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

 

Beethoven's Birth house museum.

In Half Term, CBC and I travelled to Germany for our holiday.  CBC LOVES a nomadic holiday- a few days here and there before moving on. It's fun but does end up with lots of travel and can be more expensive. (especially when you only book the accommodation at 5am of the morning you are travelling)

Our first day, he had his Garden Design course so we didn't travel till afternoon and we were driving so after we travelled on Le Shuttle through the Eurotunnel which ended up being an hour and a half delayed, we ended up in a small town near Brussels around 10pm local time.  We stayed in a B&B which was pleasant but simple and then departed the next morning.  We drove for several hours through Belgium and then Germany and decided to stop off in Bonn as we wanted to visit Beethoven's birth house museum.

We parked in a multi-storey carpark off the main street in Bonn and walked to the museum.

Here it is.

I was SO happy to be in Germany as I hate being that tourist who doesn't speak the language or does so badly. I did A level German and adore speaking German even though I have forgotten a lot in the 26 years since I stopped speaking it regularly. It was so nice to be able to communicate in the language. CBC, who doesn't speak German, was very relieved.

You download an app to your phone that will play you audio about each exhibit which is really handy.

The museum is divided into different exhibitions and rooms.

• Beethoven perceived by his contemporaries
• Bonn in times of transition
• Work and Everyday life
• Network. Friends
• Network. Patrons
• Network. Loved ones
• The Artist and his Work
• Blow of fate

We started off in the room with images of Beethoven himself.

I loved the Beethoven bust by Franz Klein, 1812.

It was an authentic representation of the composer. He used a plaster cast of Beethoven's face.  The composer allowed the plaster cast to be taken twice after a panic the first time when he thought he mgiht suffocate.  The only part that was formed later was the eyes as these were obviously closed for the cast.

Two of his friends from the Streicher family commissioned this work of him.  They owned piano factory and they had busts of favourite composers such as Schiller and Haydn and Andreas Streicher who was also a respected composer.

This small miniature was by Christian Hornemen from 1802, Danish painter, during his stay in Vienna. He used the finest paintbrush onto ivory. This shows Beethoven, 31 year old, the first high point of his career where he was truly feeling  and perceived as successful.  He had fashionable look- he was the desired guest of every Viennese salon.   He apparently wasn't usually this well coiffed.  He was often described as being scruffy and didn't like having to dress up.!  He was fond of this small portrait. He gave this to Stefan Von Broining,  a childhood friend, as a peace offering after a fierce argument.

The most famous portrait of Beethoven.  By Joseph Stieler.  He was a highly regarded portraiture of the time.  Beethoven sat 4 times for this portrait. It was unusual for Beethoven to sit still for any length of time so this is quite special. It's the best depiction of him. This is only portrait that actually shows him composing. He holds the  Misse Solemnis score in his hand.  He had a  serious discussion with Stieler to discuss which  work and which page should be depicted.  He chose the Credo.

The forest background expresses Beethoven's love of nature. Stieler created an idealised image of Beethoven. 

For me, this portrait is the most famous image of Beethoven I know so to stand in front of it was pretty special!

The Credo depicted. Have a listen as you read on.

I was very excited to see Beethoven's viola! I didn't know he played the viola! He played this instrument from the age of 19. He was a violist with the royal court orchestra.  He was also the organist for this ensemble.  He got to know and play most of the well known  repertoire of the day through this job. He began music aged 5 with his father Johann on violin.  His father was very strict and told him off for poor playing, at least according to a family friend so it's hard to know how mcuh was true.  We know that Beethoven's first concert was aged 7 in Cologne by his dad. He began organ lessons and then violin with good teachers, sought by his father.  He also attended Elementary school but not secondary school as apparently he wasn't very good at languages or maths!

This is the parts of the organ he played at the time.

This model of the city of Bonn at this time was really interesting to look at and from a child's view, looks incredible.

One thing I loved was seeing Beethoven's manuscripts before they were copied by a copywriter for publishing.  I found it all very scruffy and hard to read so I am glad that wasn't my job!

One thing that many know about Beethoven was that he lost his hearing completely by the end of his life. This is extremely difficult for anyone this happens to. For a musician, this is and must have been utter torture. 

Here was a collection of his various ear trumpets.   The museum taught us that he tried many quirky treatments for hearing loss.  He also had conversation books where his friends would write replies to things he said.  It seems like he was very grumpy and rude!

