Easter and the joy of Bank Holidays

On Thursday after school I found myself wishing that there was no Bank Holiday this weekend - our KS2 production is next week and still needs quite a bit of work. If only we had Friday and Monday to work on it, I thought... But yet Easter seems to have been lost this week for me. It is such an opportunity to be in school during Holy Week and our school really tried to make the most of it. Except for my class and Year 5 who spent the whole week rehearsing like mad.

At school on Thursday the Year 2s performed their Easter assembly in church, retelling the story of Easter. It was the most moving account that I have ever seen. The part which really got me was when one child playing Jesus was kneeling at the front of church praying in the Garden of Gethsemene and a few others were sleeping around him when another group came charging up the aisle shouting "Get him!" at the top of their voices. I was choked. They took him down the other aisle and then a few minutes later came stumbling down the aisle again, this time with a cardboard cross tied to his arms. More than anything else this year, that will stick in my mind.

On Maundy Thursday evening I was helping to lead a meditation at church. I had organised a group of instrumentalists to play some Taize (unheard of at my church normally) and surprised myself by taking the lead. I had to, because I was in charge, but I surprised myself nontheless! I have sung Taize at my old church many times in the music group but have never had to think about what instrument to play when and how to build it up and then back down again. I thoroughly enjoyed the arrangements that we made and I'm itching to do it again!!

On Good Friday I played a small part in a Passion play at church. It was very moving indeed. There were a number of places, like stages around the church and a cast of three who moved from scene to scene forming a tableau on each stage as they went around. A narrator guided the congregation to follow each of these tableaux around the church, forming the crowd at Jerusalem arriving for Passover. Then there were a number more of us who read out the characters' parts as the story progressed. At one point in the story we became agitators, stirring the crowd to shout for Barrabas' release and Jesus' crucifixion. The most moving part for me was when three or four men who had been readers like me carried the cross from the back of the church, pushing through the gathered crowd to place the cross at the front.

The rest of Friday I spent with a friend talking and talking, walking and eating, drinking tea (because the cafe had no hot chocolate!) and talking some more. There was a lot to talk about.

On Sunday morning I was on the rota for operating the computer screens at church. I wonder what it is that means I get the most difficult services? I think the last time I was on the rota was for Tabernacles - another manic service! And with there being such a large gap since I was last on the rota I inevitably arrived having completely forgotten how to work the complicated maze of cameras, computers and DVD players. Church was so packed that there was about 10 people who had to stand behind me because there were no more seats and many more were squeezed onto rows and sitting on the steps on the balconies. One of the young people came and offered to help which I was very grateful for and so I placed him on the camera - one less thing to have to worry about, if he queued up the camera I could just switch to it.

And so now I am glad that I have been made to stop this weekend, stop thinking about school and the production at least. It has forced me to think about Easter and to reflect upon Jesus dying and rising again. After all, what is more important in life? A school production? Perhaps not.

A busy time

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!

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!

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?

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.

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.