Christmas & Earthquakes

So this is how our Christmas went:

Thursday 22nd: I finish work just after 3pm, scoot home, we throw our stuff in the car and off we go, collecting Anton on the way, all the way to Christchurch. We arrive sometime after 11pm and off to bed we go.

Friday 23rd: Chris takes his mother and the kids porn shopping i.e. Bunnings while I head out to Dad's in Rangiora to catch up. Just before lunch we head over to Pegasus and visit Donna & Garry who are renting there, prior to building. We have a nice lunch at a local cafe and then head back to Dad's. Just getting ready to leave and wham! an earthquake hits. I look around wildly for a place to take cover and Dad yells out "Garage!" (the reasoning being it doesn't have another story above it fall  on top of us). However the shaking and rolling subsides before we get there. First thought: If it was bad here, how much worse will it be in Christchurch? Frantic attempts to call and txt - system overloading - but confirmation quickly that Chris, his Mum Rosina and the boys are fine and are at home. Several sharp aftershocks rattle the nerves. 

I drive home, get out of the car and just as I am closing the driveway gate, the rumble starts and then all hell breaks loose. I cling to the gate for dear life, watching my Holden get bounced around like a toy and then as soon as I am able to stand without falling over, rush inside screaming for Tyler. He is remarkably calm, Chris is all laissez-faire and I burst into tears and declare that I want to go home. Chris' Mum administers some arnica spray and then we start riding out the aftershocks. No power so tea is cooked on the BBQ and we listen to reports on the radio. The second quake is a 6.0. We walk down the road and see liquefaction and holes opened up in the middle of the road. Power restored around 7pm. Aftershocks continue. Sleep that night is hard to come by. Even a truck rumbling makes me leap up in alarm.

Saturday 24th: We get outa Dodge and drive down to Oamaru to Chris' sister Leona's. The rest of Chris' side of the family are gathering there for a midday Christmas dinner. We feast on turkey, ham, lamb and new potatos, followed by pav, fruit salad, jellies and chocolate chip sherry log. We quaff excellent wines.

Tyler and Olivia enjoying Christmas dinner in the sun

Tyler's stocking and winding wool to find his Santa sack

 Tyler playing his new Nintendo 3D with Anton

In the evening, I take Olivia down to St Paul's Presbyterian for a mid-evening Christmas service - the lights are turned off and we all light candles and sing traditional carols. Get home and sort out Tyler's stocking and Santa sack and then get some much-needed, non-shaken sleep. 

Tyler wakes at 5:40am and begs to open his stocking. By 6:30m all the kids are awake and the big ones grab their piece of wool and starting winding it up to find their Santa sacks. The strings go all over the house and outside. Tyler finds his sack behind the BBQ. We open the rest of the presents in the lounge and the floor is a sea of paper and toys. We enjoy croissants, bacon and eggs for breakfast and then head off back to Invercargill.

So not a traditional Christmas for me at all, but very enjoyable nontheless.

All I Want For Christmas.....

Tyler recently wrote out his Christmas Wish List. The first two items are as expected. Then a candle - interesting. I queried this and he said he wanted a 'Christmas candle'. Hopefully the nice red glittery candle in a glass I have acquired - oops I mean Santa has made - will do the trick. 

An Angry Bird - not hard to figure that one out, he loves the red soft toy Angry Bird that sits on my desk and sets off its angry little squawks whenever he visits my office. 

More of the expected follows and then, items 9 and 10. Bless.

Only 7 more sleeps!

Christmas Countdown

Number of sleeps till Christmas is being checked every day, the Advent Calendar gifts are being sought every morning, and the tree is well and truly up. Tyler was a most excellent Santa's Helper with the Christmas Tree and only became bored about half way through the ornamentation stage.

Of course all that effort is exhausting for a small boy and a wee nap, with the warming addition of his Mum's dressing-gown, was called for. 