Another score.

Here's the exterior garden.

I haven't shown you everything, just a few little highlights.

There was a lovely listening room for his Juvenilia with earphones and a lovely chill out room where there are sometimes live performances.  They played a recording of his Moonlight Sonata with a screen that highlighted the notes on the original handwritten score.

We loved the museum but were now very hungry.

We found a patisserie round the corner.

I ate this wonderful chocolate and hazelnut mousse!

Here's a massive dummy in the shop of Beethoven!

After this, CBC ended up buying one of two little souvenirs. I ended up buying a lovely little leather violin keyring in a gift shop opposite which I plan to wear on my belt as a cute little charm!  This was my only holiday souvenir.

We had a bit of a panic with the machine in the carpark as it wouldn't accept our payment but had taken the card and the money.  Curiously, it had a 'call for help' button on it. I called it and in my German, I tried to explain it had taken our money and now wouldn't give anything back!  Miraculously, they managed to make it work remotely and all fine!

It was now time to drive to Frankfurt!  We found bargain hotel in Frankfurt called Hotel Cult. We paid £46 for the night in a double room including amazing buffet breakfast. We found free parking on the street. I'm not too fond of the overly stodgy and meaty traditional German fare and I didn't want this for a whole week so I looked up something local and that night, we walked down the street to a lovely family run Vietnamese restaurant for dinner where vegetables were plentiful!

I should state something gutting I realised on the day we there.  Originally, we had been planning to stay in Darmstadt as that was near the location we needed to be the next day. I discovered that THAT very day, in DARMSTADT, was the famous German Doctor Who convention, Timelash, which I have wanted to attend for a few years and Paul McGann, the Doctor Who actor I have always wanted to meet was there.  I was literally going to be in the town on the day of this German convention! Sigh...another time.

x

Just Sing

 Here's the poem I wrote this week for The Toy Press prompt.

Actually, I tell a lie. I wrote it last week for my year 2 children for later in the term as their current unit of work is all about the interrelated dimensions of music and understanding all the different components/dimensions of music and how they can relate and interlink (for example, when you have a thicker texture, e.g. more instruments playing, the dynamics (loudness) also gets relatively louder. And similarly, when you use shorter notes, it seems like the tempo is getting faster, although it isn't). I thought about changes and then thought about a poem with a repetitive starting word.

And then, when this week's prompt word turned out to be 'smooth', well, it seemed serendipitous that I'd already got a poem with 'smoothly' in.

Just Sing

Sing fast,

Sing slow,

Sing high,

Sing low,

Sing alone,

Sing as a crowd,

Sing quietly,

Sing loud,

Sing happily,

Sing sadly,

Sing mysteriously,

Sing madly,

Sing spikily,

Sing staccato,

Sing smoothly,

Sing legato,

Sing one note,

Sing many,

Sing in unison,

Sing in harmony,

Sing a solo,

Sing in parts,

Sing at the end,

Sing at the start,

Sing short,

Sing long,

Sing right,

Sing wrong.

Sing operatically,

Sing wailingly,

Sing breathily

Sing nasally,

Sing tinily,

Sing GIANTLY,

Don’t sing at all,

Listen silently.

 

Whatdaya reckon?

P.S.  On the subject of poems, my Big Sounds poem has been included in Tyger-Tyger's free-download pack for World Poetry Day on the theme of 'Play' on TES here

Show time!

Hi there, 

I've had a great weekend away at my music course playing Light Orchestral music.  This a particular genre of music which hails from earlier in the century. It is utterly joyful to play!  Weirdly, I was playing my viola, which I don't do very often!  We ate lovely food and I talked to lovely people, had a nice walk and played Qwirkle.

Here's a sample of two of the pieces we played- Fiddlefaddle by Leroy Anderson and Edward German's Nell Gwyn suite.

The return to school last week was ok.  We had 2 inset days and then I had two days of doing reading with Year 3 children (which was quite nice) and then I covered year 6 on Friday but did manage to do a music lesson as part of it. So hard to get started again. I always feel like I can't teach again when I go back- it all feels weird!

This week's Word of the Week for The Toy Press was 'Prop' which was quite hard to use. I've been trying to think of what to write all week and it's only last minute desperation and a sheer stubborn determination not to renege on the target I set myself to not fail on this challenge, no matter how bad the attempt, that I came up with this poem.

