An orchestral concert

The massive pipe organ at the Leicester de Montfort Hall was majestic last night as it presided over the London Philharmonic Orchestra.  This is what the "de Mont" was built for!  It was amazing!  Around 90 musicians, all top quality, were guided by the conductor Vladimir Jurowski.  He was a little eccentric but highly regarded and  rightly so as the performance was everything I had hoped for.

For the first eight minutes we enjoyed Mozart's Symphony No.32 in G major.  This was followed by the Concierto de Aranjuez where the orchestra was accompanied by the renowned classical guitarist Milos Karadaglic.  If you have never heard him it is well worth looking him up on YouTube.  

Finally we were treated to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 in B minor.  This was the entirety of the second half and lasted 45 minutes.  The whole orchestra was on stage for this (previously it had been a reduced number).  All I can say is "wow!"

Apologies that the picture is an empty stage - we quite understandably weren't allowed to take photos.

As an aside we sat next to a lovely man who we both worked with 10+ years ago at English Martyrs Catholic School.  It was great to catch up.

Learning to Crochet

After reading the instructions in the book and stitching, then undoing and reading again and stitching again and so on several times I have produced this ...

I won't say I have learnt to crochet yet as I am only on page 36 of a book with 297 pages, but I am on my way.  Once I have mastered it enough to actually make something I will tick this off as done.  Watch this space ...

And a big thank you to my colleague Diane for lending me the book , "Stitch 'n bitch crochet the Happy Hooker"  .

Get Something Published

Last month I wrote a letter to the Caravan and Camping Magazine.  It is the first time ever I have written to a publication and, guess what ... it was published and I won star letter!    So not only can I tick off get something published I have written, but I also won a prize.  Doesn't get any better than that. You might just about be able to read the letter in the photo from the page below.

Ardingly Antiques Fair

Well today was the day.  We arrived at the fair at around 9:45 am and the weather was glorious which was brilliant as most of the stalls were outside.  We are used to going to fairs of this size having attended Newark and Shepton Mallet in the past but Ardingly in West Sussex is the one I'd always wanted to go to.  Whilst it was a massive fair with probably more than 1000 sellers, I don't think it was actually as good as the Shepton Mallet one. We were determined to spend some money but the only thing we purchased was a set of spears for cocktail cherries and two plastic cocktail stirrers.  Some great stuff available but as our house is already stuffed with vintage furniture, we were on the lookout for smaller items.  Sadly only found a few pieces of our favourite Denby Arabesque tableware for sale (the large and small coffee pots, a teapot and some cups and saucers) and we already had those.  

World Record for Most Disorganised Event more like!

Okay - we arrived in plenty of time at 9am, duly wearing our onesies.  The queue to drive in was massive and it took us half an hour to crawl the last few hundred yards.  Once in we joined the foot queue; this still gave us an hour before the world record attempt but the queue was so long we were concerned. I asked several people working there what was happening, were they changing the times to get everyone in - no one knew.  Eventually, an hour, later someone was able to tell us that the world record wouldn't include us.  I was furious.  We arrived in plenty of time and they simply had not organised the event to deal with large numbers of people.    As we walked back to the car, to add insult to injury we could see the people who had got in receiving the news through the fence that they had broken the record.  The joke of it was there were more of us outside than there were in - but of course we didn't count.  Gutted and annoyed that if this had been organised properly we could all have been counted.  Oh well - back to the drawing board - and thanks for nothing Drayton Manor Park.

Break a World Record

And there I was thinking this would be hard and in reality all I have to do is put on a onesie and turn up at Drayton Manor Park next weekend!  Two chances to be part of a world record - most people in a onesie in one place and the longest scream by a crowd of people.  Who thinks these things up?
So at around 9.30am (probably) next Saturday you will find me in a queue outside Drayton Manor Park, wearing either my own polar bear like ensemble, or my daughter Rosie's far more attractive and stylish paisley version.   I really hope enough people turn up to make this a successful record attempt.  If you are reading this, please, please, please, share the link below and, of course, turn up yourself.  This is my chance to be part of a world record and I am really excited.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1447562342147227/