Well, it's been quite a busy week.
I had to leave school early for my hospital appointment (nothing conclusive...more scans...though he hadn't had access to the last week scan results...where are they!?!?!).Got completely soaked cycling from the station. Luckily, on the way home, it was fairly dry so rather than cycling to the train station, I decided to cycle all the way home. Went via town and bought a red dress in the charity shop (bad girl) as well as a walking stick I figured could work as Long John Silver's crutch for Treasure Island for school (the main reason I went into the shop....promise Guvnor!) and headed home with something from Greggs!Was so nice to be home EARLY!
Friday night, I met CBC to go and watch amazing unaccompanied 8 part vocal group, Voces 8. They were performing at Southend Plaza Centre.
What a wonderful experience it was! They were exquisite- the beautiful range of songs they sang, from the glorious polyphony of the Renaissance to Jazz classics such as Straighten up and Fly right to songs my modern composers. We were kept rapt throughout! We were really lucky to hear them for the reasonable price of £10 per ticket (Voces 8 are such a renowned group that most venues charge a lot more)- there has been government support for concert series' in Southend but this has been rescinded permanently this year. This is very sad.
After the concert, we headed out for a Thai meal. This was delicious!
The next morning, I woke up and headed downstairs to tackle the previous washing up. Eventually, we headed into London to meet CBC's family for this sister's 40th birthday celebration.
We went to Caravan for some lunch and then headed to a place called the Lightroom for an exhibition called MoonWalkers which was all about the Apollo space expeditions, an immersive experience. It was utterly brilliant and I left feeling awe-inspired and more knowledgable about previous visits to the moon. There was so much footage and photo and things to look at and I ended up feeling pretty excited by the Artemis mission which is set to go to the moon next year. There haven't been any moon missions in my lifetime so I was intrigued by how it would feel to be here in for one 'live' as it were.
After this, we headed over to Dishoom, an Indian restaurant which I have heard blog friend Vix speak very highly of. I can confirm, it was EXCELLENT!!! All the dishes I chose were fantastic and I tried some of other people's (we sort of shared....). I had a prawn dish for starter which I shared with CBC who had the Dishoom Chaat. I then had Lamb chops, a Chilli corncob dish, garlic naan... and had some rice and other bits from others. They were so yummy!
We headed home and headed to bed.
This morning, I was up bright and early for church as I was leading worship (AKA playing piano and singing and trying not to make mistakes!) for the 2 different church services. I had chosen the songs and could play the ones I had chosen. Mostly went well and both were lovely services with everyone singing their hearts out. Once I'd cycled the 2.5 miles from church no.2 to home, I checked my phone and discovered my friend Izzie asking me if I could attend an orchestra rehearsal to cover the oboe part in 1 hour! Managed to phone another member in the orchestra who lives locally to me, who hadn't left yet, and she picked me up and we travelled the 40minutes it takes to drive there. Unfortunately, we discovered the oboist hadn't left her parts (sheet music) there so I ended up playing the entire rehearsal from my tinnnnnnny phone screen as we'd downloaded the parts from IMSLP (very useful website). It was quite a fun rehearsal and I enjoyed trying the oboe part! Always lovely to see my friends in that orchestra.
Once we'd driven home, I somehow procrastinated a lot and here we are!
CBC and I made a late dinner of Halloumi, shallots, broccoli and tomato plus a bowl of leftover nettle soup.
Eeek!! The final of my choir competition is THIS Tuesday so prayers, fingers crossed and happy thoughts all appreciated! Not sure we have a chance of winning against the 5 other schools who I know are good but here's hoping! Can we also pray for NO repeat of VOMIT GATE last year and that all the parents turn up to pick up their children on time and no one is sick!
Hope all is well with you....
xx