Southern Freeeeeeeez

If this is a review of the year, there is a nice, albeit freezing cold, symmetry about it. This time last year we were gazing out on a snow laden garden, impassable roads and shut schools, and for the first time in decades contemplating a white Christmas.

"Enjoy it while it lasts - it'll be years before you see it like this again", we told the children.

Not even a full year, as it turned out. Two weeks ago we couldn't even open the front door for fear of losing Oliver in a snow drift, and as I type this now, a fresh blanket in the last 24 hours has enabled Lin to build yet another gargantuan snowman on the front lawn. It looks like it's got better prospects of surviving till Christmas Day than last year's.

December 18th 2010

December 25th 2009

In between all this we've briefly had a summer and managed to get up to a few things of note. A few things of note - that's a good place to start:

Lin continues to play regularly with the East Peckham Silver Band, entertaining the public throughout Kent and East Sussex. She has also continued to fulfill engagements playing solo bugle at ceremonies and funerals, including Last Post at Westminster Abbey on Remembrance
weekend - just a bit nerve-wracking!

Lin has also started piano lessons - with an aim to be able to play fluently by the time she's admitted to a nursing home. At the moment she's sounding more like Les Dawson than Les Miserables.

Meanwhile, Jon is enthusiastically rehearsing with his works band. This year they've played 50% more gigs than last - a grand total of three, but still managed to help raise £900 for various charities in the process. There's a number of other entries on the blog if you're interested in learning more.

Talking of work, things have been quite settled there. Lin is still doing three days a week as practice manager at a local GP and Jon will be "celebrating" ten years at Teligent in 2011. With the "Televote Season" now over, he's looking forward to a quiet Christmas and the chance to enjoy Saturday evening TV without one eye on a computer screen and one ear on a BT conference call.

Emma and Oliver are a constant source of enjoyment. Emma moved up to Year 1 in September and is doing very well - "Unerringly polite" was one of the comments on her school report - that was a shock to us! She also contrived to win the Plaxtol Village Duck Painting contest for the second year running, and followed this artistic triumph by winning first prize in a competition run by Tonbridge Council to celebrate the centenary of the town's swimming pool - see elsewhere in this blog for a picture of her receiving her prize from Duncan Goodhew.

Oliver started nursery school in September. It was typically traumatic to start with, but he's settled in very well and the staff are having no trouble with him.

He's still quite a baby at heart; rarely stringing sentences of more than three or four words together, never far from his dummy and comfort blanket, and totally disinterested in using the potty - so it's a real shame he's developed a taste for chicken jalfrezi.

With children turning three and six in March we are very much looking forward to a magical Christmas. Of course we are playing the Santa card at every opportunity to make sure they go to bed on time, tidy up their rooms and generally behave properly. On the other hand we are constantly moving the chocolate decorations onto higher branches of the Christmas tree as the pair of them devise more and more devious and dangerous ways of reaching them - skipping ropes, practice golf balls, radio-controlled helicopters; anything is fair game in the pursuit of chocolate.

For anyone interested, I'll be posting up a new album of pictures from the year during the next couple of days - there will be a link on the right here somewhere. In the meantime, drive carefully, stay safe and have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous new year.

Jon, Lin, Emma and Oliver

xxxx

Swimming

Having spent much of the day basking in the 30° heat what better way to unwind in the evening than a gentle swim in the pool followed by a barbecue - very Caribbean. Only trouble is, we don't have a pool. Or a barbecue that hasn't succumbed to rust over the years.

So it was rather convenient that our artist in residence (Emma) had followed her duck decorating triumph by winning a junior colouring competition held as part of the celebrations of the centenary of Tonbridge Swimming Pool. Her prize is a month's free access to all Tonbridge's leisure facilities, which will be very useful over the Summer holidays, and equally appreciated, entrance for the family to the birthday pool party and barbecue that was held this evening. Tickets for this event sold out long ago, and were limited to only a couple of hundred people, so by Tonbridge standards this opportunity was quite a privilege.