Incidentally, we got Tyler's school report on Friday and I am happy to report that it was excellent, both academically and socially. His teacher described him as a 'happy, social boy' and on all his personal attributes he achieved in the Always range, including 'Respect for others'. He is achieving the standards and is at spelling age of 9. (Clearly gets that from me). So we were very happy parents. Next year he is in a composite Year3/4 class so that will be interesting.

We had our first BBQ of the summer on Friday night and Tyler was given the task of cooking the sausages, and a very good job he made of it too. Here he is being instructed in the Manly Art of Barbecuing by Chris.

Yesterday was the Preston Russell Law Christmas Party - we went to Christmas at the Races at Ascot Park. We had a big marquee right on the finishing straight and a Tote about 10 paces away, so with some excellent catering by Mash and a steady supply of refreshments we were set. Most of the ladies took the opportunity to dress up and with the superb weather the stands and grounds were a riot of colourful dresses, hats, fascinators and sky-high heels. Here's me and Helen.

I've done my Christmas concert with A Capella Singers (see here for a run-down) and have a Rotary function to sing at this coming week.

Winners are Grinners

Wow two posts in one day! :)

As mentioned in an earlier post, Tyler's flippaball team, the Sacred Heart Seals made the finals of their grade last week. So yesterday was Finals Day. Both Chris and I took some time off work to be there. It was particularly important for Chris to be there as he has the loudest voice and can got through the noise to give the kids instructions. They got away to a good start by scoring the first two goals but then the opposition came back with three in a row. Half time 2-3. Plenty of instructions from the sideline and the defence picked up. At full-time it was 5-5. So into Golden Time they went and we scored! The kids were SO excited to win. The school gets a trophy and the kids all get certificates which will be handed to them at school assembly on Monday. Tyler got to choose tea and so off to Maccas we went.

Chris coaching (Tyler's the one with his arms up)

Sacred Heart Seals - Winners of the B grade Flippaball final 2011

What's an election?

Scene: The three of us - me, Chris and Tyler - sitting on the couch. Chris and I are talking about remembering to vote in the election.

Tyler: What's an election?

Chris: Well it's when we vote for who we want to be the the government.

Me: He won't understand the concept of government.

Chris: OK, well it's when we choose the person we want to run the country.

Tyler: You mean he has to run right around the country?

Novmber = Birthdays

November is birthday month, in that my Mum, my Dad and I all have our birthdays within one week of each other. Both Mum and Dad's were birthdays of significance this year - 70th's. Both parents chose their style of celebration - Dad steadfastly ignoring the opportunity to party up (Hi Dad!) and Mum gathering close family together at a local restaurant. Helen and I arranged a delicious mud cake from Colonial Bakery for her birthday cake and we had a lovely time celebrating.

My birthday was during the week and to be honest I kept forgetting about it due to numerous other events happening in the same week. However my family made sure I didn't forget on the actual day, even though my birthday tea is atually tomorrow (due to the afore-mentioned numerous events). Helen and Mum colluded to get me this fabulous wall decoration that I had coveted since seeing it in E Hayes & Sons. I don't have a present from Chris yet - no, no don't get all huffy on my behalf, there's a good explanation! I am to get either a tablet, an e-reader or a laptop, but which one depends on a fair amount of research about what will work best. Tyler made me a gorgeous card which me a 'supper' birthday :) We had tea at the Lonestar where I scored a free dessert, being the birthday girl.

Other things we have done recently: Visited Tiwai for a family Open Day. It was really good to see where Chris works (although not very close up due to OSH contraints) and Tyler certainly appreciated the candy floss and kid's freebie pack. We also got to see one of only 29 keas in the world, and a fine fellow he was two. Tyler was quite impressed with him and likes to don this mask which was part of the freebie pack.

I've been doing a bit of singing and am getting getting geared up for my debut as a conductor. I'll be blogging about that here.

