time out!

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It was a triumph! I just came back from a weekend of utter utter joyousness. Hereford Harmony organised Rox and Jen one of the the Pixie helpersby  the adorable Roxane Smith and her bunch of pixie helpers. Right now I am in such a brilliant mood, I would not know where to start with the major highlights of the weekend. Well here we go… in no particular order…highlight number one. The pixies put up a tent and blew up a mattress for us, so  me Mr P. – for the first time in  camping history were able to stand up in our tent, and I slept… a full 8 hours every night …hurrah! Never before in the history of my camping life has this occurred. As non-drivers we usually end up in a tent designed for pixies,  with a sleeping mat designed for a very light tangerine so when it rains it is pitiful, as all you can do is  lie down until the rain stops as our oh so light and portable  tent is only 3 ft tall. And you have to do everything in a crawling manner. Dressing is really annoying. Anyway, that was the first brilliant thing.

Then there was  FOOD! The way to my heart is to make me food ( It’s a Taurus thing) The farmhouse, Tim and Karen made us breakfast, homemade sausages and bacon mushrooms and toms and toast, homemade jam. Also Monty made us supper every night a vegetarian feast     ( what…I just think about my stomach!!!! shirley not!!!). There was a fabulous leopard print marquee, that got called the Bet Lynch, which just made me chuckle most of the time.

Bet Lynch

The Cabaret on Saturday night was perfectly formed, Mr P was the MC and the acts were all brilliant, cannot start to tell you which ones I  really loved…but ok..the acrobatics, the four piece sweet, the Amazing Frogs in a box, or was is Box of Frogs from Swansea.  The welsh goat song, the 2 Joni Mitchells singing Be Good Tanias, the hippy dippy’s, Jim’s guitar…argh the list goes on…

What else was good..? Lots of Welsh People…that was lush. Got some bananagrams and scabble in. ( did I win? what do you think?) Bananagrams with the Girls The campfire singing was super-dooper, and after 11pm people sang lovely sweet songs to send everyone else to sleep.

I loved the  vibe that Roxane and her crewe had set up. It was so light and relaxed.. Not too many people, 100 altogether, which is the perfect amount for a camp -so next year you had better book early. Met up with some old friends and made some new ones too….you lovely people. AND THE SINGING! wow! what a sound. I had great workshops, which just went much too fast for my liking, as did the weekend and all the other singing workshops and fun. I am going away somewhere now to continue chuckling inside and radiating  loveliness. THANKS EVERYONE. x

It was cold and raining cats and dogs...but we kept on singing!

SONG OF THE DAY – The Beatles- ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

When the rain came down on Sunday, and never stopped all day, many people got absolutely soaked putting their tents down…much wetness. We sang this in 4 part harmony in the big marque while the place got muddier and muddier.

Sweet memories.

This is a great video too.

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So had a day working  at home and wonder of wonder…a tea break was scheduled in with a quick game of bananagrams was played! Very rare and it felt rather decadent. This has been the game of the season and we have played it with all sorts of family members and friends and for me such a better game than scrabble. I find all that hanging around in scrabble so infuriating , for someone who finds sitting still for any amount of time a pain. With this game you all get between 21 and 11 letters depending on size of group ( can play between 2 and 8 people though we played with 16 in pairs) and you all at the signal turn over your tiles and star making you very own scrabble board/crossword in front of you. If someone completes that take they gently say ‘pee’l and everyone has  to take an extra tile from the pile of face-down tiles in the middle. At any time you can move your tiles around, change the words…which is much more flexible and creative than scrabble…and the rest well..is in the rules.  We bought it for £8.95 on line and was the best ten quid we spent over the chrimble period. You can also play a game in the space it takes to have a quick tea break…

SONG OF THE DAY

One of my jobs for the week is to try and finish a humble arrangement of ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing’ for my choir , this is a wonderful version of Ella singing it 1958 – Palais des Beaux-Arts – Brussels with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge. I wonder what sort of microphones they had then as her voice sounds amazing!. Even if you don’t have time to listen to the whole 7 minutes give it  a couple as her first solo is so exciting..what a woman, what a voice!