In other news this week: my sister came to stay, which was lovely, even if we didn’t see *that* much of her. We had new doors fitted front and back – very exciting but no photo yet as the dratted door people left us with silver knocker and letterbox but a gold door handle – we’re getting that changed!

Yesterday the girls both went out for a Wind Group rehearsal, then Anna had a theory lesson. Josiah went to play with his friend up the road, and Abbie stayed at home and vacuumed the hallway after the door fitters had gone. Oh, and friends from church came for tea.

Haircuts all round this afternoon, and now more friends are here for tea and a film afterwards. It’s been a good week, especially helped by Josiah having a brilliant attitude towards music practices every day (these are usually Big Fallout times)! Plenty to do but lots of space either side, so everyone’s been happy.

Jim is Anna’s 3/4 size cello. Over the past couple of years (she insisted it was longer but I only picked up the cello in July 07, I know because I blogged it!) she has obviously spent quite some time with this cello and become very emotionally attached to it! So much so that she wanted to keep it when she moved up to a full size, but I said no, and callously sold it before she’d even finished with it!! No, seriously, it is going to a good home with the Puddles tomorrow so she’s happy really.

As an aside – is it odd to name one’s instruments? I thought so, but on questioning a few of the kids at orchestra it seems quite common! The most amusing one I’ve discovered so far is a bass clarinet named U-bend

Anyway. Anna’s new cello is over 100 years old, German, and was totally beaten up when we first bought it. I should have taken a photo but I forgot. It had a couple of really big cracks on each side at the front, a lot of the edging around the body was missing, the pegs (and holes) needed replacing – and so the list went on!

Devon Strings are currently working their magic, and restoring it beautifully, putting the best strings on it and setting it up properly, etc. At great personal expense! I’m very much looking forward to seeing it (and hearing it!), by the end of the month if all goes well. And hopefully Anna will love it just as much if not more than poor old Jim.

I dunno, you always have a special place in your heart for your first love, though, don’t you?

The Debussy piano piece that I’ve loved listening to over the past few weeks can be found somewhere nearby We’ll record it properly when our own piano is fully installed.

Abbie, however, was pleased with her performance – she gets quite nervous at these things, and the piano in this church is particularly awful, so despite mistakes she did really well

Josiah doesn’t have lessons with this teacher any more, since he changed schools, so no performance from him today. I’ll have to try and record some of his piano playing when the new piano arrives, as he’s improved a fair bit recently as well.

Apart from that little concert today we’ve had a relatively (and much-needed) laid back day, getting a bit of housework done; the girls both had sleepovers with friends last night so swapped back this morning. Ending the day with a film, dinner, and then baths and bed all round.

In the next three weeks, between us we have two music exams, two orchestra concerts, two ‘teacher’ concerts, a choral event for which the kids are singing extra stuff and I have now been asked to accompany. Oh, and Anna’s got the panto performance which is terribly music heavy and she is practicing *all* the time. We need another piano so that I can practice too!

Not to mention parents evenings (theirs), school fete (mine; we have to attend as one of our work days), and panto auditions (for some reason they are doing these, against my better judgment!). Of course Russ is on holiday during the next two weeks so Steve has next to no flexibility. And my work is more stressy than usual at the moment due to all our children’s reviews mucking up timetables and creating staffing issues. Argh!

Oh well, a bit of pressure never hurt anyone. It will all stop at the end of term, and then the next lot of stress can start – decorating

This weekend has been pleasant though. Saturday was orchestra with added committee meeting, then an afternoon with friends and an evening with more friends. It was Ruth’s 40th party down at the Turf, and a lovely opportunity to catch up with people I haven’t seen for ages.

Steve was off racing, and managed to win the class as well as break the class hill record too. Not bad considering that all his direct competitors have raced the hill before, and it was his first time there. It is kind of frustrating that he’s turning out to be so good at this darned racing lark!

This morning we decided to have a slow start followed by some homework time – Abbie’s got a ‘Britain in the 1960s’ project to do, so she made a start on that, while Anna had various bits and bobs of work to get done, and Josiah did a nice long music practice.

Got the first concert out of the way this afternoon; their cello/piano teacher’s pupil concert. For the grandparents, me to look back on, and anyone else who’s interested and wants to waste 6 minutes (there are worse ways to waste time but not many!), here are videos:

Came home for a bit more sorting out (laundry, argh, bane of my life, still haven’t finished it!), tea, and then we watched The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Don’t want to leave spoilers for anyone who’s not seen it or read the book, but it is recommended by all of us here, but it *will* make you cry.