Tyler has been enjoying his sports this term and yesterday, he helped his Flippa Ball team, the Sacred Heart Seals get into the finals next week, by blocking all except one of the goal attempts by the opposition. Chris said the kids were so excited at the end that here were high fives and squealing and hugs galore.

Today, Tyler and I went to the annual Santa Parade. The weather was perfect and he enjoyed the floats, especially on where his friend's mother was driving and the friend was leaning out of the window grinning and waving furiously, yelling "Tyler!!!!"

Tyler seems to have picked up Chris' penchant for making lists. Last night, after Chris went off to work, I asked him what he wanted to do and he said "I'll make a list" and here's the result.

Cupcake fun

On Friday, Tyler brought home his latest choice of Library books. Usually these are of the Zac Power variety but this time he brought home a kid's cook book. "Want to do some baking Mum?" For those of you who don't speak fluent Child, this roughly translates as "You do all the preparation, mixing and baking and I will lick the spoons and scrape the bowl and then do any decorating required until I get bored with it".

The cupcake mixture was a bit different from the one I would normally use and added to the fact that our oven is playing silly buggers at the moment, we ended up with cupcakes that tasted good, but were crunchy on the outside and flat in the middle. Not to worry, the decorating surface was fine.

Tyler chose the colours for the base icing:

Some of our efforts with the newly-discovered icing writing pens

Mum's first effort

Tyler's depiction of Mummy. (Honestly, I don't drink much)

Tyler is now tugging at my arm, requesting that we make popcorn so off we go for another culinary adventure.

How to earn money

Tyler has hit on a way to supplement his pocket money. Actually it is his only income as he still isn't getting any pocket money at the moment due to 'the TV v Wii' incident. It goes like this:

1. Get a large bag.

2. Into this bag put a bunch of random toys and other objects that you no longer want.

3. Go up to the nearest adult and say "For $1 you can choose something out of here."

4. When adult refuses to pay $1, say "Well have you got some cents."

(At this point the adult is thinking 'yes I have got some sense and I'm not paying you for stuff I already bought you).

5. Look all doe-eyed at the adult until the adult gives in.

6. Accept the 20c offered by the adult who then randomly draws out of the bag anything from a McDonald's plastic toy to a toy frog that would out-green Kermit.

7. Repeat steps 1 - 6.

It is fast approaching the end of the school holidays. Tyler has grown so much that we had to buy a whole new summer uniform for him. He spent the first week at the OSCAR Holiday Programme which included mini-golf and a karate lesson. I took the last 3 days of last week off and we all hung out together, going to the movies (Real Steel) and getting out on our bikes while Chris went for a run. We popped up to Dunedin for the day on Thursday so that I could see the speech therapist.

And because as I mentioned in a previous post that there seems to be more about my singing than about Tyler and the family, I have created a new blog just for my singing thoughts. It's here

http://amusingsofalyricsoprano.blogspot.com/

if you're interested in that sort of thing.

As a last hurrah on that front, here are a couple of what I call my opera-diva photos that I had taken for a bit of fun.

Disco Fever

Thursday night was the Sacred Heart school disco. Oh the anticipation! Last year when we went, T-man spent most of the time cuddled up to me, only rarely venturing out onto the floor and then just to talk to friends. But this year he seemed really excited about going. We were met by the usual wall of sound, a mash-up of thumping disco music and squealing children. To my suprise the moment we entered the hall, Tyler started busting out the moves! Must get it from his father cos he sure doesn't get it from me.

