On Saturday morning everyone but 6, A and Bob had to leave the house fairly early, guests to get to their conference, L to a Strings Day and J and K to try the county orchestra sessions and see how they got on, with the option for K of switching down to L’s group if it proved too much for him. I dropped them off and came home for a day of pottering and baking, via the supermarket for supplies – packed lunches always seem to deplete the store cupboards incredibly fast!
At 3 it was time to return and collect everybody, with a strings concert to listen to what they’d been doing all day. It was fab, and it was easy to see how much those present had enjoyed their day. L loved it! The boys, meanwhile, had been having a great time too (we could hear them through the wall in the gaps between pieces at the concert so we knew they’d been busy) and J had been quite happy with the standard needed for second trombones, while K had managed three out of four pieces with the help of sectional rehearsals but had to rely on being good at working out where they were so he could pause and then join back in from time to time in the fourth – too many fast-shifting semi-quavers! Still, they were happy for him to carry on since his sightreading was good enough to allow him to do that, so he was happy too.
The rest of Saturday was largely spent baby worshipping 😉 Bob went and babysat for Ruth and Adam (taking my place so I could stay and chat) and the rest of us had cuddles and cooing until children’s bedtime and then tea and chatting until grown-up’s bedtime. Lovely 😀
On Sunday I dropped 6 and L off at church, where they were singing Eucharist, and then took K and J on to orchestra, where I stayed and listened for a bit then walked into town to meet the girls. Meanwhile Bob and A were the hosts with the most, getting their fair share of baby cuddles. We walked back through town and happened to pass the fudge shop just as they were beginning to labour a table of fudge, so we stopped to watch and ended up staying for the entire process, including tasting a little piece of the fudge once it had set and been cut into slices. Since another load had just been poured and set enough to start working it, we felt we had seen the whole cycle of making, so it was only fair to buy a slice or two 😉 L and 6 chose sticky toffee pudding, which reminded L that she’d never actually had sticky toffee pud (I’m sure she has, but she’s sure she hasn’t…) so they’ve decided to make it some time this week. I suggested a dark chocolate fudge for Bob, so we bought some of that too, then went home and iced cupcakes, made Marmite pinwheels and got together some bits and pieces for later.
In the afternoon we returned for the orchestra concert. The theme had been film music and the concert featured snippets of film which the music accompanied in much the same way as early silent movies would have a soundtrack provided by a live orchestra. The accompanying talk was fascinating too, and really made us think about the role that music plays in a film – not just building the atmosphere while you watch but also setting the mood for the next scene and altering how you read things, often in such a subtle way that you wouldn’t even notice unless you were looking for it. The whole thing was really well done 😀 and the boys both came out buzzing, especially K who with a little more rehearsal had managed to play all of all the pieces and was very appreciative of a particularly helpful section leader.
We couldn’t linger overlong because all three choir children had Evensong to get to. While they rehearsed, the rest of us went for a walk and came across a street performer who was setting up a juggling act. He was soon joined by a partner and they did a performance together, culminating in pulling J out of the audience to be part of the finale. He had to lie still and be somersaulted over, to much hilarity as they both made false starts, stopped for jokes and then finally succeeded, earning wild applause and the chance to pass a couple of hats round the watchers before they dispersed.
Back to Evensong and it was lovely: all the choirs were there and it was a fully choral service, followed by the end of year party (hence the cupcakes and pinwheels) and the traditional giving out of envelopes. Despite having only arrived partway through the term and then missed several weeks because of Kentwell, 6 had still earned enough by her regular attendance to have an envelope of her own (and not the slimmest one there either) while L and K had a little more because of their full first half-term.