Thoughts?

I'

Hope you have a good week!

xx

 

The rainbow dress strikes back!

Hello there!

Before I start waffling, here's some music for you to listen to. I've not heard this piece by the English Composer, Gustav Holst (he of the Planets!) before but I was delighted by the opening music between viola and flute.

The term has ended and the last week went well.

The school concert went really well without too many mishaps and most of the children and their parents turned up. We started 15minutes late so it overran but I was really proud of how well the children performed.   

One delightful thing that occurred was that I applied for a scholarship for one of my year 5 boys who we have been partly funding for flute lessons this year. He has really taken to it and worked hard and I wanted to ensure that he would be able to carry on after he left me so I applied to the London Music Fund and to my delight, he was selected to receive funding for lessons for 4 years.  Such an opportunity for him!

I bought the children involved in the concert choc-ices (the only ice-cream/lolly product which comes in no plastic packaging!)  to say thank you for their hard work and I was delighted with the serendipity that I had bought just enough for everyone AND enough to give one also to the children who had helped out and done extra jobs like putting away my singing assembly things each week and for tidying up the music room.

At the weekend, CBC and I went to camp in Snowdonia for the weekend.  I had a stinking cold but had a gorgeous time and will share some photos soon.

I bade a sad goodbye to CBC this evening as he drove off to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry to France.  We are to be parted for 2 weeks as we do different things - he is a checkpoint monitor for the Transcontinental Cycling Race and I am to go to music camp.

Enough waffling, I found some photos from last Summer (on my lost camera which turned up- it was in the walking rucksack!!!) of when I styled the Madras check dress in yet another way.

Let's have a look:

I wore the dress with its V-beck crossover side which I rarely wear as I prefer the straight one but I wore it the other way round here.

I added my pink Peri top underneath with a matching pink rose in my hair and a pink belt.

I added my red polka dot skirt underneath to give an extra layer of pattern to the dress

I decided to hoik up the hem of the dress on one side to see if that gave another dimension to this.

I am not 100% sure I liked this outfit totally but certainly it was different from how I've worn it on other occasions!

Plus my George @Asda blue and gold velvet pumps!

I've been practicing for our flute recital on Friday

Very excited as we've practised lots! I HOPE people come to watch especially as my friend Tony is coming from Kent as we are performing his beautiful arrangement of Debussy Petite suite for two flutes and piano for the first time.

x

 

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

 

Trumpeting for joy!

 It's been a good day! 

I woke up early, ahead of my alarm-clock (although on that subject, I MISS sleeping through the night- whhhy, can't I sleep?!?!) and managed to phone my Doctor's to get an appointment for today.  I then left early and made it into Lidl before school to get some breakfast and also picked up a Good-to-Go £1.50 veg/fruit box which I haven't seen in a while.   It wasn't hugely full but it had Broccoli (which alone is around £1 recently), lettuce, a few oranges, satsumas, plums and a few potatoes.

I got to school and took Singing assembly for Reception, Year 1 and 2 and then it was time for the rescheduled lesson which was being filmed by Anglia Ruskin university for their BEd in Primary Teaching course.  I am pleased to say that the children were absolutely fantastic and they were really enthusiastic and worked really hard.  I would be proud for people to watch that lesson. I was teaching the children about The Baroque Sonata and Domenico Scarlatti.

We started with a recap of their feedback from their Chiaccona performances last week and then I introduced them to Domenico Scarlatti.  Fun facts for you: He was born in the same year as J.S Bach and G.F. Handel  and was the son of a composer, Alessandro Scarlatti.  He was born in Italy but moved to Spain with his patron later in life.  He took part in a contest with Georg Handel to find out who was the better keyboard player. Whilst Handel was declared the master of the organ, Domenico was acclaimed as being as equally good at the Harpsichord as Handel.  He was a real virtuoso!

I introduced them to the structure of the Sonata and then we listened to this one and answered some questions about it. After that, we composed a piece of music in Binary form as a class, which we performed and they did a superb performance which they were really proud of.  M, the lecturer from AR was really impressed and couldn't believe what my Year 6's achieved in the lesson.   I may also go to the University next year to teach a lesson to the undergraduate students which is exciting!

After that, I had my second class who also produced a great piece. This made me happy as the 3rd class, who I have on Thursday afternoons, were very apathetic and disengaged, though their performance was ok.

