An ending and beginning

An Ending

Yesterday was our final session with the school choir club.  As always, we finished the year off with the usual choir club party complete with a lovely selection of cakes, sweets, crisps and all the things that kids love! After a bit of a sing-a-long the children who wished to, volunteered to sing solo's on stage in front of us all. The choir party is always popular and they really look forward to it after the hard work they've put in throughout the year to prepare for the Summer concert.  Both Jo and I were given some lovely thank you gifts which is very kind and we really appreciate.  This year we seem to have amassed a plentiful supply of chocolate so looks like I'm going to have to run even more over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, on the flip side of all the fun and food, we have to say goodbye to our year 6's, some of which have been with us since year 3.  Obviously, we'll be really sad to see them go but they're ready to move on as were our own daughter's last year.  We wish them the best of luck at High School and hope they continue singing and all thing 'music'.

A Beginning

It's hard to believe that it's been two and half months already since we performed our ladies choir concert 'Film Fantasia'.  After a committee meeting last week we began rehearsals again last night for a new concert.  I have to say that I found the work on last years songs particularly hard, not only writing and re-writing harmonies but also painstakingly teaching the songs note by note to the ladies.  I think this had a lot to do with the pressure from our business at the time along with home, life etc.... So this time we decided that in addition to some new selections we would re-use some of our old material as over the years we've sang some wonderful songs and it's such a shame not to resurrect them.

We finally went with a theme of musicals and asked the choir for suggestions regarding their favourite song choices.  Some were VERY popular so we've made sure that these have been included along with some less used numbers and some new ones to keep things fresh.

First rehearsal went very well indeed last night (despite me being on 'piano duty') with two songs learnt in full in 3 parts.  We have a couple of new members two which is always nice and only helps to enrich the overall sound.  Here's hoping that next week's rehearsal goes even better, it's always so much easier to teach the parts when I can wave my arms around rather than hammer the piano keys :).

Goodbye 2011 - A quick catch up

After an unintentional and rather long break from blogging, 2012 sees my return!

The end of 2011 was tied up with family life, choirs and A LOT of reorganising on the business front.  December saw us take the school choir to the huge Young Voices event at the LG Arena in Birmingham (see here for last year's Young Voices post) along with a trip to the local Merry Hill Centre for their annual Choir Competition.  Although, we weren't successful with the latter, the kids did themselves proud and we couldn't have asked them to do more.  I was pretty choked up after their performance I can tell you.

Things have been extremely busy with work, this being the main reason for my absence from blogland (and cardmaking and crafting and basically anything fun!).  We have been evaluating our business by means of several review workshops with a local company.  This has seen us assessing our client base, finances and the services we offer in order to re-evaluate and push things forward from 2012 onwards.  Doing the business review has helped us immensely.  We now feel that rather than drifting from one contract to the next, we have an aim and a plan that will see our business grow, year on year.  In fact I'm quite excited about the potential things we have lined up for this year.

Ladies choir kicks off again tonight and we're making great progress with our rehearsals for the upcoming concert in April.  Three more harmonised songs to get through and then we're all done with the 'learning' part.  Only staging and a bit of choreography to master then and we're good to go.  School choir starts up again next week and I have a hell of a lot of work to do before then, preparing, recording and editing music. (Had most of the music since Sept and still only just got around to doing anything with it!).

'A' performed in 'Hairspray' with Youth Onstage at the beginning on December.  A fabulous show with some super performances.  Although, part of the chorus, 'A's confidence has grown no-end since she joined the group.  She struggled with the late nights this time and looked a little washed out by the end of it all.  She's decided to take a break from the next performance to give herself opportunity to try some of the drama available at school.

Christmas 2011 has been a far more relaxed one than of late.  Due to our busy work schedule during the lead up to the festive season, we were more than happy to simply chill and spend time as a family.  It was our turn to invite the family on Christmas Eve and this saw us offering our usual quiz to keep everyone entertained.  It's been nice having the children at home but I feel ready now to get organised and take on whatever the new year has to throw at me.

A May update (including wine!)

So......half term begins! Phew!

Been a busy last few weeks.  'A' had her SAT's a couple of weeks ago but the least said about that the better - a lot of needless stress and pressure if you ask me!  She's now moved on to Sex Education (or 'THE' Education) as she calls it and rehearsals for the end of the term show, so much more interesting times all round :)

'S' is pleased that he's been offered the Options that he'd chosen and has been informed that they're all off to Drayton Manor Park at the end of term as a graduation reward from KS3 to KS4.

'P' and I had a lovely trip to The Three Choirs Vineyard on 13th May.  I actually bought 'P' the voucher for wine tasting and a two course lunch for his birthday last year and due to the fact that it will soon be his birthday this year we thought we'd best get moving.  The Vineyard itself did not disappoint, set in beautiful Gloucestershire countryside it really was idyllic.  Unfortunately, the sun decided not to play ball on this occasion and headed off behind the clouds about 5 minutes after our arrival never to be seen again....well till the next day.

[caption id="attachment_881" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Wine tasting time!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_882" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Wine tasting in the courtyard"][/caption]

We walked around on the short guided tour and then returned to the courtyard to sample our selection of wines.  Shortly after this we headed to the Vineyard Restaurant to enjoy our two course lunch.  We were seated at a lovely table with a scenic outlook over the many acres of vineyard.  Being midweek the whole place was very quiet but no less attention to detail was paid by the staff.  The food was absolutely delicious, one of the best meals we've had and the fact that it was washed down by one of our 'tasting' choices made it even more memorable.

[caption id="attachment_883" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lunch at the Three Choirs"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_884" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lunch in the Vineyard Restaurant"][/caption]

School choir now have one rehearsal left before there Summer Concert next month and for once they actually seem quite ready! Shocking, I know !  We think the song choices have helped this year, funky as it is, all inklings of High School Musical have gone with their replacements being the likes of Hans Christian Anderson and South Pacific - much more choir friendly songs!

The ladies choir performed there concert 'It's a Man's World' again last night on behalf of Halesbury Special School to help raise much needed funds and awareness about the school.  This went well and a fair number turned up to support which was nice.

So now, on the brink of June all thoughts in the Griffiths house turn to the imminent birthday on the year.  Yes, 'P's big 4-0 that's coming up next week!!! So while he rapidly tries to complete his final year's uni work all celebration plans are left firmly in our hands.  Brave, brave man ;)

[slideshow]