Life is certainly quite manic at the moment. I have been nursing a croaky voice all week as preparations for our year 3, 4 and 5 production are well underway. I have mostly taken charge of the singing and so many rehearsals have strained my voice somewhat... Still there is no time or opportunity to rest my voice in the middle of preparing for a production and with my choir's concert tonight.
Yesterday was a big day for our school as the marketing team had arranged a day to celebrate our being in the top 100 schools in the country. My class played their Samba instruments as the whole school went on a mile-long conga around the village. I really felt for the ones who had to carry and play the Surdos - large bass drums, but they were the best at keeping the rhythm going! I was so proud of them, they were all listening to one another and continued to beat their drums and shake their shakers the whole way round.
Then in the evening I was off to Preston with our school swimming team for the Preston School's Swimming Gala. Again, another group to be proud of, and I couldn't let my already hoarse voice rest as I cheered and shrieked at the top of my voice! They won first place in our group - a real achievement!
With Holy Week next week and the school term still in full flow, with the production and my own choir's concert tonight I see no let up for the busyness of life in the near future!
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Church College Choir Festival
This evening I am off to the annual Church College's Choir Festival which is this year in Liverpool, what with Liverpool being the capital of culture in 2008. As a student I was in the chapel choir and each year would look forward to a weekend away with choir at the festival, for singing and general craziness. It was always such an awe inspiring moment when the combined choirs of around 12 Colleges joined to rehearse together for the first time. Suddenly going from a choir of about 12 to a couple of hundred, the power and beauty in a chord sung in harmony was simply beautiful. I remember remarking to a friend at one event about what it would be like to hear a choir of angels. A bunch shepherds standing on a hillside one ordinary night 2000 years ago must have remembered the beauty of that sight and sound for the rest of their lives.
And so tonight a friend and I go to hear the combined choirs again, and to hear the individual choir pieces and to reminisce of times gone by and all that we have sung together, and we will look forward to July when we will be joining with another, larger combined choir to sing Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace in The Royal Albert Hall. I can't wait!
And so tonight a friend and I go to hear the combined choirs again, and to hear the individual choir pieces and to reminisce of times gone by and all that we have sung together, and we will look forward to July when we will be joining with another, larger combined choir to sing Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace in The Royal Albert Hall. I can't wait!
Saturday, March 01, 2008
WALT: to retell a story about Jesus
As Parent's Evening looms ever closer I have brought home a ridiculous pile of marking to catch up on this weekend. Most of the non-core subjects have hardly been marked at all because we file work now and don't have it in exercise books. It's not so easy to bring home a class set of files to mark a piece of work so I've got woefully behind on my marking. That's my excuse anyway.
On opening the first file this morning I came across one piece of work from RE where the children were asked to retell a story about Jesus that I had read to them. This one is so fabulously retold that I thought it deserved blogging.
Jesus was busy teaching in a house when a hole started forming, three jolly faces looked down beaming. Then they lowered a man on a dusty old mat to the ground, his whole body resting. Jesus smiled and walked over to the man and said, "your sins are forgiven."
"Nonsense," said a man, "only God can do that."
Jesus turned his head and said, "which is easier, to forgive this man or make him walk?" Jesus turned to the man on the mat, "walk" he simply said. The man picked up his mat and walked out and the jolly faces turned to big grins!
A future Bob Hartman perhaps?
On opening the first file this morning I came across one piece of work from RE where the children were asked to retell a story about Jesus that I had read to them. This one is so fabulously retold that I thought it deserved blogging.
Jesus was busy teaching in a house when a hole started forming, three jolly faces looked down beaming. Then they lowered a man on a dusty old mat to the ground, his whole body resting. Jesus smiled and walked over to the man and said, "your sins are forgiven."
"Nonsense," said a man, "only God can do that."
Jesus turned his head and said, "which is easier, to forgive this man or make him walk?" Jesus turned to the man on the mat, "walk" he simply said. The man picked up his mat and walked out and the jolly faces turned to big grins!
A future Bob Hartman perhaps?
Friday, February 22, 2008
LOL MGT
Our housegroup does just what a housegroup should. Over the last 4 and a half years since we first began we have grown and changed and in all fairness are far too large to still function as we should (dare I say the word 'split'?!) but the best thing is how we have got to know each other so well. Our discussions are often thoughtful, sometimes wise, we disagree and we agree, we share and we pray and we eat and we eat and we eat. And we play games. And we eat. We're good at eating.
One member of our housegroup has just started to text and she is hilarious! She is creating a whole new language that only a teenager can interpret, and even then with a little help! There was a discussion this week about whether we should set up a housegroup blog with a column all for her. I think we should.
One member of our housegroup has just started to text and she is hilarious! She is creating a whole new language that only a teenager can interpret, and even then with a little help! There was a discussion this week about whether we should set up a housegroup blog with a column all for her. I think we should.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Half Term
Half term is a time to attend to the things that have been ignored for a while. This is what I have been attending to today.
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
The last of the Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour?
