Flying to Singapore

Well Debs,

an aeroplane at Dubai Airport

At ridiculous o'clock I changed planes near where you are in Dubai, but a bit early for meeting for a cuppa. I had thought that a night-flight would be ideal for sleeping on.

lifts at Dubai Airport

No. It was ideal for watching  Lincoln and Life of Pi, and abandoning possibly the worst version ever of one of my favourite books! And what a waste of a good Jude Law.

Anwen

I discovered the seat head-rest flap at 3.30 a.m. [which might have helped], five minutes before they brought round the rubber breakfast wrap. I sat behind the Selfish Three who got in place and crashed their seats back to Attempt-at-Sleep position, before we had even been served dinner, so that they could see their televisions from a comfortable distance while mine was stuck up my nose. And, the speed they went back at, it nearly broke my knees!

Megan

At Singapore Airport, tried to make off with someone else's Argos light-weight suitcase from the baggage collection carousel. Found Astrid [well she found me], went shopping, sat on the stoop for a couple of Tigers, slept, then slept in, got up in a haze.

Katie

Spent day in a haze; in the afternoon, torrential rain. Katie gave me a home-made tattoo; and me and Anwen went swimming; Megan's working up to engagement with me. Taught Katie the next bit of Ode to Joy on her ukele and instructed Daniel and Astrid in the art of tablature for when she forgot.

Daniel cycled back from work and jumped into the pool in his cycling clothes.

Next day Katie figured out tablature for herself [I think A and D would have got there in time!]. Taught her Twinkle in four keys on the different strings. Megan tuned the ukele, addressed me by name.
We went to Sengkang Shopping Centre and bought some pink Smiggle stationery and a ukele tuner.

Foxwood at the Malt Shovel Easter 2013

This has got to be a favourite. Nice stage. Nice atmosphere. Beer. Bank Holiday. No work [apart from a children's party for one of us] the next day!]. And students back from Liverpool and Cambridge. We've cleared the performance area of all the furniture except the pool table. And we are a thirteen-piece.  On a float - small, in a local pub- huge.





Don't entirely manage to keep the volume down.

But sticking at least six songs they don't know into the setlist did work a bit. Some smiling and dancing - Katie and Daisy.











Tim made his pan debut on a single second that he had never met before. I like a challenge.

We were me, Bex, Daisy, Natalie, Stewart, Katie, Lizzie, Tim, Vicky, Varshika, Amy, Sophie and Georgia.

Sarah was at home being big and pregnant. Danielle had chicken pox. She was gutted, but not as much, surely, as me and Bex now staggering our through the melody of one song afer another.


Tim and Sarah have agreed to learn some tunes on sporano pans.. Easier anyway when you're balancing a baby on one hip.

I like a challenge.

Rick came with the van and the best ever Foxwood load out happened. After that it was tales of Teddy's adventures abroad.

waiting to play

[Thanks to Wanda's son for the performance pics.]

Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows play Harrogate International

Well, Debs, spring has not yet sprung.

It is bitterly cold, but the sun is shining when we take to the trains and cars to reach the Harrogate International Festival of Performing Arts.

Taking on gigs over the Easter weekend is always tricky. Our numbers are depleted so Bex, James, Sophie and Vicky have agreed to join Nat, me and the gang.

The parents who thought they were just coming to applaud and take photos found themeselves waving flags. Waving Flag was our best song and the Kenyan girls sang along with us when we played that.

Sparrows were Georgia E, Danii, Millie S, Claudia, Peter, Antonio.









Parents and siblings were Sarah, Jonathan, Wendy, Jeanette, Bernard, Sarah, Jonathan, Rosie, Trish.

We only marched for 25 minutes, so after we finished we sat on the corner of the street and played some more.

Sela Bar, Music Expo, Being ill to getting older

Tokypo Door Bells at the Sela Bar

Well Debs

New York Street, Leeds

Nipped out one snowy Sunday evening to check Tim's band at the Sela Bar, New Briggate. Experimental? Electronic. Computer and live saxes. Loved it.


Thursday there was a big Music Expo at the Barbican in London last week [March 21] on the first day of what turned out not to be spring. I rearranged my lessons and took the train down the night before to stay at one of the most unsalubrious "hotels" in Camden. For £35 I did expect a kettle, but at least I got Newsnight, once we had tracked down the right remote control.

