♫♪ ...when I'm 64 ♪♫

Me, giving Tyler a big hug after coming from work: Do you still love me?

Tyler: Of course, why wouldn't I?

Me, teasingly: Oh I thought you might have forgotten me.

Tyler: Of course not, I'm still young.

Me: What difference does that make?

Tyler: Well when I'm older and you're old and crinkly, I might love you just a wee, wee bit less.

Me: !!!!

In other news, I won some bling at the annual Vocal Competitions recently (I'll blog about it soon over at (A)musings of a Lyric Soprano)

Last weekend I took Tyler and Anton to Riverton for a bit of crab-hunting and ice-cream-devouring.

A Question

Tyler, after getting out of the shower: If I put the water in this ear *points to left ear* will it come out of that ear? *points to right ear*

We certainly hope not :)

Random things:

• Tyler scored his first goal at soccer.
• His Flippaball team has won all their game so far.
• Chris has been to Touch Nationals with the Southland Mens 40's. 
• I'm singing in a concert on March 18th and then an opera on April 28th.
• We've had a cracker summer, unlike the rest of the country.
• Angry Birds is the best game ever.

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!

Yes, I'm a bad blogger - way too long since the last post. School has started and Tyler is enjoying being in Room 3 with Miss Swney. It's a bigger class than his previous one but he seems to be fine. Swimming lessons have started 4 days a week and he is loving them. His reading books now have chapters, so he's quite proud of that.

My singing engagement diary is starting to fill up. Basilica choir has started again which is every second Sunday. I am singing in a 'Best of Baroque' concert on 13 March - 'Let the Bright Seraphim' and 'If God Be For Us' as solos, plus a duet (probably the Vivaldi 'Laudamus Te'). April 17th is the first A Capella concert for the year (Stainer's 'Crucifixion') then at Easter Vespers I am doing the Mozart 'Laudate Dominum' which is absolutely gorgeous. I'm also working on a Mahler lied which will be a nice little show off piece so hopefully I get a chance to sing it somewhere.

At the end of the month Chris is playing in the Touch Nationals in Christchurch so we are all heading up there for 4 days. Normally the Nationals are held in Auckland, so this is a great opportunity for me to see Chris play at a National level for the first time.

And on March 29th I have a flying visit to Auckland to see Andreas Scholl in concert - can't wait!!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to sort out some photos to post here.

Heatwave

My goodness we've had some amazing weather recently! Makes it very hard to work in an office. Saturday was the annual Santa Parade and although it rained in the morning, it had stopped in good time for the Parade, and it was very warm. Tyler ran into a little boy in his class so they watched the Parade together. T was most impressed that Mrs Claus was in the sleigh with Santa.

Sunday was a scorcher, so we took our newly-acquired jetski out to Oreti River and blatted around on that. Then we tied the biscuit on a first Tyler, and then Tyler and I together hurtled around. Tyler wasn't content with level of bumping over the wake and actively tried to make the biscuit jump, shouting Yeeehaaah! all the while (while his mother on the back was just shouting fullstop).

Sunday night was the last A Capella concert for the year. We did the Mozart Coronation Mass and my singing teacher Rebecca Ryan was the soprano soloist. She also did Mozart's Alleluia (which she casually handed me the music of the other day and said "I think you should look at that". Eep!) I had a small solo bit in one of the carols we sang in the second half and it went OK. The Mass itself rocked and we were all on a high at the end.

Every Wednesday Tyler plays touch and last week he was awarded the Player of the Day trophy. He was very proud (as was Chris who helps coach and ref).

All the fun of the fair

Ok so silly me forgot to take the camera last night so unfortunately no Guy Fawkes photos. But Tyler had a great time and completed tired out the words 'wow' and 'awesome'.

Today was the Sacred Heart School fair. There was a children's Mass first and the kids were fair busting to get through it and outside :) The weather was a misty rain when we first went to church but by the time we got out it had stopped and it got progressively better as the day went on. Tyler had a ball, and spent his own money and his mother's with abandon. His favourite thing was getting his hair done at the Funky Hair stall by his teacher.

His mother and father followed more sedate pursuits i.e. Devonshire Tea and cake stall.

I'm back into singing lessons with a vengeance now and have a bunch of new music to learn including Despina's aria 'In uomini, in soldati' from Cosi, the upper part of the duet 'Christe Eleison' from Bach's Mass in B minor and the amazingly-named 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation' by Purcell. Looking back, it is exciting to see how far my technique has developed this year. I have had a number of comments along the lines of how much richer my voice is sounding, so the practice is obviously paying off.

