saturday, CBC had a concert and rehearsal in the afternoon and evening. His brother came out on the train to do a practice trek with me for our family trip to walk some of the Pennine way in the Easter Holidays.  He's doing 9 days of trekking whereas CBC and I are only doing 4 (though 17.5miles each day with camping gear- eek!). CBC was rather cross about this plan since he had to do the concert rehearsal  despite having been in the Whatsapp group where it was arranged so I felt a bit miserable when we started. 

Once I'd met my BiL at the station, we went to buy some rolls from the bakery and set off on our walk.

It was remarkably muddy in places which was a bit difficult in places.  We ended up getting lost and finding ourselves in the 'Poo farm'! The sewage treatment works really! After a few wrong turns, involving a tiresome railway crossing closure, we ended up stopping in a churchyard for lunch. It was SO nice to sit down!  The weather was mostly kind to us though we did get rained on!

By the time we got back to my house, we'd walked 23.3km! We were so tired. We had some tea, biscuits, showers, cheese and crackers and then walked the mile to town to find dinner. We tried the Indian restaurant which was full so we went to the Italian instead.  The food was delicious though took a long time.  CBC got back to town just as we were finishing so we met him at the station and my BiL got the train home!

Today, I spent most of the day cleaning and tidying and preparing my camping stuff for the Pennine Way.

I should probably go to bed!

Hope you are well!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Revolution of the Daleks florals from Yaz

Hello Campers!

I hope you are well!

I thought after a couple of weeks of Clara, it was time to pay Yaz Khan another visit. Featuring an outfit, I last wore it in February 2021, it is a fleetingly seen outfit from Revolution of the Daleks

It features a lovely floral shirt from Whistles,worn with a pink vest, black trousers and black boots together with a black leather jacket and Alex Monroe floral initials, Y and Z.

Here's my look!

 I started with the floral shirt- the same one from Whistles, which I was the first person to ID! It's such beautiful material- light and comfy.  I decided to wear it with my ubiquitous ASOS black trousers and in this case, Clarks men's black boots.

I wore this charity shopped fake leather jacket which I bought for £2.25 in my local Baptist church charity shop- I didn't have this last time I wore this outfit back in 2021.

Finally, I added my silver-card letters which I made to mimic the Alex Monroe ones. 

I was going to wear my Avon Lacey K & Z initials but I can't find the K! Oh where is it!!?!!!

2 years on, I STILL haven't seen anyone else where this outfit even though I know 2 people who own it! Tis annoying!

Hope all is well with you!

x

Vaughn-Williams

My mum shared this with me recently.  My great-great grandfather received a letter from composer Ralph Vaughn-Williams as he used to sing in a choir which he ran!

This was pretty exciting to hear!

 There's another story from my relatives regarding well-known musical personalities but I'm not sure whether to believe it is true or not until I can see the end credits of a film to see if it is true and gives evidence that would confirm this.

What is it? #75- tissue on the floor

 What?!?!?! 3 years without a 'What is it?' post and then we get 2 in less than a month!

Here's the premise of these posts. 

I share a picture of something: a cloud, a tree, a vegetable, an object, a fold in a curtain, which bears resemblance to something else besides its obvious form, e.g. a potato that looks like a seal or a cloud that looks like Zeus shooting firebolts, or a curtain pattern that resembles a violin (yes, we've had all those).

Your job is too scrutinize the image and see what YOU see in the image, besides the obvious. 

You then share it in the comments.

I then reveal what I saw in a future post, alongside the illustrious commenters and share any similarities in opinions. It's fun to try and see what other people saw so DO join in the fun and leave a comment. I promise I'm not doing some sort of psychological test!  Please do comment, even if you haven't before, so I am not a Larry No-mates in the return to this post type!

Here's this time's image:

I was getting out of bed and I noticed that a rather scrappy and mangled piece of tissue had fallen out of my handbag. It landed on the floor in this position and I immediately thought of something that it reminded me of.

But what is it?

What does it remind YOU of?

Leave a comment sharing what you thought!!!

What about last time?

I saw this cloud and immediately spotted a happy little smiling pig in the sky!

A woman was giving me a funny look as I took this photo. To assuage what ever dubious thoughts she was ruminating on, I offered, "I can see a cloud that looks like a pig!" as she passed. She didn't say anything, just looked, but about 10 seconds later,I heard her call back, "I agree, it does!"

What did YOU lot think?

You did not disappoint me and you kindly offered a bounty of comments!

9 comments:

1. 
   johnnyjumpsup7:57 am

   Looks like a little pig.

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Vix11:34 am

   I see a piglet! x

   ReplyDelete
3. 
   Caz.P.12:56 pm

   A piglet walking on his front legs across a tightrope.

   ReplyDelete
4. 
   Julia3:40 pm

   I see a dog on top of a smiling pig in the first photo and I see a big dog on skies in the second.
   I guess these guys like to have fun.
   Hugs,
   Julia

   ReplyDelete
5. 
   Sheila4:23 pm

   I see a pig that's escaped from a hot bath into his pen where it's cold - the steam is coming off him!

