A historical performance

I was having a clear out of the garage, trying to ruthlessly cull craft materials that I knew I had too many or or was not using to pass onto others. I also cleared out my PGCE teaching folder and some resources. I will probably regret it but I haven't used them for at least a decade so they must go!

In one box, I found a whole load of programmes from concerts I performed in when younger and inside also, was a magazine from my borough, sharing what had been going on in the borough.

I looked through it and found this picture of my recorder consort (this was about 1994 or 5).

We were performing as part as a historical festival and our recorder group got dressed up and performed outside the temple.  I remember this occasion because two of the important members or our group were away which meant I got to play the solo for a recorder version of Telemann's Viola concerto! 

We used to do really fun things with our recorder ensemble. This is the musical group I was probably part of for the longest in my life. I was in it from about the age of 7 to 18! Alot of girls left when they were in their early teens but there were die-hard members of us who were in it until the bitter end!  Our teacher, the lady in pink to the left, is an incredible woman who was a huge inspiration for me, musically, educationally and sartorially! 

Can you spot which one is me?  Also, can you spot my Mum? She was helping out as well that day! My sister is hidden from view.

Happy memories of a happy time. If I could talk about the happiest times of my life, they were belonging to this music school and all the things I did there and friends I made.

 

Style Imitating Art- Gumball

Hi there,

I thought I'd save TARDIS antics for Thursday this week and instead, treat you to the last Style Imitating Art of the year. 

Daenel chose this fun photorealism piece by Charles Bell entitled Gumball.

Gumball by Charles Bell. Image taken from Wiki Art

First thoughts...this was not a good piece for me to be looking at as I am currently craving sweets and I can't get any.  Regretting having not picked up some the other day before my enforced quarantine as I did think about getting some.  Our friend is going to pop by to stand at the end of our drive on Saturday possibly so I might see if he can get me some!

Anyway, it is a fun piece and I love all the bright colour and shapes.

I decided to go fun and silly with this and embrace the rainbows.

I started with the cardigan.  My cardigan is by French designed, Agnes B.  I used to swoon over the Agnes B store on Marylebone High Street when I used to work at the Academy and one day, when searching on eBay for a bargain Agnes B piece, I saw this cardigan with its amazing Smartie buttons- just like Gumballs!

I then added my French connection charity shopped (£2.50) rainbow skirt.

Next, I added the Cath Kidston top with its tiny red polka dots.

I then decided to add my Nickat sequin necklace and my Cath Kidston sweetie necklace. It was then that I spied my Topshop teddy rattle necklace- the little balls shake around- it's almost a mini gumball machine!

Rainbow shoes as a final thought.

I asked CBC if he would take pictures for me on his phone to avoid me having to faff with a tripod.  He acquiesed but as he made me wait outside whilst finishing off, I decided to punish him by subjecting him to Christmas recorder playing. I stood out in the garden and played the entire 12 days of Christmas, Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Let it Snow, Coventry Carol and O Come, O come, Emmanuel before he finally gave in took them (from a distance- as you can see, when he needed to get a bit closer for details, I donned my polka dot mask!).

I thought I'd share a little video he took of me playing O Come! You can see my po-faced recorder playing look! 

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A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

If  you would like to see how everyone else interpreted this, head over to Daenel, tomorrow.

 

5 brooches #64

Hello there!

It seems such an inordinate amount of time since I have shared a brooch post so I thought I should rectify that immediately!

 Up first is the brooch I always wear for the very first Recorder lesson I teach to Year 3.  I give them a whistlestop tour of the history of the Recorder and then show and play to them all the recorders in the recorder family. The little bonus at the end of the lesson is that I share with them that this little brooch is made by the Recorder makers- Mollenhauer - and it actually plays. It is a scaled down recorder brooch made out of Rosewood I think. Or Tulip wood or something like that! I love the colour of it. I wore it with a beautiful Treble Clef necklace which was a present from two sisters at the end of the year!

Here I wore this cute Compass brooch which has a spinning arrow which I received in my Wanderlust mystery box from Kimchi and Coconut! The whole box was amazing!

 Both of these pins, hard to see in this picture, advocate reading- Read More and Book worm!
I've just finished Day of the Triffids and think I did do both of these things!

 Lastly, here is a cute little Dalek brooch from 'Down the Rabbit hole'-  I wore him with a Clara outfit-though one she wore with Cybermen rather than daleks, alas!!

 I know some of you aren't really interested in brooches but I do like doing these little round ups!

Hope you are well.

xx

5 brooches #29

Hello there!

Interrupting long German-holiday reminiscences transmissions with some frivolous broochery.

This tin Peacock butterfly pin is a delight to wear as it is so light, thus it doesn't drag on a top. It was from Re in Corbridge.  The little cloud pin, I'm not sure! Oh that's my Ladybird likes Typewriter key necklace up the top too!

Happy Erstwilder owl pin. I really loved this brooch for ages so when I saw it at the start of May, I used some late birthday money from my dad for it. He liked his 50 shades of Aqua background.

This rosewood recorder brooch is one of my oldest and one of my favourite brooches. I've had it since I was about 11 and it is an actual working recorder made by a proper recorder maker. You can just about play Merrily we roll along on it, it being so small! My Mum bought one for my sister and recorder teacher too. My recorder teacher still wears hers now!

This little acrylic dog pin went well with my dress!

And here, I wore the little Book owl again!!

Have you worn any brooches recently? Any favourites here?

xxx

A day of freedom

Week 2 of 6 is now over, as we are at Uni for one day's break tomorrow. It's such a treat not to have to get up at 6!!!
The week has been up and down. The weekend had been lovely doing a flute concert in East Horndon, but Sunday rapidly became miserable as I tried to get my weekly planning done. Literacy is soooooo hard to plan for, especially as I don't get this new framework we have to use now. Nobody has sat down and shown us properly how to use the old one, let alone the new one.
Well anyway, my reflection for the week is that I am pitching my Literacy way too high and expecting far too much of my 6-7 year olds. My tutor came to school on Tuesday and was very nice, helpful and constructive about what was frankly a disasterous ICT lesson. I sooo understand why our ICT tutor told us people hate teaching the Control part of the ICT curriculum as it is manic! Most of my lessons have felt quite disasterous and my timing is still quite bad, my explanation needs honing, my EAL support needs working on, (always over-running) but I have more confidence now than I did on Tuesday.

Today I played piano for KS2 assembly as we have Edwardian day on Tuesday and they have to sing 'God save the King' (and Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory), which started being a bit scary, and I somehow ended up offering to teach the 200 children to sing it, and managed to teach them by singing it in bite sized chunks in 10mins! I felt absolutely fearless doing it. It was a lovely feeling!
I also taught a manic literacy lesson, messy but fun content in Science and had a slow worm making a visit. Problem solving in Maths was a nightmare, teaching the seaside song was fab. My class were vile most of the day, so was somewhat in a bad mood. Did anyone find on PGCE, I just find it hard to be in the KS1 classroom on my own without a TA when trying to teach differentiated literacy and numeracy, it's a nightmare. The lower attainers just don't to be able to do anything on their own, but the 2nd to bottom group can't either, and then the poor top 3 groups have barely enough time with me.

This weekend I am playing one of solo recorder parts for Brandenburg 4 in Felsted, which should be exciting. Must get practising...