Weeks 1-2 Holiday

The holiday has been flying by.

The first weekend, on Saturday 18th, CBC and I travelled to a rural part of Essex to take part in the memorial celebration of a friend's life.  Last year, we had been invited to our friend Annie's for a memorial celebration of her mum, Inge. I'd offered to play my flute for it which Annie had jumped at and when her husband died in January, she immediately checked whether we would be available in July for a memorial celebration to play.  We were really sad to say goodbye to him. I was very fond of him, he was a great man who had owned a model railway shop and made amazing railway structures as well as being an amazing DT teacher.  

Naturally, I dressed accordingly, wearing my Cath Kidston train dress, which was much appreciated by lots of those who came along.

CBC and I set up a keyboard and microphone and speaker under the gazebo.  Annie had suggested some songs that she would like played and in the end, CBC said I should sing some of them. I felt quite nervous about this as I am used to performing flute solos but I don't sing solos very often, especially, in the non-classical or musicals context.  I ended up playing flute for La Vie en Rose and then singing Singbird by Fleetwood Mac, Dream a little dream and 

The celebration in the garden was wonderful. I took myself off to one of the zones of the garden where there was a lovely sun lounger that Andy used to read in. Andy and I were always discussing books and would each lend each other ones, particularly with a train theme (or Gerald Durrell or Terry Pratchett).  I also picked some lovely cherry plums from their tree.

We drove home late.

The next morning, after church, CBC and I drove to his sister's house to wish her a happy birthday. We stopped at Waitrose and bought her a birthday cake and Prosecco.  We had cake in the garden and gave her presents and also to F, her youngest son, whose birthday was also coming up.

Ended up with a train-theme to the weekend as S, the oldest, has a train driving simulation game he wanted to show me as well as getting a football kicked at me in goal!

After this, we drove to Lewes in Sussex, as CBC had booked for us to watch a production of my favourite Jane Austen book, Northanger Abbey, by Moving Parts theatre co, at Lewes Castle.

We bought some fish and chips (chips in my case) and then watched the play in the grounds.

It was very entertaining and a very picturesque place to watch the play!

The next day, we drove to Hexham for a week.

The first night we arrived, we went for dinner at Hexham's new Thai restaurant! FINALLY, Hexham has a Thai restaurant.  It has a lovely decor including an indoor tree and the food is delicious. It's not cheap but the food is wonderful.  This Tamarind duck, which my MiL ordered,  was superb!

The next day, CBC, his Mum and I travelled to Pooley Bridge near Ullswater in the Lake District to meet some French cousins.  CBC's dad's Great Grandfather was French but CBC's Dad was not very sociable at meeting the French contingent of the family so the cousins have not met that often.  We were meeting a cousin and her daughter who were on holiday there. We had a jolly time meeting and eating

went  and went on a quick boat trip on the lake.   We discovered that there are yet more family links with music as Marie's son is organist at the La Madaleine in Paris and is doing a recital at Notre Dame (yes, THE Notre Dame!) in September.  The family all want to go and watch now!

Marie's daughter is a teacher too, but in international schools in very interesting locations- she's been in Khazakstan, Mongolia amongst other places! We got a little chance to chat together alone near the end and annoyingly discovered we were quite kindred spirits in many respects which would have been lovely to chat more!

The next day, I sent CBC off on a cycle by himself and  I took myself off to swim at the Wentworth pool (Sadly, Haltwhistle outdoor pool was totally booked up!) as well as having a look round the shops.  I didn't buy anything except one silk top in a charity shop.

I walked back up the hill to my MiL's house.

The next day, CBC and I planned a walk to Allendale.  Wonderfully, there is a bus that goes from CBC's Mum's house to Allendale and Allenbanks and so we planned to do a small section of Isaac's Teatrail, which I'd really hoped to walk some of this Summer.  The bus was a very scenic route with fabulous views of the moors.  When we arrived in Allenbanks, we bought some sandwiches from the tearoom and then walked back towards Allendale.  The walk ended in Allendale village, where I paid my respect to the Allendaleks outside the Museum of Classic Scifi and then met CBC's Mum, who had a podiatry appointment in Allendale (I'd planned this day cunningly!). 