The obligatory glow-sticks and flashing bit 'n' bobs were purchased and away he went, not fazed at all. As usual, talking to other parents was done by sign language. Here's the end result of ear-splitting disco music and too much fizzy:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

'The Singing Part of the Blog'

As I have mentioned, my voice has not been the same since I lost it at the end of Hansel and Gretel and after trying Sudomyl and Prednisone to catch any possible underlying inflammation or infection, Plan B was commenced and I headed up to Dunedin on Tuesday to visit an ENT specialist. Ironically the same one who does Chris' 6 monthly cancer checks. Depsite my apprehension, as I have a strong gag reflex, having a camera shoved up my nose and down my throat was not painful or awful, just strange. The best bit was seeing it all on tv. The verdict is (and even I with layman's eyes could see this) that my vocal folds and epiglottal area are purty enough to grace a medical textbook under the section: 'What healthy vocal folds look like.' Which is good from an I-don't-have-nodules-or-other-nasties point of view, but didn't explain the ongoing voice strain.

So the theory is that while my voice was still recovering, I inadvertantly started using a bunch of smaller muscles in the throat and neck area to compensate and that became a habit. And these muscles are big enough for the job and so get strained resulting a husky voice. So I'm being referred to a speech therapist to relearn to use the right ones.

Of course that's not going to be happening in time for Competitions with start on 7 October. The repertoire for Comps is:

Duet (with Ruth Gorrie): Christie Eleison - Bach, B minor Mass

Oratorio: If God Be For Us - Handel, Messiah

Lieder: Wer hat dies Liedlien Erdach - Mahler

Aria: In Uomini, in Soldati - Mozart, Cosi fan tutte

French Art Song: Au pays ou se fait la guerre - Duparc

Scholarship: Test piece - Music, when soft voices die - Quilter

Contrasting piece - Let the Bright Seraphim - Handel, Samson.

Make it shut up

The other day I got the vacuum out and warned Mr T that I was about to vacuum and there would be a bit of noise in the lounge shortly. Several minutes later as I entered the lounge there was no sign of him. I mentally shrugged my shoulders figuring he'd retired to his bedroom. Then as I headed toward the window, I noticed a large bulge at the bottom of the drawn-bacl curtain. This is what I found when I pulled the curtain back:

:

Me me me meeeeee

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should peel off all my singing stuff into a separate blog. This blog is supposed to be about us as a family and Tyler in particular but it seems to me that my singing is dominating lately. I shall ponder this :)

Anyway, starting with the little dude, he has been complaining the last couple of days about not being able to see very well. We have had him checked over the last few years, given that my genes are of the variety 'blind-as-a-bat' and at the last check the optometrist said that his eyesight was perfect but given that his eyes still have some growing to do, it is quite likely he may end up slightly short-sighted. So we will head off for another check and see what transpires. I was a bit worried when yesterday he was complaining of a sore head and feeling unwell, given that I also have the Auld migraine gene. I'm pretty sure he's too young to get them yet but....

And.....back to singing. :) I had the first RWC (oooh will some faceless beaurocrat smite me for mentioning 'that' Cup?) anthem sing last Saturday. It was great - I was nervous, excited and proud all at once. I think the choir did a fine job - the crowd certainly thought so as they clapped us off the field - but it was a shame that the cameras focused purely on the 2 teams (Scotland and Romania) and didn't even do a brief shot of the choir. So much for my 2 seconds of world-wide fame. Afterwards we scored front row seats in the uncovered grandstand and a fellow choir member and I managed to get on the big screen at half-time, shamelessly mugging to the roving camera. )What was funnier was that about 30 seconds later, the fellow (male) choir member got a terse txt from his partner, sitting elsewhere in the ground, asking who was he sitting with! His response - 'just one of those geeky choir girls'. Hahaha - true :)

I opted out of tonight's Georgia v Scotland game so my next and final game will be Argentina v Romania on Saturday. And we get to keep our pretty scarves - cool!

RWC time!!!

Only a few hours to go till the opening ceremony at the Rugby World Cup and the first game, All Blacks v Tonga. Rugby heaven :) I have the final practice tonight for tomorrow's game. I think I've got the Romanian anthem off pat but still have the occasional blank on a word. Here's the translation of it:

 

 

Wake up, Romanian, from the sleep of death,

Into which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants,

Now, or never, make a new fate for yourself,

To which even your enemies will bow.