The evening more than lived up to our expectations, with all four of us enjoying a 90 minute swim - the longest either of the children have spent in the pool - and if it wasn't for the overwhelming smell of burgers cooking outside we would have stayed in longer. Before all that though, we had the unveiling of the commemorative plaque by the Mayor of Tonbridge, Councillor Sue Murray, and Olympic Gold Medalist Duncan Goodhew MBE, and the presentation of prizes to the colouring competition winners - sorry that Emma couldn't manage a smile; these artists can be very difficult to please.

June

Crumbs, loads of stuff I could have been writing about, and now the month is almost over.

The last entry finished with the family trotting off to the Plaxtol village duck race. Amazingly, Emma won the duck decorating competition for the second year running. They had raised the age group to under-6, so she had the advantage of being one of the older entries, but it was still pretty impressive to beat the dozens of other entries.

Since then we've had a lovely half-term break down at the cottage in Dorchester, rediscovering old haunts from my youth, such as the beach at Burton Bradstock, and finally visiting Portland Bill for the first time. It's not a bit how I expected; I assumed it would be quite bleak, but it's really quite beautiful in places, not unlike villages in Cornwall. All the more impressive when you realise there are no trees.

Since then I've been preparing for TMC's first public performance of the year. It was at a school summer fair last Saturday, where the bass player's wife is a teacher. We played the same 40 minute set twice (with a 90 minute gap) in the main school hall. Most of the events were taking place outside, but it was noticeable how many more we had watching us for the second set - presumably good reports had spread. I reckon we had about 250 people across the two performances.

Since it was a infant/junior school we thought we'd better play some more modern tunes. Then we realised that just about everything we play has featured in a TV advert or programme in recent years, so they were all introduced in that context.

• Stand By Me (Ben E. King). One of the dullest songs I've ever played - the verse and chorus are identical, but it gave our violinist a chance to be heard during the strings refrain.
• Take it Easy (The Eagles). Given the lyrics, we thought it was hardly appropriate for a school fair, but it's a fun song to play, so we kept it in.
• I'm a Believer. It's all about that organ sound, isn't it. Fortunately I've got it.
  
• Baker Street. Our sax player bought an alto recently - I always thought it sounded OK on tenor, but he's nailed it with the new one. I love the piano part for this, it never takes over, but it's always there holding the song together. It was always a challenge getting the piano, strings and pad sounds at the right time, but the s90xs makes this a breeze now.
• Make Me Smile. We have got this very tight now - although I forgot to tweak the mixing desk for the spanish guitar solo during the first set, much to guitarist Aaron's annoyance. We need a sound man!
• Glorious (Natalie Imbruglia). For obvious reasons, vocalist Chris really doesn't like doing this. We play a much rockier version than the original, but then with three guitarists it's hard not to.
• Don't Stop Believing. The Journey version rather than the Glee cover. This wasn't my choice, but when somebody suggested it I jumped at the chance. I seem to remember rehearsing this with some success back in the early 90's with the legendary "Fishmongers", but I must have improved since then as I can play the right-hand chord rhythm against the syncopated bass-line without too much trouble now. I always used to simplify it before. We got this to performance quality in the space of three or four rehearsals, so I'm really pleased how well it sounded (and was appreciated).
• New Shoes (Paolo Nutini). Just about the first song we learned when we got together last August/September, and still a band favourite.

The audience applauded politely after each song, without ever going mad as it were, so it was a pleasant surprise to have people coming up afterward to ask where they could see us again. The teaching staff have asked us to play at their end-of-year party and one of them even inquired about playing at her wedding!

We'll be reconvening on Wednesday evening to see what we want to do next. The original idea last year was to get together to see if we could play a few songs at this year's works barbecue. Ironically that was yesterday, and we didn't play - having played in front of the staff last November we didn't have anything to prove. I know that both myself a Chris the vocalist would like to move away from what we call "busking" songs into something more challenging (we'd started work on Carpet Crawlers and Romeo and Juliet), but when you have nine members it's very difficult to keep everybody happy.

Still, onwards and upwards.....