We went into the pub and had a cup of tea and a plate of chips  

That evening, CBC's brother arrived in town for the weekend. We were happy to see him.

Our toad, Magical Misery Toad met HIS frog, Ricky!

Saturday morning, I started off the day with Watermelon with lime juice on it (very, very nice combination!)

We decided to do a walk from Corbridge after lunch at Hexham Abbey. J dropped us in Corbridge where we had cake and tea at Grant's bakery. WELL worth a visit if you go to Corbridge!

We walked along the river Tyne and then headed back via the scenic route towards Hexham, through Swallowship woods.

I was bemoaning the lack of fungi spotting when T spotted this one!

It was tempting to have a swim in this spot!  If only it was a bit earlier and I had brought my swimming stuff!

We ended the walk with a trip to the Tap and Spile pub.

On Sunday morning, we had a slow, late start. I regretted not getting up in time to go and sing with J with the St Mary's choir in Witley.

In the afternoon, CBC, T and I went for a walk in Hexham along the Tyne which was very pleasant.

We went for dinner at the Thai restaurant as T is also fond of Thai!

I had a beef dish which is very unusual for me as I usually have Tofu green curry!

We went to watch the final concert of the Corbridge Music festival which was superb!

I saw a friend from my music camp who had come from Yorkshire for the festival.

After the concert, we went round to J's friend's house for a drink.

Back home, it was time to pack.

Alas, on the way home to Essex, our car packed in near Retford/Newark on the A1 and we had to call out the AA to rescue us!  Alas, the car had an Oil problem that was going to prove incredibly expensive to fix and difficult.  A repair worth more than the car!

We got home at after midnight.

The next day, CBC and I cycled on our bikes, since the car was kaputt, to go and look at new cars.

CBC decided he wanted to go electric. He'd said his next car would be electric but we weren't anticipating it being this soon!  He decided,from looking, that he was most interested in a Renault EV but the local places didn't have quite the year or model he wanted.

I spent much of the rest of the day reading under the cherry tree. It was so hot!

On the Thursday, I can't quite remember what happened in the day apart from some packing and booking of train tickets to Norfolk.  By weird fluke, buying on onward ticket to Sheringham proved cheaper (by more than half the cost!) than just buying a ticket to Norwich.

Later,  we walked to the station and got a train to Southend, walked and changed trains to meet my Mum for diner at Akropolis, a Greek restaurant. We enjoyed our food but regretted ordering a Greek salad as all our meals came with salad!

We then headed to the Cliffs, Pavillion, to watch Cole Porter's High Society. A weird coincidence occurred. I'd been reading Island of the Mad by Laurie L King, a Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell novel and in it, they met Cole Porter!

The show is one I know very well as I was in a production of it. They did a fantastic job! Helen George (Call the Midwife) was really good as Tracy.  The costumes were utterly dreamy and the set was beautiful!

My Mum bought me a 'You're sensational!" t-shirt to say thank you!

We all walked to the station and were beaten there by some of the cast! They move quickly.

Back home, after ANOTHER long walk, I did some packing for our next adventure to Norfolk.

The next morning, I walked my suitcase and holdall to the train station to catch trains and buses to Brentwood as my flute quartet had our recital

The practice and subsequent concert went really well and we had, what was one of their biggest lunchtime recital audiences of the year with around 70 people.

Our programme consisted of a variety of pieces with a sort of celestial theme!

About 14 of my own friends came to watch, including our lovely ex-Chair of the Governors from school, who has recently resigned (which I'm so sad about as he was one of my biggest supporters and a wonderful man!)

After this, CBC and I walked to the station and got the Liz line to Shenfield to get our connection to Norwich.  We had an hour to kill before our train so CBC got some lunch in a restaurant near the station.

The journey to Norwich, via Colchester, Norwich and onto Sheringham was very pleasant. What a great train service!

  CBC's sister and husband, plus Mum picked us up from Sheringham station and we went and did a big shop and drove to our home for the week, a cottage in Brinton, a tiny little village!