Stirring stuff!! Tomorrow I have to be at the pickup point at 8:30am to catch the bus to the stadium. Miss the bus, miss the game. Which does not start till 1pm. We will have security checks, sound checks and practices and then have to fill in the time till the game starts. We wear black from top to toe, no logos, discreet jewellery, street make-up (no 'glam' make-up!). No heels on shoes - I guess so we don't make holes in the grass. And any food we take in has to be in non-commercial packaging. A packet of Eta chips? Decant into a plastic bag. Bottle of coke? Decant into a drink bottle. The bonus is that we get to stay and watch the game.

 

 

In other news, Tyler has lost another tooth, so that's $2 added to his coffers however he has blotted his overall copybook by cracking the dining room tv screen by hurling the Wii remote at it, having not put on the wrist strap as we always remind him to. Just waiting to hear whether it is repairable. Both Chris and I were out at the time and apparently when Tyler heard Chris come home he ran into our bedroom and hid under the covers and started crying!

Warning: Contains Willy references. :)

Scene:

Tyler is sitting on the couch watching TV, hands down the front of his pants in the classic male way.

Tyler: Mum, why do have you have to have two balls?

Me: Well it would be a bit much to have three wouldn't it?

Tyler, looking anxious: But why do we have them, because you keep thinking about them, and then feeling them....

Me,feeling slight panicked about where this is heading: Look don't worry about them now, you'll just need them when you grow up.

(Yes I can see you all rolling your eyes and thinking surely you could see where this was going? I could but, a nano-second too late)

Tyler: What for?

Me: Um, because they help make babies.

Tyler: *silence* then with a derisive snort: Nah, babies can't come out your willy!! Oh wait, maybe if you go *scrunches up face and makes sound of person with severe constipation* it will come out.

Me: Oh look, Ben 10's on TV!!!

My dear mother if she reads this, will likely be laughing her head off and recalling an incident of my childhood in which the church minister was at our home for afternoon tea and I, maybe seven? eight? and obviously reading something interesting, called out loudly from the bedroom "Muuuum, where are your testicles?"

7th Birthday

Just realised I haven't uploaded photos from the wee dude's 7th birthday party so here we are. We started with a family tea on the Saturday night which included a pirate-themed ice-cream cake. Rebecca went all camera-shy in this one:

Of course this was the weekend that the 'unprecedented polar blast' started sweeping over the country so there was some concern given the regular snow showers and gale force winds that his party might end up being postponed but luckily the weather held out. He had 3 girls and 6 boys over and we played some typical party games such as Charades, Pass the Parcel and so on. Here are some of the boys hanging out in the lounge and the girls with Tyler (contrary to the look on his face he was enjoying their company!):

I thought the 3 girls might get a bit side-lined with the boisterous boys, but no, they were right in the thick of things including a game that I will call 'How many kids can we pile up?'

The party was of the typical kids' birthday party variety i.e. containing copious amounts of sugar and fat and virtually nothing of nutrional value. Cheerios, fairy bread, fizzy, lollies, chips etc.

Here's Tyler ready to blow out the candles on his Bakugan cake

Amongst other things, we gave Tyler a watch.

All in all a happy but very tiring weekend for all of us.

In other news, Chris has the middle finger of his left hand in a splint after tearing the tendons off the bone at netball and I have just found out today that I have made it into the local Rugby World Cup choir and will be singing (from memory) the anthems of Scotland, Romania and Argentina. Very excited!!

Seven sleeps

Only 7 sleeps till the wee dude is 7. The excitement is building and his first waking thoughts are centred on his upcoming party. It's going to be a big weekend for him - on Saturday he has a school-friend's party to go to plus his we're having a family tea here, then Sunday is his own party. I think it will be early to bed on Sunday night, assuming he has come down from the sugar-high. Fairy bread does that to a boy.

His current fav toys are Bakugans (hence the style of the invitation) and Beyblades. The house frequently echoes with cries of 'Ability activate!' and 'Let it rip!'