Finally, for the record. My iPhone lives in my pocket, usually, therefore I am never frightened of losing it, I love it so much that I keep very good track of it. Also, as it would always be in my pocket, I wouldn’t ever have to grab it on the way out of a burning house! Anna’s cello is worth far less than Joe’s violin and also she’d be getting a full size one before too long in any case. So that clears up that little matter, and the rest of the questions were incidental, really – I had trouble making up my own mind which one to mark as ‘correct’ in most places!

We’ve been wondering for a while now how to get through the inevitable Grade 5 Theory hurdle, been trying to find other children who might need to do it at the same time to get together in a group class or something, but not managed to work anything out. Over the weekend a friend presented me with a great idea – a summer camp for kids, specifically focused on Grade 5 Theory! Ideal. Anna’s thrilled with the idea of going on a music camp, and it means we get to (a) get rid of her for a week during the summer holidays, and (b) hopefully get the majority of the way towards passing the theory in the Autumn. It will also help Anna really find out whether she actually likes intensive music study, which might be interesting along the way. Just have to work out how to get from there to Sussex in no time at all on 22nd August, a minor detail … anyone know how to be in two places at the same time?!

The beginning of last week was taken up with music; I had the day off work on Monday to accompany Anna and Josiah to the strings day of the Devon Performing Arts Festival. We’d bumped Anna up into the G6 class which she promptly won, so felt very proud of herself for that – and Joe came joint 2nd in his G3 class too, he played beautifully, the best he’s ever played his piece. And as we pointed out later, coming 1st out of 4 was marginally less impressive than coming 2nd out of 7!!

The ultimate best thing, though, was Joe’s admission later in the day that perhaps I’d been right to say he should carry on practicing his violin, as he would like it when he was older. He didn’t quite admit that he liked practicing (does anyone?) but it was excellent to see him get a glimpse of the POINT of it all! Lovely to hear some of the other kids we know performing as well – and I *really* enjoyed having a day off with Anna and Josiah Have said that next year we’ll have to do a woodwind day as well, then Abbie can have a turn, and Anna can play that jolly bassoon of hers!!

Josiah sat his G1 piano exam on Tuesday lunchtime, no results as yet though. Then on Wednesday night we had the primary school Music Extravaganza, where everyone who does any music at school gets to stand up and do their bit. Abbie played her flute duets with Riona, and all three kids sang in the choir, with Anna’s accompaniment on the piano for a couple of the songs. Oh, and my three had learnt a descant for one piece at the last minute, which they sang well, too

The choir has got huge recently, with a lot of very little ones – on the way home I commented that perhaps they should have a KS1 choir and a KS2 choir, then the very next day a letter came home from school announcing the very same thing. They’re also inviting more hangers on (like Anna!) but while I’d quite like to be part of it alongside the kids, that is the half hour in my week which is mine, all mine. Not sure I can give it up! Lots of other great music opportunities from the school next term but I’ll write about those when we get to them.

Spent Thursday and Friday suffering from what felt like extreme exhaustion, to the point that Steve wondered afterwards if I’d had some sort of virus. Felt worse than just a late night after he got home from Glasgow late on Wednesday. Not clever when trying to make decisions about things. Survived, anyway – and immediately felt better after Josiah’s violin lesson on Friday night, which was such an odd time to suddenly recover that I thought perhaps Steve was right (he is, occasionally)!

Anna came home with an extra cello on Thursday – one that she’s been given, it had been sitting in the school cupboard for years and years. We took it to our strings experts in town to see if it was worth restoring properly but as suspected, it’s not. Steve and Anna are still going to try and get it to a playable state, as cheaply as possible, but then I think they’re actually intending to paint it and hang it on the wall rather than anything else! Still, it will be an original and interesting piece of artwork!

The weekend has been uneventful. Orchestra, housework, I spent some time catching up on jobs at the garage, and Steve entertained the children by burning stuff that needed shredding (shredder has given up the ghost) in an old saucepan on the patio!
On Sunday, Abbie, Joe and I went to church then did lunch at Tescos, then more housework/homework/lego while Steve took Anna out for a Subaru meet on the moors.