   ReplyDelete
6. 
   Kelly4:31 pm

   I see a pig, too! The cloud above him reminds me of a tooth... or a Bactrian camel!! (I love seeing things in clouds!)

   ReplyDelete
7. 
   Confuzzled Bev12:30 am

   A happy pig! I saw it immediately and then scrolled down and saw that everyone else is saying pig too.

   ReplyDelete
8. 
   Polyester Princess6:03 pm

   Now this one is a no-brainer, Kezzie. Obviously it's a smiling piglet! xxx

   ReplyDelete
9. 
   Fundy Blue11:17 pm

   I saw the head of a Scottie dog.

   ReplyDelete

Well, that's pretty unanimous then!!! Apart from the Scottie Dog head from the lovely Fundy Blue.

Can't wait to see what you see this time!

xxx

Leon Lewis foraging walk

The week of my birthday,  decided I would really like to do a foraging walk with Vegetarian chef, Leon Lewis.  I met him around 4 years ago at a village show where he was selling his wonderful cuisine which included some foraged ingredients.  We then came back across him in Lockdown when we had to go to the town where he lives and operates.  He sold Vegetarian readymeals from his Garage sale. We bought some from him in March 2021 and he was the wonderful person who told me where to find Wild Garlic in Essex.

We met him at his house and we all piled into his car to reach our first location.

He taught us about some common Spring greens that we needed to avoid as they can be confused with edibles. Things like Lords and Ladies and Dog Mercury.

We looked out for some fungus and saw some King Alfred's cakes. Can you see the little face?  These are not edible but can be cut into slices and used for Fire Lighters/Starters.

We spied some Wood Ears which are used in Chinese Cuisine.  These were a bit dried up now but we did pick a bit of them as they can be rehydrated

We  also spied some Bird Polypore. Not edible but good to know! This one looked like  bun from underneath!

Leon introduced us to a great Spring green called Hairy Bittercress.  He set us the task of looking for some and picking it.  It is useful for a Spring salad.  We managed to grab quite a few chunks.  Don't ever take too much when you forage. Always make sure you leave enough behind. Remember, animals share these resources and other people and they need to grow back.

It was lovely to see some blossom as we walked.

We found a patch of Wild Garlic a little off the main path. Although it was quite early for Wild Garlic and it isn't as dense as it will be,there was a surprisingly large amount.  We gathered lots and it didn't look like we had taken any!

Next, we headed to a new location to go and seek some 3-cornered leek.  This patch were more oniony than leeky.  You have to look for the distinctive triangular stem down the bottom.

We also looked for Violets- tiny little purple flowers which are edible with a distinct floral taste.

We moved on to another area and found some wild Sorrel.  This was just growing in the grass and has a lovely lemony taste.

We also found and looked for some Cow Parsley which, in its young stage, as you might expect, makes a great wild parsley.

We also looked for some Common Hogsweed as when it is early Spring, when the new shoots are coming through, they can be picked. They look a furry white/green shade and are unfurled.

We also picked a large amount of Nettle tops and Goose grass.

We headed back to Leon's Garage where he had prepared some wonderful veggie dishes for us to eat. But before we did that, we were going to prepare some of our finds. 

As it wasn't a huge Mushroom time, Leon got some Chanterelles and Morrels out of the freezer for us.

Using Leon's Deep fat fryer, he supervised us deepfrying the nettletops for around 12 seconds.  These then turned into something delicious that tasted like Crispy seaweed. It was SO delicious!

He had mixed up some tempura batter for us with gram flour so we then deepfried the Hogsweed shoots in the batter.

Again, these tasted delicious.

He set me the task of deep frying the Chanterelle mushrooms in the tempura batter whilst he was frying.

You might just be aware that I LOATHE eating regular mushrooms.

Leon had said to me once that other types of fungus taste differently.  Thus, I decided I would try the mushrooms he cooked.

To the utter amazement of my family, I absolutely adored the tempura Chanterelles and ate lots of them!

 Leon also cooked the Morrels in cream and brandy with red onions.  I liked the taste of the mushrooms but wasn't so keen on the brandy flavour.

CBC was set the task of adding the sorrel, hairy bittercress, some wild garlic and the violets to a Greek Salad Leon had made.  This was delicious and had excellent olives as well as wonderful Vegan Feta (nicer than regular feta) and some Vegan sushi rolls Leon had made. It looked so pretty.

Here were the Woodears mushrooms rehydrating.

Leon opened some excellent wine (for him and CBC) and some homemade Apple Juice for me.

And now it was time to eat all the veggie goodness.

He had made a wonderful loaf of bread.  Then there was a delicious Caponata with olives, tomatoes. 

A great Tabbouli salad, Siny'et Bedingal (Egyptian marinated aubergines).  Mushroom pate, a Wild-garlic pate, a great Apple crumble, the Greek Salad and then the fried goods.