Apart from that, we are all just ticking along. Singing is about to amp up again with a concert in Alex at the end of the month and then preparation for Competitions at the beginning of October. I have a regime of steam inhalations and tablets for various sorts to follow in an effort to get my throat problems sorted once and for all.

Assuming I remember to charge the camera batteries there should be plenty of photos to upload in a week or so.

Faffing about

As you can see, I'm trying a few things with the layout of the blog. I need to sort out the HTML so I can make the photo at the top a tad smaller (not that I don't love it, but it's a little in-your-face).

We've had a nice lazy weekend, the first of the school holidays. The weather played ball and was sunny for both days. Chris had a big night with the boys last night and so T-man and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 5am to pick him up. Fortunately this only occurs approximately twice a year, so for T it is an adventure and for me, a way to bargain for something I want :) To clear his head this afternoon, we took Pedro and headed out to Daffodil Bay and ran, walked, jogged and skipped our way around, managing in the main to avoid tripping over Pedro's lead.

I'm back to work tomorrow and the boys are planning a trip to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda 2. The next day T goes to the OSCAR holiday programme and the following day he's going to Kidzone with his schoolmate.

I'm finalising my repertoire for the Senior Vocal competitions at the end of the 3rd term. I'm going all out to win the Scholarship this year. I reckon I would have won last year if it wasn't for the dreadful test piece for sopranos which was twice as difficult as the tests set for altos, tenors and basses. Fortunately this year's is very straightforward - Music, When Soft Voices Die by Quilter. I have yet to decide what my contrasting piece will be. So far I'm doing Mahler for the Lieder, Handel for Oratorio, Duparc for French Art and Bach for the duet with my friend Ruth. Now if I can just figure out how to reliably get into my whistle register.....

Games

Tyler has really taken to board games and strategy games lately. We have been having endless sessions of Connect 4 and the little dude embarasses both his mother and father on a regular basis. He'll sit there, little yellow disc (he's always yellow) in hand muttering "What are you up to you? What were you thinking doing that?" And more often than not he figures us out and with a triumphant grin sends his disc sailing into the slot that prevents our line of four. He also likes card games such as Fish and Snap. He's mostly grown out of sulking when he doesn't win :)

Intense concentration

And just because I've always loved this photo and because I'm feeling sentimental as my little baby is turning 7 - seven! - next month....

No I haven't gone to Siberia......

....although with a heavy snow warning currently in force it may yet feel like that. Yes yes I know I've been a slack blogger again! I do have a few photos to download but it's so cold in the computer/music room that I tend not to spend to much time in there. But I shall try and gird my loins and get some loaded.

I'm hoping to get some of Tyler in his costume from his recent school production (he was a mad scientist) but I haven't seen any as yet. Apparently the school is creating a DVD which we can buy. (Tyler asked me if I wanted to 'buy the production').

Back soon - promise!

War wounds

Both my boys have recently received injuries in almost exactly the same place. First Chris at rugby from a random sprig at a ruck which dug a deep hole beside his left eye and then Tyler got a nice split at the corner of his left eye while playing at the pool with his wee mate.

Felix the cat has changed from being a mistrustful outside cat to an inside snugglepuss.

The kids are allowed to have a pair of slippers at school to change into in the classroom. Here's Tyler's choice. Note that he still has shorts on!

Tyler is really starting to get into his reading now and has discovered that he can read a book by himself. He came home from school on Friday and told me that he had read the first four chapters of his Zac Power book. He finished reading the book out loud to me at bedtime.

Random pretty picture :) Taken from the our house one morning.

Tyler is still obsessed with Bakugans and our lounge floor is constantly scattered with the little round toys and their cards. This makes for an interesting crossing from one side of the lounge to the other if one is not paying attention!