Surfacing

Yes, it's been 3 weeks since my last confession post. I have not yet taken photos of the new house, but finally I have a relatively free weekend ahead and so I promise I will! Especially as Chris has been buried in the garden (no I haven't bumped him off for the insurance) and has been weeding, digging up, tearing down, and beautifying.

The house is pretty much set up now, and we are revelling in the leg/arm/body room of a new Superking-size bed. I no longer end up shaped like a pretzel if the wee dude pops in for a snuggle in the mornings. 

The A Capella concert last Sunday went very well. It was great having the power of 70ish voices for the massed items (March of the Hebrew Slaves and Hail Gladdening Light). I was a busy wee bee as not only was I singing the normal choir stuff, but played a flute obligato for one item and then had a solo item of my own. I performed the Flanders & Swan song 'A Word on My Ear' about a tone-deaf soprano and the audience response was all a performer could wish for. At one point I lost the plot with the words but handled it in a such a way that the audience thought it was actually part of the performance. Not often that will work :) 

Tyler continues to do well at school, and his reading is coming along really well, even though he declares "I hate reading!" (usually because instead of doing his reading homework he'd rather be kicking a ball around or playing with his toys). He is a very snuggly/huggy/kissy wee lad and I fervantly hope this will always be so.

Countdown

Electricity? Check. Phone? Check. Newspaper? Check. .........

Only 2 more sleeps till we own the Wallacetown house! We're getting pretty excited now and Chris and I find ourselves lying awake at night planning where certain things will go, what new furniture we need etc etc. It will so good to have a big kitchen again, and warmth all through the house and a wardrobe in our bedroom. No more loud traffic early in the morning waking Tyler up. No more dicing with death getting out of the drive and into the traffic flow at peak hours. And as an added bonus, more singing practice time in the car :)

Once we get Tyler's new bike, we will be able to go down the road to the local school for him to learn to ride it.

Musically busy from here on in too. 31 August is the Music Circle tea meeting, then on 5 September is the A Capella concert where we combine with the Central Otago Singers and I have a solo item. Speaking of A Capella, I have created a website for them - very fledgling, but take a look here A Capella Singers.  At the end of September are the Southland Competitions vocal section. I'm in 8 classes, with 9 songs to prepare as the scholarship class has a test piece and an own selection. I have 4 new pieces to learn, 3 in other languages, but they are all lovely. I'm especially enjoying Blute Nur from Bach's St Matthew Passion. And I even have a Christmas singing engagement already - an aria from the Christmas Oratorio.

Now I must stop avoiding packing *girds loins* 

Re-housed, re-connected

We are now in our rental house and unpacked (everything except the stuff we don't need right now). Getting used to a Yunca again after the convenience of a heat pump but admittedly it is nice to cosy up by the fire. And Tyler and I get to leave 10 minutes later in the mornings :)  It's even better for Chris - he just walks around the corner to catch the bus.

Broadband took a while to get connected and I still haven't got the email going but our old email addresses still work so no worries there.

We survived the dusting of snow on Saturday and managed to finally get Chris' cat (after two abortive and scratch-producing attempts) into the truck and tranferred to her new home. The dog didn't even blink about the change in surroundings, he was all "Dude -  my humans are here, there's my food bowl, oooh a nice warm fire, what's not to like?"

Amongst all the packing and shifting and unpacking, I performed at the Womens Club Lunch Hour Concert. It would have to be one of the worst venues in Invercargill for singers. Dry as a bone and carpeted, curtained and peopled to the nth degree. But somehow I got through Let the Bright Seraphim, and the runs ran all the way to where they should with no un-scored detours and I even remembered to do some ornamentation in the repeat!

Still no home to go to. We have advised the real estate agents for the Wallacetown property we are prepared to make an offer of $400K so we will see if that goes anywhere. In the meantime we have been going to open homes here there and everywhere. I have managed to avoid packing so far, but the time is fast approaching. Time to get ruthless! Which reminds me of a little ditty:

Ruth rode on my motorbike,

Directly back of me,

We took a bend at 95,

And rode on ruthlessly.

There's your Friday Funny :)

Tyler's school had a Wacky Hair Day today. Given that Tyler has a No.2 haircut, there wasn't an awful lot we could do short of buying a wig. He decided all he wanted was to spike his hair up with gel and so that's what we did.

In singing news, I am about to launch myself at 'Let the Bright Seraphim' (the aria Kiri sang at Charles and Diana's wedding). Wish me luck!