just another morning here

Thankfully schools here had all finished on Friday, so this weekend we only (ha!) had all the Christmas performances by the extra groups. It’s always a manic weekend but lots of fun.

All credit to Josiah, who had the busiest day of all of us. He was out of the house around 8.40am for a choir rehearsal 9-10.30. He then had a service to sing from 11am-12.15pm. Then came a brief break while we collected the girls from Orchestra, dropped Abbie to a friend’s, and made it into town with half an hour to grab MacDonalds before he played violin with the Suzuki Group for the best part of three hours. I walked him back to the Cathedral at 4.45pm where he had a rehearsal from 5-6pm before tea in the boarding house and then the Cathedral Choir’s Christmas concert from 7.30-9.30pm. The choristers were given £5 each for having sung the extra service in the morning so he dashed off to buy sweets in each break from the violin playing and enjoyed sharing them during the busking. We’ve been doing this busking each Christmas for five years now, and it’s quite interesting to see how much Josiah has grown up since we started! And Anna too … we had to drag her away from her friends at the end, as they’d started improvising around various pop songs and would happily have carried on for hours I think, but the Harlequins Centre had had enough of them by then

The first pic is from 2007 and the second one from this year. I did have photos of 2008, 2009, and 2010 too, but thought you’d probably get bored by all of those

The Choir’s concert was excellent too, we really enjoyed it. Josiah is definitely more confident now and it’s lovely to watch. He’s signed up for an extra choir jaunt to support a choir in North Devon this week, so that shows how much he enjoys the choir aspect of his life – it’s VERY hard work but it is fun too.

Yesterday we had the ECO Christmas concert – very enjoyable as usual and we particularly enjoyed having the Ockment Valley Handbells performing both separately and with the orchestra – I wish I had video-ed some of it but I only have photos I’m afraid. Again fun to see the pictures from Christmas concerts in years gone by and compare them to this year’s!

Again the first pic is Anna’s first year at ECO in 2007, and the cello section this year, with Anna as the new section principal. 2008 was Abbie’s year since the concert was actually on her birthday, 2009 is best forgotten because of the junk band we shared with (ow), and 2010 is memorable for having NO photos probably because I was more worried about getting there safely in the snow than remembering the camera!

We now have a week off school, where I’m trying to be as productive as possible so that we can have a proper break from Christmas Eve onwards. Time to stop blogging, have lunch, and get on with some school-work …

I’ve spent the day with 100 or so lovely children at Crealy today, after the first rehearsal of the term yesterday. ECO were playing for our annual ‘Season Opener and Fun Day’, which is always a fairly relaxed concert with plenty of breaks for the Crealy attractions. We were a bit squashed in to a fairly noisy area of the park, but we soon drowned out the noise, and I think everyone had a good time. Particularly pleased with this pic of Josiah

In other news, Oliver! is happening, so Anna has been rushed off her feet playing bassoon for that; she’s really enjoying the experience, her first time playing in a professional band.

Luckily for her, the girls had a brief reprieve with two days off school on Friday and then tomorrow – the fire alarm system at their school is broken so they’re at home until it’s fixed! I gave them housework to do on Friday and school have set them work for tomorrow so they won’t have too much time to kill.

Josiah sang his first service of the year this morning before joining us at Crealy; he’s changed sides in the choir again which will no doubt confuse me when I make it in for evensong later in the week.

My first week with children at school was a bit of a whirlwind but I think everything went ok. This term I’m teaching two days in the Early Years class and then three days in my Key Stage 4 class so I have lots to juggle but I think I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve been going into work very early each day and then not working at home in the evenings which seems to work well for us all round. Steve is here to sort things out and do the morning school run, and then I don’t feel guilty about ignoring the kids because I’m here for them in the evenings. So far so good, anyway.

While we were at Josiah’s birthday party last week, the girls were involved with Exeter Children’s Orchestra, who had a date with the BBC! A while back we put in an application to record a piece of music for Radio 3, for their Light Fantastic festival which is airing at the end of the month. I, pessimistically, didn’t think we’d get picked (hence I booked Joe’s party for the same day!), but we did!

It was very exciting – not only for the children to be involved with the professionals for a morning, but also because we were recording a piece that Richard Bowyer, our musical director, wrote himself. It’s called the ‘Exeter City March’, and was written for Exeter City Football Club – the piece features football rattles and whistles in the percussion section. Richard likes to call them hooligans; we call them supporters

Anyway, I was gutted that I couldn’t be there in the end, but one of the other parents kindly took some photos for me

Now all we have to do is listen to Radio 3 on the 24-26 June, and hope that we actually hear it. We’ve already played the piece as far away as Russia, as well as in our more local concerts, but it will be pretty cool to hear a proper recording of it on the radio. Hopefully the producers will tell us if and when we’re likely to hear it.

Yes, yes, I know, I shouldn’t speak in acronyms! But I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about a blog post; I’ve had this one in draft for a while and actually couldn’t wait to publish it!

A while ago, I wrote about how much I love Exeter Children’s Orchestra … it’s been a fabulous place for my kids to play their instruments, develop musically, and make friends. It’s also been a place where I have made some wonderful friends too, through being involved as a parent and working on the committee.

A number of years ago, someone nominated the orchestra for The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. We didn’t win it immediately, in fact we have been ‘pooled’ before and not made it through for selection, but the nomination is carried forward each year.

So, in the Autumn of 2010, we had a visit from one of Devon’s Deputy Lord Lieutenants to re-assess us, and I am pleased to announce that this year we were successful. I had the letter almost a month ago and have had to keep it a secret until the official lists were published today (that has been incredibly difficult, given how excited I’ve been about it!).

In a couple of weeks time some of us are off to County Hall for the presentation of the award by Devon’s Lord Lieutenant, Martyn Lewis CBE is going to be there too in his capacity as chair of the QAVS committee. Then in July, a few of us are going to Buckingham Palace for one of the Royal Garden Parties. To say I am excited about all of this is an understatement – it is an amazing honour for ECO and I’m so proud to be part of it