Here was what I wore during the day to the Swing dance festival. CBC was faffing around in the morning so I managed to sneak some shots. I finally have a mustard hair ribbon to match the bows on this Wind-up Bird dress CBC bought me a few years ago! He chooses clothes well!
This week has been a funny one. Extremely positive in many ways and shattering, exhausting and sad in others. A friend who plays oboe in my orchestra, who has been a dear friend for 15 years has told me this is his last concert and he is giving up the oboe as he is getting too old and can't do it anymore (he had a heart attack last year). I felt unspeakably sad as he told me this. He is a sweet man and he's ALWAYS been in this orchestra with me, he's always been kind and sweet to me and I will miss him and his lovely slow solo oboe-playing. Who knows how often I will see him. Then during the same rehearsal, one of the players informed us that a lady who used to run the orchestra for many years had died on Friday after 3 years of suffering with Motor Neurone disease. She was an extraordinary lady and she was so talented in many ways. I felt tears in my eyes as I heard both pieces of news. Earlier, I spoke to my sister and we were talking (as many and most of our conversations) centered around Grandad. She was saying that my Uncle had said that my Grandad had been crawling around on the floor the night before he went into hospital, through the window (which we'd known) but he'd seen him resting his head on the chair like he had given up (which he hadn't mentioned before). And yet, though my Uncle went round to see him every night for months before that, and saying he'd seen him do this, he always refused help and became abrupt and firm like he was whenever you wanted to help. Oh the futility of pride or not wanting to bother people!! If you are old and live alone, don't turn away the help of those who love you, don't be proud, accept the love and concern. Ask for help, ask for people to come and see you! I hope that we, who see these things, will learn from them and be different ourselves when we are older and accept help- not shut people out when you have difficulties because you don't want to burden them. LET them help, don't let them worry about you. And that goes for younger people who need help too! Don't think you should do it alone. You shouldn't, if you have the opportunity for help.
But I don't want to end this post in a negative way, it has had many positives. Today, (Thursday when I write), I had a morning of really positive lessons- I created a lesson based on fanfares for my year 5 children. I originally was going to ask one of our SMT to observe it for my Performance Management for this term but never got around to asking my observer. Of course, it turned out to be a super lesson in terms of outcomes. Everything worked really well, the children really enjoyed watching and discussing the fanfare videos (and came out with super vocab and understanding), they understood and could read and play triplets and dotted quaver rhythms and played this fanfare really well together. And this was universal. In the first class, there is a little girl who struggles with lessons. She is a real trier, and she has a lovely singing voice but really struggles with playing melodies and reading the music. Well, she totally and utterly nailed it! My heart sang as I saw her triumph each and every time we played it with reading and playing this melody perfectly. She was delighted with herself! The rest of the class were delighted with themselves too and asked why I couldn't teach them every day as we scooted off to assembly. Not all lessons are like this but when they are, it's JOY!
I held my first KS1 choir today too and the children were super excited and learnt 3 songs very quickly which they seemed to enjoy. How can I not beam when I hear 31 excited young 7 year olds sing the Teddy Bear Rock n roll!
The afternoon, I made a big list of things I wanted to achieve in my time out of class and I managed to get many of them done- including discovering that the two instruments that seemed to be missing and were causing me undue headaches were actually all accounted for (nice of parent no.1 not to tell me it was at home all along after I sent out countless parentmails, texts, chased children to see who had taken the wrong violin). Drumming club went really well- they weren't as hyper as usual and we already have two concert-ready pieces. More work after school and then I went out to dinner with my Canadian friend and another lovely work colleague. We had a really fun time and I was shocked to discover it was 9 o'clock as we were finishing dinner!
I've come home and read of unicorn bags, Mortmain dresses, tours of opera houses, vintage hat trying on, yellow frocks, Norfolk Boutiques, funky Aztec shorts, visits to Bath and more and all these are something to put a smile on your face!
In life there is a time for everything- good and bad. One makes you appreciate the other all the more.