Last week I ended my Speaking Tour with a final visit to the Ladies Evening Guild at my home church. They booked me as a speaker when I first came back from Kenya, 9 months ago! I was at first a little worried about speaking about my time in Kenya again, for two reasons really, firstly because I have not done any speaking about it for a good number of months and I was worried that I wouldn't remember what to say anymore but secondly because things have gone so badly wrong in Kenya in the last couple of months. I needn't have worried in the first instance, I had borrowed a projector from church and was able to show my photographs so all that I had to say came instantly rushing back to me the minute I saw them. As for the situation in Kenya now, I could only share what little I know from what Glyn and Jane have shared with me.
At the beginning of the evening my mum and I stood at the back, deliberately not looking at one another as we could have been transported straight onto the set of Calendar Girls, it was so unbelievably stereotypically WI! The most amusing part was when the secretary stood up to read out the minutes of the last meeting and told us all about what the previous speaker had told them about! No doubt next month they will be hearing all about my time in Kenya for a second time! There were murmurings of surprise when the ladies arrived to discover that the chairs were arranged facing the wrong wall so that I could project onto it, which amused me as well, though they didn't complain about the rearranged seating so I give them the credit for that.
So now the Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour has come to an end, at least the end of all that I have been booked in for since returning from Kenya. If I was asked to speak to anyone else, I would do so willingly, though now it is a year since I went to Kenya I'm not sure how up-to-date it would be anymore.
At the beginning of the evening my mum and I stood at the back, deliberately not looking at one another as we could have been transported straight onto the set of Calendar Girls, it was so unbelievably stereotypically WI! The most amusing part was when the secretary stood up to read out the minutes of the last meeting and told us all about what the previous speaker had told them about! No doubt next month they will be hearing all about my time in Kenya for a second time! There were murmurings of surprise when the ladies arrived to discover that the chairs were arranged facing the wrong wall so that I could project onto it, which amused me as well, though they didn't complain about the rearranged seating so I give them the credit for that.
So now the Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour has come to an end, at least the end of all that I have been booked in for since returning from Kenya. If I was asked to speak to anyone else, I would do so willingly, though now it is a year since I went to Kenya I'm not sure how up-to-date it would be anymore.
Tagged!
Mike tagged me, the idea is this:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.
I'm sat on the floor planning a meditation and thinking about going for a walk in this wonderful February weather (not that I've got anyone who will go with me!!) So I have 2 books to hand... I'll go with the latter - Duncan's Pub Walks Lancaster to the Lakes, it has a sticker over the word 'pub' that my dad has written 'Christian Tea Shop' on so now it reads "Duncan's Christian Tea Shop Walks Lancaster to the Lakes". He's odd that one. So, page 123 is a walk from Silverdale to Arnside:
"The going can be quite tricky as you walk the last mile into Arnside, especially if it is a very high tide. However, there is always lots to see especially if you are a student of seaside flora: pink thrift, sea and buckshorn plantain, common gromwell, scurvey grass and black bryony can all be found in their time. For bird lovers there are always winged plover and redshank and over in the trees on your right you may hear wrens as they angrily announce ownership of their own piece of territory."
That made me chortle that did! Though I think it would have been better if page 123 had been one of the walks I hadn't done, I might have been inspired. I fancy walk 8 I think, Middleton to Sunderland Point. I've never been to Sunderland Point and I'd like to go and see Sambo's grave and all that. We studied the slave trade and the thriving Georgian port of Lancaster when I was a student and it interests me.
Anyway, rambling aside... I'm not going to tag anyone else because I don't think I know anyone who I could tag to be honest! So the link ends with me (again).
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.
I'm sat on the floor planning a meditation and thinking about going for a walk in this wonderful February weather (not that I've got anyone who will go with me!!) So I have 2 books to hand... I'll go with the latter - Duncan's Pub Walks Lancaster to the Lakes, it has a sticker over the word 'pub' that my dad has written 'Christian Tea Shop' on so now it reads "Duncan's Christian Tea Shop Walks Lancaster to the Lakes". He's odd that one. So, page 123 is a walk from Silverdale to Arnside:
"The going can be quite tricky as you walk the last mile into Arnside, especially if it is a very high tide. However, there is always lots to see especially if you are a student of seaside flora: pink thrift, sea and buckshorn plantain, common gromwell, scurvey grass and black bryony can all be found in their time. For bird lovers there are always winged plover and redshank and over in the trees on your right you may hear wrens as they angrily announce ownership of their own piece of territory."
That made me chortle that did! Though I think it would have been better if page 123 had been one of the walks I hadn't done, I might have been inspired. I fancy walk 8 I think, Middleton to Sunderland Point. I've never been to Sunderland Point and I'd like to go and see Sambo's grave and all that. We studied the slave trade and the thriving Georgian port of Lancaster when I was a student and it interests me.
Anyway, rambling aside... I'm not going to tag anyone else because I don't think I know anyone who I could tag to be honest! So the link ends with me (again).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