CBC and I were really happy to have a double bedroom as we thought we would be getting the single beds in the twin room, but CBC's Mum insisted we got the second-biggest room and she would have the single bed room! 

We were happy but felt guilty about her sleeping on a smaller lower bed.

CBC and his mum made a salmon dinner for us and then it was off to bed!

The first two weeks flew by!

Ooh, here's something I bought in the charity shops and forgot about! Don't they go well together!

We hoped that our car issues would be sorted soon!

xx

 

A musical week

Last week was incredibly busy for me in terms of performances and practices but also very positive.

Let me work backwards.

Sunday morning, I was up bright and early for church. As I usually do, I played my flute for the morning alongside Sue, our lovely worship leader on piano.

After this, I headed home and did a couple of things.

In the afternoon, we headed off to the Chelmsford countryside to our friend Annie's house to commemorate her lovely Mum, Inge's life.  Inge died a year ago.  The previous night, I had texted Annie to see if she would like me to play something for the scattering of Inge's ashes and she was delighted. I played Annie's Song and Gossec's Tambourin, two pieces that her Mum had liked a lot (the latter, my Mum made me learn when I was in Year 6 and I finally know why she liked it- apparently it was a Radio theme tune!

The vicar from Inge's church read a Bible verse and a prayer and then they played Inge's ashes in a hole and planted a beautiful rose.

We then ate delicious Indian food and enjoyed the garden.

He's Shady! He's more panther than cat but is very friendly.

I wore a shirred dress from Oliver Bonas that I admired last Summer but finally managed to find secondhand on Vinted in my size at a cheap price!

Back to Saturday night, CBC and I went to dinner at a gorgeous Vegetarian restaurant, inspired by Moroccan and Lebanese flavours called Sababa! All the food was tasty but I adore the Cauliflower wings!

Saturday, around 5pm, we went over to a colleague of CBC's from Azerbaijan who is a specialist Baroque musician.  We played through some Handel flute sonatas with me on flute, him on Harpsichord and CBC on cello continuo.  It was lovely. I'm not used to playing Baroque music much so it was a novel experience.  Their home is beautifully decorated with vintage pieces in profusion. There was a whole line of cuckoo clock on the stairs and some beautiful Grandfather clocks!

Look at that beautiful inside!

Saturday morning, I woke up irritatingly early having got to bed very late and went out to water the garden at 7.15am.

We headed to Leigh on Sea for the annual Art trail.  We bought my mum a piece for her birthday by Katrina Parris who we already own 3 pieces by.

Friday night, I performed the epic Mahler's 9th symphony with Orchestra of the City.  This mammoth work is 90minutes long with a huge orchestra.  It went fantastically but the church was very warm!

At school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I hosted my very first outdoor Summer performances at 9.30-10.00 involving 180 children each time from years 1-6.  They sang songs from Bangladesh, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Congo, Romania, Japan amongst others.  All of them went well in their different ways!

Thursday night, I was supposed to be going to Gamelan but I discovered that I cannot do the gig next weekend at the Southbank Centre for an Asian festival so I had a much-needed evening off. I still had choir after school though!

Wednesday, apart from the aforementioned school performance, we also had Exhibition evening from 4-6 at school and then I had to go to an Orchestra of the City rehearsal in Vauxhall!

Tuesday night, I headed to CBC's school to play Tenor saxophone in his school Big Band barbeque.  This was fun and I really enjoyed being part of this even though I was sight-reading everything!

Monday night, after Drumming Club and recorder club through the day, as well as regular music teaching, I headed off for a rehearsal with my flute trio/quartet (usually but 4th member is away) for our forthcoming recital in Brentwood on 25th July.   We played through all our pieces and then I headed home.

It had been a super busy week, enjoyable, but I was sorely tired and it didn't help that I still kept waking up early!

1 week to go and the school concert is tomorrow night.  Lots of parents still haven't responded to my multiple messages about it so have no idea how many are going to turn up!?!!

Hope you are well!

x

 

A day in Aldeburgh

Hello!!