Twilight Alehouse

I've been decamped in my favourite hotel on the outskirts of Oswestry for the past four nights. Just to be clear, it's my favourite hotel on the outskirts of Oswestry, not my favourite hotel. It's always a sticky wicket when you talk about your work on blogs - customer, employer and employee confidentiality and all that - suffice to say we've spent usual ridiculous hours deploying our latest software masterpiece onto the Great British telephone network.

Each evening the team has flicked coins to decide where to eat. Except for Friday night, when we were too knackered after the drive up, so we ate in the hotel restaurant. And Saturday night, when we were too knackered after a 12 hour shift and got back so late that the only place we could go was the hotel restaurant.

At least the six of us got out last night, but then the majority vote went with a trip to the Simla Tandoori in downtown Oswestry. It's a decent enough place, and my Jalfrezi was perfectly palatable, but it seemed a waste of an expenses-paid opportunity.

With half the team heading back to Kent at lunchtime, the three of us who remained behind were able to finish the last bits of work at a sensible time and head to one of our preferred hostelries, the White Lion in Whittington. There's always plenty of mouth-watering dishes on the menu, and a nice guest ale to wash it down with. So I was a tad surprised and disappointed to walk in there tonight and see Shepherd Neame's Spitfire on tap. This ale is synonymous with Kent, where SN own about 50% of the pubs (probably not that many, but it certainly feels like it) - it's a not unpleasant beer, but I certainly wouldn't drive halfway up England for it. Still, the food was lovely.

We set off home straight after breakfast tomorrow. I've really missed the family and I believe they've missed me - apparantly Oliver won't play with his train set without me, and Emma is asking whether I'm bringing her a present back. I'll have to pick up some motorway service area tut on the way back to make up for my absence. And probably a nice bottle of Burgundy for Lin too.

My only dilemma now is whether after four nights away I can get away with going to band practice on Wednesday night. We're meant to be working on Carpet Crawlers this week, so I think they might miss my arpeggios if I'm not there.

The Things That They Say

I think I inadvertently found myself in a hitherto unseen part of a Two Ronnies sketch tonight.

I had just put Emma to bed and read her a couple of stories when I noticed some laundry that had yet to be put away. Being the "new man" that I am, I thought it would be a good idea to sort it out now, and set about placing each item in its appropriate place in her wardrobe. Socks, knickers, vests and jeans all posed no problem, but then I picked up some kind of dress she had been wearing yesterday.

Unsure of its normal home, I turned to Emma and asked her where it belonged.

"In the top drawer" came her reply, so I duly opened the top drawer, which was full of fleeces, and proceeded to fold it neatly away.

"No Daddy, the top drawer" said Emma. Somewhat puzzled, I removed the dress and realised that it obviously belonged in her other set of drawers on the opposite side of the room. I duly crossed towards them, but as I was about to open the top drawer Emma leapt from her bed, took the dress and put it in the third drawer down of her wardrobe.

"In here - the drawer where I keep my tops". And off she toddled back to bed.

Ronnie Barker would have been proud of her.

School

It's funny how watching the children grow up triggers long-lost memories of similar times in my own childhood. This week was Emma's first at infant school; reception year as they call it - effectively compulsory nursery school, as she's a full year younger than I was when I started school.

Dropping her off on Monday morning was always going to be unpredictable - would there be floods of tears, tantrums and wet knickers? And that's just from the mothers - I've never seen so many wearing dark glasses on an overcast day. Emma was absolutely fine, even though there was a look of trepidation in her eye. She had nothing to fear really; we were already aware that two of her best friends from nursery and play school were going to be in her class, so she was quick to settle in.

Inevitably there were some poor kids crying inconsolably; you don't know who to feel more sorry for - the child or the mother who can do or say nothing to make things any better. And then I remembered that I was like that child forty-something years ago, abandoned in a completely alien place and not knowing anybody. I can clearly recall screaming my eyes out as my Mother disappeared into the distance on her bike, rattling through the Sturmey-Archer 4-speed whilst pedalling like a Tour-de-France sprinter, and never looking back to see the emotional state I was in.

So I suppose we should be grateful that Emma is up bright and early every day (including the weekend) asking if it's time to go to school yet. Bless.