Winter has set in and we have the fire cranked up most days. Fortunately a lot of the days while being cold, are also sunny and calm so not unpleasant. Chris has had another couple of moles removed as a precaution - one on his back and another on his calf. I'm off to the doctor tomorrow to get my throat checked out. It hasn't been right since I lost it at the last opera performance. It's very frustrating especially because I have discovered an absolutely gorgeous piece by Mozart that I want to learn - Ora Pro Nobis from the Regina Coelis K108 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx2pnPI18yI (start at 6:40)

When I grow up I want to be....

A fireman! Tyler's class is working through the Firewise programme so he was very excited

when they had a visit from some firemen with their fire engine.

Full steam ahead! Stop!

So it was two weeks of full on rehearsals and performances and then.....nothing. No.Thing. After the last Hansel & Gretel (H&G) performance I looked at the family diary and for the week ahead there was nothing. Well no that's no quite true, we did have the A Capella Singers AGM but that doesn't count :)

H&G went really well and I loved it!! I even managed to add my own little spin onto a little bit of the Dew Fairy's dialogue and the director was hugely delighted as he had been encouraging me to add my own take on the characters I was playing. I didn't trip over my cloak, and I think I sang pretty well. Apart from the last performance where I had to do a 'Milli Vanilli'. I'd had a slight sniffle all week but it was no impediment to singing. However I woke up on the Saturday morning sounding like a strangled chicken! Application of a recommended gargle (warm water, salt, baking soda and maple syrup) failed to un-strangle the chicken and so I mimed and acted my two roles while the amazing Amanda Winfield sang from the wings, miked forward so it sounded like it was coming from me. She'd never sung those parts before, only heard me sing them. Not only that but because she was already playing two roles herself (mother and witch) she had to rearrange her costume changes to accommodate me. And she just took it in her stride. That's a professional for you. Oh and I wasn't as bad as the notorious Milli Vanilli duo, as the director advised the audience prior to the show beginning.

And so this Saturday morning I was able to have lie in, then amble up to the kitchen in my fluffy pink dressing-gown to make a cup of coffee in my favourite mug (no-one else is allowed to use it) read the paper and do the word puzzles.

Fun at the pool

Tyler, like most kids, loves going to the swimming pool and we are lucky that we have a school pool just along the road from us. Yesterday the boys headed down there and because I was due to sing that afternoon, I didn't get in, but took the opportunity to take a couple of photos.

Tyler doing a 'starfish'

Happy boys

Ready for the big throw

Daddy stalks Tyler

I tried to upload a video directly into here but it wouldn't play ball, so here's the link to it on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a3l5G8VqA4

I'm feeling a bit sung out after all the Easter Masses, and that was still after not doing two of them! I got to sing the Agnus Dei and Kyrie from Mozart's Coronation Mass on the Sunday morning, and then at the Solemn Vespers in the afternoon I sang the Laudate Dominum (Mozart again) which is a lovely piece which sounds deceptively easy. I felt that I did a reasonably good job (and did the Amen exactly as I had planned - yes!) but as always there were things which inwardly had me going 'Oh you didn't have enough support for that note' etc. Sometime I wish the little critic in my head would wait till after the performance to point out my short-comings!

Now I am full-on into rehearsals for Hansel & Gretel. All the soloists are professional singers or have had extensive theatre performance experience except for me. I am singing two roles, firstly the Sandman who puts H&G to sleep and the immediately I change into the Dew Fairy who wakes them up. There is a narrator who ties everything together (particularly important because there are some judicious cuts in order that the opera will be just over an hour long and therefore ideal for first-time opera attendees/children. There's a lot of humour in it and I think once I stop being anxious about my lack of experience I will have a great time. I only have a couple of minutes singing for each role but the Director has a whole back-story for my characters. I have to completely be that character. It's really hard to sing, act, watch the conductor and not trip over my voluminous Sandman cloak all at the same time! Who knew that the words 'I am!' could be said in such an endless variety of ways and with such different facial expressions?