Last weekend, CBC and I had no particular plans and we suddenly realised that the Aldeburgh festival was on!  In its 76th year, this music festival in the Suffolk seaside town was founded by great British composer, Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears (pronounced Peers).  CBC and I have been to various events for this over the years. He introduced me to it fairly early in our relationship as he was a Hess student when he was young- these students spend time in Aldeburgh stewarding for it and get to stay with local families.

We decided to try and get tickets for the Sunday events.

The timing was perfect as I had JUST started my final Year 4 music unit of the year on Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra 3 days earlier so I was very much in the mood to go to Aldeburgh!

We left home around 8.45am to drive to Suffolk and arrived just in time for the 10.30am Festival service at St Peter's and St Paul's church 

The service received a sermon from the Rt Rev’d Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepneyand the  Britten Pears Chamber Choir was singing, conducted by James Davyand with Francesca Massey organ.  The service was lovely with music by composer of the festival,  Helen Grime: her Missa Brevis and a piece by Daniel Kidane: Christus factus est.  CBC's old colleague and friend L was singing in the choir as she had moved to Suffolk and it was lovely to see her.

I loved the beautiful Benjamin Britten memorial window by John Piper.  Britten had developed a new type of opera which he gave the name 'parables for church performance.  Three of these were named Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal son and all of these are evoked in some way in this beautiful window. 

 After the service we headed to Aldeburgh high street for a spot of lunch.  I queued in the epic fish and chip shop queue whilst CBC went to find some coffee and have a mooch around.

After 30mins, I reached the front of the queue and bought CBC a portion of chips (he'd acquired a toastie) and for myself, a Child-sized portion of Fish and chips plus a small battered sausage. 

I met CBC on the beach to eat.

The fish and chips, cooked in Beef dripping, was delicious and my portion was just the right size!

I went dressed for the seaside:

I bought this gingham sailor top in Primark last month. I never shop in there now but I saw this on Instagram and knew a 100% cotton sailor top in Gingham was something I had to see!

The skirt is from Fatface via a charity shop plus my Seasalt sandals from Depop a good 6 years ago or so.

The sea changed colour in the space of 2 minutes when the sun came out:

We enjoyed our lunch and witnessed a fly-by theft from a Seagull who stole a child's battered sausage.  It also tried to steal mine- I suddenly noticed it hovering inches from my hand.

As CBC ate his Tiramisu cake, I had a paddle! It was refreshing but the sloping shingle was hard to stand upright on as I tried to hold my skirt!

We had to hotfoot it back to the car, parked past the church (via a charity shop where CBC bought an old print of a lovely John Singer Sargeant painting) and drove to Snape Maltings for our next musical performance.   This was held in the Britten studio at 2pm.  We crept in late in the complete dark, accidentally bumping into our friend L who was a steward for it!

The concert was a performance by Fu and Betts-Dean: The programme was entitled Solitude with Schubert Lotte Betts-Dean,  mezzo-soprano and George Xiaoyuan Fu on  piano.  It began with a film called Solitude With Schubert (first screening) by Matilda Hay filmmaker. The pieces were Schubert: Einsamkeit, D.620 (17’) Schubert: Schwanengesang, D.957 (selection) (15’) Schubert: Piano Sonata No.21 in B flat, D.960 (40’).  It was wonderful!!! The programme explored how grief mingles with consolation, combined with a film exploring the loss of a loved one. 

After this, we headed out for a walk to Snape Warren across the beautiful boardwalks.

After a glorious walk, we headed into the maltings for a light dinner.

I changed into my evening concert outfit of this Monsoon cotton dress, bought from a charity shop in Hexham.

Funnily enough, I saw my friend from Gamelan who was there to watch the same concert as us by coincidence.  Last time I came to watch an Aldeburgh concert, I saw ANOTHER Gamelan friend!

Amusingly, when we entered the Maltings hall, it turned out out of 1000 seats, we had ended up seated next to each other by total coincidence!!

the concert was entitled Nocturne and Folk, performed by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra.