Charlotte and Skye

By morning the newly emerging sore throat was now sandpaper, and over the course of the day I drank my way through half a bottle of Covonia, a packet of cold and flu tablets and another packet of pastilles. Now I had this sore throat, plus I felt sick. And then I listened to one of the most pointless debates on music education, where none of the panel seemed ever to have graced a classroom with their presence. Well, if they had, it was obviously forgotten.

me n Diz

Got some good badges from the MU stand saying Work not Play. And then the whole day was brightened up by having a chat [well, a good listen, as talking wasn't my strong point] with Maureen who is doing researching about music provision for children with Additional [Special] Needs.

me n Tim

Met Charlotte and baby Skye for a tea at the Southbank, got the train back, collapsed into the bed I should have never left in the first place.

Diz n Tim

A week later it was my birthday and  [throat still hurting] me, Daisy and Tim went to the Brudenell to sort out Music education over a pint or two.

Foxwood Steel at Oakwood Farmers Market

For two or three years in my younger teens, I used to stand at Oakwood Clock every week day in term time to catch the 21 into town, and then change for the 56 to Headingley. Then I lived on Ladywood Road and went to Leeds Girls High School on Headingley Lane/Victoria Road.

So, whenever Foxwood is asked by Ian to play around this little landmark, I have a moment or two of nostalgia. I had passed the 11+ so I could I could have gone to Roundhay, half a mile up the road, and then with a tremendous university entrance record, but my parents were new to Leeds, and it was the moss green uniform on the other side of town for me. Well, until that massive row with Miss Sykes, and, for sixth form, it was the 21 the other way back up Street Lane to Allerton Grange. Not quite as often as was signed in! [Actually, after the day of the roll call for initials in the register compared to sixth-formers present was 18:12, I think they went back to the form teacher taking the register. We didn't really care, and found this quite amusing. This can't be said for the day of our A level results.]

Oakwood Clock with the new Fish Bar, now listed, I believe, and with post office/paper shop where I did a paper round from for six rather inglorious months and where I perfected the art of being late. Who else had their mother drive them to the post office in their dressing gown, and then up Oakwood Lane to the first drop! Still, I never missed a day, and when I finished, they gave me a bar of chocolate for [my mother] never missing a day.

And here we are. On a cold March morning playing all our favourite tunes and having a right good time, getting photographed with an MP a new local councillor and the Lord Mayor. I have to leave early to go to an Anti-Academies Alliance meeting in London. Bex takes over, seamlessly I assume. It's Foxwood's first gig of the season, and we are me, Bex, Daisy, Gig, Lizzie, Tim, Sarah, Amy, Danielle, Katie and Vicky. Nat is teaching, Stewart at Uni, and Charlotte is asleep.

Bex Vicky on Waterfront

Catching the 6.05 back from London, I meet Bex and Vicky and we go to Cheryl's party on the Waterfront. Took several highly unflattering pictures of each other, so the best I can offer as pictorial remembrance is this on the left.

They went on into town. There being no 56 for a bit I took the No 1 up Headingley Lane, rucksack still full of anti-academies stuff and Russian homework. That was a long day.

Winifred Mercier Lecture, Maya takes a kitchen bath

Well Debs,

Life is such that being at a university lecture comes under the recreation blog. And thus it was. Melissa Benn came to give the Winifred Mercier lecture at Leeds Met - this put on by pal and former fellow-governor, Prof Lori Beckett. Accompanied by Ann and Tim. 

Went to the drinks reception afterwards. Fortunately I was driving, because speaking from the floor had made me hyper. So it was one glass of wine and some stuff with choux pastry and mushrooms for me.

A bit earlier, in February, Georgia decided to give Maya a bath in the sink. Clearly Maya was in heaven. 

Even earlier I went to see ex-pupils, Kelly ad Chris in their band, Hobsons at Escobar, Leeds. 

I think that sums up my late winter/ early spring entertainment. 

Lees Silver Steel Sparrows at Lord Mayor's Charity Banquet

Tumbling off the train, up Park Row, into the waiting arms of Leeds Civic Hall, Banqueting Suite, unload the van, set up, sandwiches waiting for us.


We are staff: me, Nat and Vicky [who didn't know she was coming to Harrogate till yestaerday, and didn't know she was coming to the Civic Hall till she got to Harrogate.



Players: Peter, Millie S, Millie S, Chloe, Claudia, Ciara, Naomi, Sarah, Little Georgia, Danielle, Imogen, Amy.

Just in time, let's go through our set again, then reprise Clocks, Buffalo Soldier, Blue, Is Heat, and OMG the new players are sight-reading, listening to chords being shouted at them. Proud? Bursting! Play the set again [for late arrivals].



Lord Mayor is Anne Castle. She made us take a bow. We shuffled about awkwardly in the doorway. Finishing packing and disappeared into the rainy Leeds night.