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 :).

The end of an era

Well here we are, about to begin the second week of the summer holidays and already primary school is a distant memory. For those of you not in the know, 'A' finished her final year of primary school on Friday 22^nd July and will be off to much scarier (well, to me anyway) High School come September. The last few weeks of term went by in a blur. We performed our usual summer concert with the school choir back in June and as ever this was a hit with the kids and the parents and even took our ladies choir in for an impromptu assembly performance. 'A' and the rest of year 6 shortly after, started work on their final school show which this year was to be 'Gel'. They performed the show over two nights and 'A' played Mrs Fletcher, a bit of a busy body come tea lady! She had to wear rollers in her hair and her Grandma's slippers but she loved every minute of it. The show was a roaring success and really showcased some new talents that we'd not had a chance to see before.

Last day of term came and went and surprisingly, not a tear was shed in the Griffiths household by Mother or Daughter. The usual traumatic leavers' assembly had been replaced by a more upbeat celebration of the children's time at primary school and although there were a few weepy souls there was not the usual flood of tears that has a kind of domino effect. Even the end of school bell went by without too much trauma. 'A' came out of school with a shirt full of signatures and couldn't wait to put her new found independence into action by heading off to the chip shop with friends (an essential trip that had been planned by the year 6's for a few day's and which we had no choice but to agree to!).

I did wonder if the fact that she'd actually left primary school and a whole chapter of her life behind, would kick in sometime during the first weeks of the holiday, but I can honestly it hasn't. I think the fact of the matter is, she's just ready to move on. If you'd have asked me this time last year I would have said, "she's still my little girl and will never be ready for high school in a years' time". However, she is and I can't believe the change in her over 12 months. Yes, she's still incredibly half soaked at times and has the memory capacity of a tea strainer but she has matured no end and I feel is really ready for the challenge of 'big' school. Whether I'll still be saying that in the Autumn when she's having friendship issues, detention for being late and not handing her homework in on time, remains to be seen! ;) Personally,  think the whole process was easier for me, knowing that I would be returning to the school again in September to continue with school choir.  It won't be quite the same though without my own lovely girl being there each week.  I'm sure she'll drop in from time to time though, should her busy extra curricular school life allow!

[caption id="attachment_971" align="alignleft" width="189" caption="First day at primary school"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_972" align="alignright" width="97" caption="Last day at primary school"][/caption]

Where did those 6 years go?