The solists were  Claire Booth, soprano  and Allan Clayton, tenor.  Ryan Wigglesworth was the the conductor.  The programme was Britten: Suite on English Folk Tunes, ‘A time there was ...’, Op.90 , Helen Grime: Folk (Britten Pears Arts co-commission),  Britten: Nocturne, Op.60, and Beethoven: Symphony No.8 in F, Op.9. I adore Britten's music and I loved the two pieces we heard, both new to me.  The piece by Helen Grimes, a major new commission with soloist Claire Booth, was really intriguing with some very evocative lyrics and musical crafting.

We'd had a fantastic day and it just remained to drive back to  Essex. I helped CBC mark some test papers as he drove (I read the answers and told me if they were right or not!) 

I very much recommend a day in Aldeburgh and a visit to the Maltings, ideally a concert!

xx

Weekend of plenty

 There's no TARDIS Tuesday this week as I had a Gamelan rehearsal in London tonight and hadn't photographed anything at the weekend- it was a busy one! 

Anyway, on Friday night, after school, I helped a work colleague who is very technophobic, as our payslip system (which has been online since 2018) is going to close and move to a new system so all of us need to download all our wage slips before it closes (we all know that pensions end up with issues if you don't check your paperwork- Ang, I think you had some issues with Teachers Pensions?  I've only ever downloaded 3 for a remortgage application so I need to do the same but she has never done any and had had them sent to a personal email address which she had never set up so I ended up logging into her email address, changing her mobile phone in the verification system, changing her passwords in the wage slip system and then downloading about 50 payslips one by one!  She was having kittens about the whole thing so it was nice to help her!

I then dashed off to the station and I travelled to Westcliff to meet CBC for dinner. We went to Il Palazzo, a traditional Italian restaurant opposite the Palace Theatre. It was delicious- I had Pollo a Milanese- a breaded chicken breast with spaghetti in Tomato sauce.

We then headed to the Palace to watch The Secret Lives of Words, a one-woman show by Susie Dent.  For anyone who doesn't know who she is, she is the expert in Dictionary Corner on British Programme, Count Down, a word and numbers show and as she is Etymologist and Lexicographer, she has extensive knowledge of words and their origins. 

This was incredibly entertaining and interesting. I learnt a lot and we were made to laugh as well as be educated.  For instance, do you know about orphaned positives?  Think of ruthless or gourmless. Apparently, they used to have a positive opposites- ruthful and gourmful which have been lost over the sands of time.

The next morning, despite getting back late, I was up bright and early to go and empty the teabags onto my raised bed, do the week's washing up (yes, I know....mostly not mine as I was out for most evenings) and get washing done etc.

We then headed off to Brentwood to go to a rehearsal for a concert of Tschaikovsky's Serenade for Strings (plus Ukranian National Anthem). I had a nasty shock that morning as I discovered the Lead viola player had Covid as did one of the extra players and there would only be me (leading-eek!) and one lady who had only been to one rehearsal and didn't know it that well!  And the viola part is quite hard and prominent.  We rehearsed and then CBC headed off for a quick hair cut in town whilst I had a quick tour of the charity shops, Wilko and the Larder, a refill shop.

I bought lentils and toilet bombs from the Refill shop. From Wilko, I bought some Colgate, Vegan, recyclable tube toothpaste and some early peas.

I bought this cute cartoon illusion satchel from the St Francis Hospice charity shop (best one in Brentwood).   I loved this satchel when I first saw in back years ago so was happy to find it second hand!

In Oxfam and Cancer Research, I bought 3 books and a game. I received the second two books in MG Leonard's Adventures on Trains series for my birthday but I had borrowed the first one from the library so I was pleased to have my own copy of book 1.  The Bastien book is a pretty new release and I wanted to read it (and then give it to the school library!) The Girls football one is a nice shorter book for younger children and the Codswallop game I bought for my friend Lara for her birthday. 

This lovely light Monsoon top was £4 and looked lovely and wafty for the Summer.

This Max and Co linen dress looks modest for school but lovely and light.

