just another morning here

On Friday we had a disaster with the concert practice. Joe and I left immediately after school to go out to this village hall where the practice was happening, about 7 miles away from home. Should have taken all of 20 minutes to get there, and I’d allowed half an hour, aiming to get there early at 4pm to meet the teacher before the group arrived for 4.15pm.

Unbeknown to me, the entire city population decided to take to the roads at 3.30pm on Friday afternoon, and we hadn’t even made it across town by 4pm. By this point Josiah is getting jittery because I’d told him 4pm so I reassured him that it wasn’t actually starting until 4.15pm and I was sure we’d get there by then.

Of course we didn’t make it out there until 4.25pm … by which time I was completely stressed out by the traffic, having to find a place I didn’t know, and Joe’s mounting anxiety – and Joe was upset because we were late (and honestly, he hates being late and having to join in when something’s already started, so this was not a good sign).

Took one look at the village hall, which was full of OAPs at a Tea Dance, and nearly died – not a suzuki violin in sight. I did think there might have been another room so we walked up to the door, but still couldn’t see a sign or anything, in fact I looked at the bookings list for that day and it didn’t say anything about violins, but had this tea dance and something else written on the schedule. So we gave up, and I sat and cried in the car park while Josiah had 5 minutes on the climbing frame which was there. I was so gutted, having been so apprehensive about the whole thing and it been such an ordeal to get there, I thought they must have changed the venue without telling me and therefore got pretty annoyed.

On making a phonecall the next day, it turns out that they *were* there after all, in another little room around the side. I could have died when I found that out. So it was all my own cock-up Anyway. Spoke to Josiah’s teacher during the day and he said he’ll stand with Joe and play so that he can still join in.

So this afternoon we have another tight time schedule as I’m picking Anna up from a party only an hour before the concert is due to start and it’s miles away in another village hall somewhere down in deepest Devon, at yet another place that I don’t have a clue where it is. Wish me luck, please!

It probably seems as though I am making a mountain out of a molehill with all of this, and in some ways it feels like that to me too (I am wondering why I bother sometimes) but I’m just desperate for Joe to actually *enjoy* some music making with some other children as I know he will if he can just overcome his shyness.

More later …

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 9:54 and is filed under general, josiah, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.