Very happy to finally have a couple of pictures up on the wall going up/down the stairs, we had the Montmartre portrait framed so that’s gone up, and another one of my all time favourite photos from 2000, which I’ve had in a clip frame for years but it hasn’t been on the wall for ages.

Nothing else new. Well, I had my hair chopped short – now it’s short and sticking out instead of long and sticking out, so not much change there.

Anna sat her Grade 5 cello exam, don’t have results yet obviously. And then she spent the entire weekend on music one way or another. The Suzuki group is playing carols in town on the last Saturday before Christmas again so we (all 3 kids, Abbie joins in on her flute!) had a practice for that on Saturday afternoon, plus orchestra all morning, plus an extra random strings workshop that she was invited to this afternoon. Along with youth group on Friday night and church this morning as well, it’s a good thing she didn’t have any homework, or if she did it hasn’t got done!

Plugged the lights in on the snowman that’s been in our fireplace since last year … that’s the only decorating happening here this year, bah humbug (we are taking tree to holiday house on 20th though!).

Think that’s about everything. Caught up with washing this weekend as Steve was off racing a Ka round a track, played a bit more ACCF and let the kids watch too much tv while I played it, cooked Winter Vegetable Christmas Cobbler (ie used up veg box items that needed using in a casserole with cobblers cut with christmas cookie cutters!) for dinner this evening [as an aside, Steve had never heard of cobblers - is it just him? I often had them as a kid, not sure where they're from? a midlands or northern thing perhaps?] as the last of a run of comfort food that I’ve made this week!

Really not sure if I’m ready for the onslaught of the next two weeks which are full to overflowing with Christmas activities at work and afterwards as well, not to mention a birthday to fit in, but hey, in two weeks it’ll all be over …

On Monday I had the day off – an ‘occasional’ day, traditionally stuck at the end of November in order to help with Christmas shopping. As the years go by I am doing less and less Christmas shopping at all, much less in town, so I didn’t bother. Instead I got a few jobs done, cleaned the house a bit, went to Sainsbury’s, and that was about all.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed without anything out of the ordinary happening; on Thursday my class got to have an extra bus day so we went up to Haldon Forest Park and did the Play Trail with the kids which was fun. Showed them all a geocache, a couple of them were impressed with my hidden ‘treasure box’. Tiredness setting in all round by this stage in the week, Anna had a great moment when she realised she had done her art homework (draw a portrait of someone that you live with) for fun a couple of weeks ago so she could skip that!

Friday was Anna’s day off as her school had a non-pupil day – her first day of being home alone. In fact she arranged to spend the morning with one friend at her house, then the afternoon here with another friend, so she wasn’t really alone at all!

Into the weekend, full of music as ever. Saturday was orchestra rehearsal for the girls, errands and cleaning guinea pigs out for Joe & me, and then a Youth Orchestra concert at our local parish church’s Christmas Fair – so handily close to home. Actually it was really good for the youth orchestra to play for a prolonged time, usually they just get a spot during the main children’s orchestra’s concerts. They sounded great and it was nice to look around the stalls while they were playing. Bought some jam

Today we didn’t do much, everyone is tired, and I’m feeling particularly run down with sore throat etc. Garage is very slow at the moment so this leads to general down-ness in our household too. Still, we all went into town in the afternoon for the kids’ cello/piano teacher’s pupil concert. This is always a laid back affair and it is quite nice to see how all her pupils are progressing, as we’ve known most of them for a few years now. Video is long but varied, not without its mistakes, either, but I like to have video as a record anyway, don’t really care if it’s not perfect!

Anna plays the 2nd movement of Rieding’s Concerto in B minor on the cello, simply not practiced as she wasn’t aware that she was playing it (never mind that it’s one of her Grade 5 pieces which she’s taking on Wednesday, no matter! there will be some serious practice between now and then). That’s followed by Abbie playing a Round Dance by Bartok on the piano – I particularly like the dynamics at the beginning of this piece but then it went a little bit awol – tbh it is a slightly strange piece anyway I think! Josiah plays ‘Minnie Mouse hits town’ by Pam Wedgewood (from Upgrade 0 – 1, quite a nice book if anyone’s at that sort of level), suffering a bit from ‘not my usual piano’ syndrome as I know he can play it perfectly, then Anna finishes up with La Chevaleresque by Burgmuller.

And now it’s almost December, advent calendars at the ready