At lunch, orchestra had a good rehearsal and then I ate a delicious combination of Hummus and pomegranate seeds on toast (another staff member didn't want her large pot of seeds- I am the staff room dustbin) .

In the afternoon, after some PPA time, I collected my Guided Reading group who are always excited to see me and we had our session outside.  We had a great session. Just one moment where I went into spasmodic coughing and the children were sitting there, saying, "Are you ok?  Oooh, you're really red! You have tears running down your face!" I had to go and get water. As they said how worried they were, I made some macabre joke about how it wouldn't have been fun if their music teacher had died in front of them. One of them said, "Hmmmm, that would make a good story..." and later, another one said she was going to write said story! I am happy to be writing inspiration, no matter how dark!

After my group, I headed homeward for my appointment and came home.  

Now had to do some work tidying my house as my younger sister and her boyfriend are coming over tomorrow.  It's lovely because I saw my older sister last night as she came over because my niece goes to a trampolining session in my town!

I had some really exciting (for me!) news two days ago which I'm not allowed to share yet but I hope to soon!

Here to finish is my poem for the week.  The brief word was 'Trumpet'.  I actually used this word the other week but I came up with the standard use of the word. Not my favourite poem I've ever written but I suppose it will do!

Trumpet

I love to play the trumpet,

Yes, it’s great ‘cause it’s so loud!

Doesn’t matter if I’m shy,

My sound is justly proud!

I love it ‘cause I get to make,

A silly raspberry sound,

I’ll buzz my lips in the mouthpiece,

And all sounds will be drowned!

They’re played for royal fanfares

That will introduce a king,

By soldiers in smart uniforms,

Attention they will bring.

It plays in Jazz and Classical,

In Reggae and in Pop.

You only have 3 valves to press,

That’s really not a lot,

It’s shiny, golden, not too heavy,

Though tubing’s metres long,

Its sound comes from a shiny bell

Though doesn’t play ‘Ding-dong’.

You get to use these things called mutes,

That modify your sound,

You can be heard above a band

For miles and miles around.

I might go rather red in face,

When playing without rests,

But I will say forever more,

That Trumpets are the best!

@KezzieSquirrel

Hope all is well with you!

xx

Violin

 Here's a card I made for our friend's 90th birthday.

We went to our music camp to celebrate with her. The celebrations included chamber music, an orchestra session, drinks and nibbles and a 3 course dinner.

We arrived around 2.30pm- CBC went to play chamber music and I had a walk in the woods with a friend Ellie.  We had tea at around 4pm and then we played Beethoven' Pastoral symphony with the birthday girl leading. After that, we had drinks and delicious canapes.  The dinner was really lovely and the barn had been so beautifully decorated. There was an absolute mound of cheese to eat after the 3 courses- it was a real feast!!! We chatted to lots of lovely friends and finally left waaaay too late. We arrived home at around 1.15am!!!

The birthday girl is a violinist who is also a keen gardener. After the success of my floral piano card, I decided to adapt the design I used for a card for CBC. I printed off a picture of the side of a violin and used it as a template to cut around some purple floral paper (realised I missed a trick of using paper with pansies on so we could have the pun of violas with a viola). I then drew on the F hole and the purfling around the edge of the fiddle shape. I stuck it to some lilac card and decided I wanted a patterned edge so I used my flower paper edge punch to decorate the edge.

The final detail was to add a Happy Birthday in irritatingly small silver outline stickers.

As an extra geeky touch, I wrote the birthday girl 's name in fancy Calligraphy on the envelope and used the Segno for the S of her name.

What do you think? Xx

Piano girl

I've had this dress for almost 9 months.  I remember seeing it on Miss Patina's website a couple of years ago and absolutely loving it! A sailor look, ruffly sleeves AND musical??? Check!

But the Dainty Melody dress was £85 and you can't return, only exchange, I think!  Luckily, I saw it on eBay for much cheaper last Summer and I jumped at the chance to buy it.

I wore this to church on Sunday and to my orchestra rehearsal. The delight I got from fellow congregation members was so sweet!

I wore my Ugg boots with it.

Awful picture but I wore my Primark Dalmation beret and added a tiny dainty music brooch that was a present from my ex-deputy head teacher.

And my Tatty Devine music necklace (was also an eBay bargain!) 

 Even the white cuffs have a little piano pattern on them! So fun!

Hope all is good with you!x