It was all delicious.

We were allowed to take all the left overs we foraged and we had some of the dishes. Leon also sold us some of his ready meals half-price (absolute bargains).

We came back with various curries, pickles, a Cucumber Raitha and all manner of goodies which kept us stocked for a week.

Leon is knowledgeable, friendly, generous and great fun. Both CBC and I were really buoyed by our wonderful time with him. What you find will vary at different times of the year and yes, I do want to go again as I am now keen to try Chicken of the Woods fungus!

It cost us £30 per head to do the foraging course, with food and wine which was incredibly good value. I am not sure if prices change at different times of the year.

If you go to Glastonbury, you might have spotted his stall as he is there and he has cooked for Fairport convention on quite a few locations.

Have you ever been on a foraging course?  Ever eaten something and enjoyed it which you didn't expect?

xx
 

P.S.Check out the Mushroom comments on my Insta!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

TARDIS Tuesday- Flatline

For TARDIS Tuesday, I am featuring an old favourite- quite a casual old favourite, but one that I have worn many times on this ere blog!

 I last featured this cosplay on the blog in October 2019 and it has featured quite a few times but was first featured in October 2014, almost 9 years ago!

Image borrowed from this Facebook

The episode itself, from 2014, was BRILLIANT! Such a clever premise- creatures from a 2-dimensional world trying to get into our 3-dimensional one.  It had some seriously scary moments and some comic genius, especially where Clara discovers the TARDIS has shrunk!

It featured an H&M blue and red checked shirt, a Khaki and black biker jacket from The Kooples, Ash-wedged trainers, black skinny jeans and a gold-mandala style necklace (which I have NO IDEA how anyone could see or even ID!) 

Confession: I absolutely love my original 2014 post of this, even though it wasn't particularly accurate- there was something fun about my posts that I don't seem to be able to achieve in my posts so well now, looking almost 10 years older!

Anyway, I tried to have a little of the storyline in these photos:

I wore this for a Sunday at home (plus a visit to the COOP)- I was SO tired after my concert day on Saturday and getting home around 1am, that I achieved very little.

The H&M shirt is a super soft but light flannel which feels very nice to wear. I remember searching for SOOOO long to find the Screen-accurate shirt as H&M have made loads of shirts in this combination of colours over the years. My original was a brighter blue and more fitted- I really liked it though it became a bit small in the end. 

The coat is the same Kooples one and I was lucky to find it early on in my Clara 'career' for a very reasonable price for what is a £400 jacket. I confess I don't wear it that often as I always worried about rain so I tend to wear my coats with a hood more regularly...I think it actually has a hidden hood so perhaps it is the season for it coming up!

Have you spotted the very same trousers and Ash wedged trainers from last week's Clara cosplay?  They are one and the same.

My TARDIS is in fact a ceramic cookie jar which I bought from the original Doctor Who exhibition when it was in London. I had to sit with it under my feet when my sister and I went to see Billy Elliott at the theatre after it! If I were any good at computer-wizardry, I'd photoshop a hand coming out of the TARDIS! Ha!

This Tuesday, I won't have any orchestra! Hurrah! My concert went really well on Saturday.

It was a concert of different emotions. Our wonderful leader, Cory is moving to a new city so it was her last concert as leader.  She's also done so much to run the orchestra and her husband has been a wonderful part of it too. After losing our wonderful conductor last year, it's really sad to be losing her.  The concert was supposed to be conducted by a guest conductor I know well, Sam but he caught Covid and had to pull on Tuesday and a wonderful conductor called Orlando took over (even though he didn't know one of the pieces, Poulenc Sinfonietta well.). He did a really good job and we liked his conducting very much.

One of the pieces we performed was Beethoven's Triple concerto (for Violin, Cello and piano) and the soloists were dynamic and exciting- they made a gorgeous sound.

Lots of old friends of the orchestra came to watch and we had a large audience including our former 1st oboist Suzy who I had mentioned to, that it was Cory's last concert.  It was the first time I've seen her since our last pre-Covid concert in March 2020, though we have communicated through Insta.

The performance went very well, despite us wind-players experiencing unexpected terror in the first piece, Faure's Masques et Bergamasques- not sure why we were all scared!

In between the rehearsal and concert, the wind players all went to a lovely Thai buffet on Portobello road called Brown Rice. I made the plan and they were all pleasantly surprised by this place as it meant there was no hanging around ordering food, no waiting for the bill, you paid as you went in. A very reasonable £12 got you an Eat as Much as you Like Buffet. It meant we got back to the church in plenty of time rather than the usual panic!

After the concert, we had a reception for Cory where they were presented with a fine double music stand from the Early Music shop.

Alas, there were Engineering works on our local line so we had to make alternative arrangements which added a lot of extra time to our journey. We were, however, incredibly lucky that we managed to get a Central line train immediately and get straight on our final train without a big wait. We were, however, exhausted by the time we got home at around 1am! Yawn!

Hope you are well.

xx