These two garments are inspired by an outfit I saw Vix by: a light cotton top by Anokhi at East (£4) and a brand new light denim midi skirt (£8)

After this, I headed back to the concert venue where we began our performance at 3.30pm. I was really happy to see the President of the orchestra. He's about 84 now and he used to be the head of my music school and it's thanks to him that I was introduced to the orchestra and indirectly, why I  met my husband CBC (he introduced me to the 1st flute player who worked with CBC, who got us to play in a concert together). He's quite frail now after a stroke and some very sad life events but he looked really cheerful and happy to be there.

The concert went well though I have a feeling I skipped a bar in the last movement, I realised after about 24 bars...and skipped back a bar! I THINK. Not really sure.

After our item, the brass players took over and I quickly grabbed my stuff, bid CBC farewell and ran to the train station where the delayed rail replacement bus took me to another rail replacement bus to another town for my NEXT rehearsal and concert!

For this concert, I was playing flute for a piece with choir and then had to perform a piece by Frank Xavier Wolfgang Mozart.  The rehearsal began at 5.30pm but didn't finish until 7.15pm!  That meant no time for dinner for me (hadn't really had much lunch).  I was asked to page turn for the other pieces for the piano accompanist.  This meant 2 things... 1.  I had to stay to the very end of the concert when I could have gone home at the interval.  2.  A very nerve-wracking concert. It is MUCH more scary turning pages than having to play the flute.

My solos went well and I had a chance to chat to some of the audience (who I know from church).  The page-turning went ok....

The concert ended up finishing really late, around 22.15 so I bombed it to the train station to be ready to catch the 22.36 rail replacement bus home.

Except, there was no one in the station to give information and the 22:36 didn't turn up!  I had to wait until 23:06 for the next one. It was really cold waiting at the bus stop. Around 10 minutes before the bus came, a group of drunk hens wearing skimpy dresses and no coats turned up trying to find their way back to Southend.  They were trying to get an Uber or a taxi unsuccessfully and weren't sure how to get home.  At the moment before the bus arrived, they turned to me and asked how I was getting home and I was able to usher them, mother hen style onto the bus and assure them it would take them back to Southend, around £80 cheaper than a taxi.  They obediently boarded and I reassured them that they would be warm and get home safely.

The bus took me around an hour to get to my station and it was 00:05 by the time I got there. I was not impressed.  I had to get  taxi as CBC was not wide awake enough to come and back me and by the time I got to bed, it was 1am old time, 2am, new time (clocks went forward!) 

The next morning I got up around 8.30am new time (old time 7.30am-ouch!) and quickly showered, then headed to the station to get the rail replacement bus to Southend and then bombed it to the other Southend station (had 5mins between trains) to catch the train to my Mum's.

She picked me up from the station and took me to hers.

I gave her the beautiful bouquet that I was presented at my concert last night- they were all Purple- her favourite colour. I told her they were my bouquet. I was going to buy her some but since I would be out all week, I wouldn't get to enjoy them so she should enjoy them.

I played with her tabby kittens who were really fun and affectionate but totally nuts.  The boy cat was obsessed with my long FabIndia skirt and kept getting under it and jumping up and chasing it.  Girl cat was lapping up attention and snuck into the loo when I was in there and left up onto my shoulder and settled down, bum on my head, lying down my back.  The pair of them got into my cycling pannier.

After a while, Mum and I headed out to town where I treated Mum to brunch.  I had a delicious Mediterranean flat bread with fried eggs, Harissa, lamb sausages, chillis, pickled onions, avocado and orange zest.  Mum had a veggie breakfast. 

After that, I headed home, picking up some vegetables from the greengrocers back in Southend before getting my onward train.

As I came home, I noticed that quite a few of the new Daffodil bulbs in my 40th birthday planter were out.

For dinner that night, CBC cooked one of our favourite dinners.  Lentils cooked in stock with tomatoes, Cavolo Nero and then buttery fried leeks. It was delicious.  The picture above is of night two of it on Monday night where I cooked rice to go with it and broccoli.  I do wonder if I might have a slight intolerance to red lentils though as I had some tummy, gut issues on Sunday night to Monday morning as well as some other issues that meant I felt very unwell on Monday morning.  I'm not sure as sometimes I do have issues when I eat them.  I hope it's not that as I really love them but I do keep wondering.

It was a weekend of plenty!

Hope you are well.