No Tuba

Nobody wants me to play tuba these days, it seems like ages since I last played a tuba in performance; that's not to say that I haven't been playing, I have had my fair share it's just not on tuba.   Of course for the Brass Band I am the stick waver, a position I am still surprised and honoured to hold, and at the Croydn Symphonic Band I am currently on Bass Trombone.   We have had a bit of a change round in the heavy brass section, still looking for a regular Euphonium player we have a "friend" who plays with us when ever he can, on top of that we lost one of our bass players and our bass trombone.   The first trombone is very committed to other things and finds it hard to make every rehearsal, so that leaves our new bass player, just back from Cardiff University, and me.

Having said all that we will be having a full section of three trombones, euphonium and two basses at our concert on Wednesday as well as for the National Concert Band Festival on the 1st of April.   The concert on Wednesday is at the excellent hall at Trinity School, we have played there a couple of times, and the only draw back it has as a venue that I can see is the lack of a bar.   The whole Croydon/Bromley/Sutton area has a real problem in that there is no suitable venue for amateur music outside of school halls.   We have the wonderful Fairfield hall, but this is simply too big, an audience of two or three hundred will just get lost, everything else is a theatre, very good theatres but they all have a presidium arch which causes acoustic chaos for some of us.   What we want are halls like the QEH and the Purcell Room.

Progress - sort of

Last week I put up some photos of the job I am currently engaged on, well despite the bitter weather I have been able to make some progress so here are a few more

New raised bed, with rose

This job was originally in three parts. First clear the garden area at the back of the house - this meant removing three large conifers quite a few ash trees and lots of lilac that was spreading everywhere.   As the undergrowth disappeared it became obvious that one of the pear tress and the cherry tree also had to go.   There was also a paved path of rather nasty old concrete slabs and lots of large bits of broken concrete.   The resulting cleared area was then going to be seeded with a meadow flower mix with stepping stones through to the bird feeders and nesting boxes.   On one side of the garden there is a shared drive to access  garages, this is often used as a public cut through and hiding pace for those engaged in nefarious activities.   To add to her feeling of security I put up a trellis the full length of this fence.   The fence is not straight or level so the trellis also looks a little off, but it will make her a bit more secure.



New trellis full length of fence

The next stage would be to clear the wasted area beside the house, breakup and remove the pored concrete and remains of the brickwork that had once been raised beds.   The house had been extended into this area something like six years ago and it hasn't been used since.   In the course of clearing the area I found quite a lot of builders waste from when the extension was built.   This really annoys me, it would only have cost the builder a small amount to tidy up and finish the job properly, instead it is left for the next contractor to sort out his rubbish.   Well after clearing all the vegetation - mostly brambles and nettles but again a couple of trees - another lilac and a sycamore along with a Philadelphus I could start breaking up the old concrete, this proved to be of variable quality and thickness.   I had expected to have this all broken up by now and looking to start finding my levels.

Trellis attached to old wonky fence

Breaking up old concrete

The final stage was to be a deck across the width f the back of the house and going round the side to overlap the paved area.   This would allow me to leave the existing drain and man hole covers, ad make up for some pretty wonky levels without too much excavation.   I had a good idea of the finished garden in my minds eye and rather liked the "feel" of it, I was planing to have a rail at the edge of the deck, which would be on two levels with the slats running in chevrons, the straight lines of the deck contrasting with the softness of the meadow which would blur the harsh straight lines of the fence and the deck.

Well on Thursday the customer threw me a bit of a googly.   She now wants to replace the fence on the other side of the garden and have paving all the way around with no deck.   Someone had told that you get rats under decks and that has put her right off.   This meant that I spent all day yesterday getting prices, making calculations and typing up fresh estimates.   The only actual progress I made on the job was to get rid of my first load of waste (she won't let me have a skip)

This is the biggest job I have had since starting the business, and is rapidly becoming the most complicated as well.

Current Work

Along with all the usual details of garden maintenance I am currently engaged on a (for me) rather large job.   We are still mostly at the clearing stage but I have now started to put in some of the garden features. It is always a good feeling when things start to go in, rather than come out.

Today I will just present you with some of the before photos - unfortunately I was so keen to start clearing that I had already done quite a lot before taking these. I'll have some afters soon

Wow I did it

I have just paid my income tax, while this can never be described as fun, it is a relief to have done it.   Now I can get on with earning enough money to pay the next installment.

Audiences

It's not always easy to deal with audiences, one of the things I find most daunting when conducting a concert is the requirement to compere as well.   I am quite happy to compere, it is just that with the musical performance to worry about as well, I always fear that one or the other will suffer.   However the more I do the better I get, but I won't follow the example below

Click to enlarge

A night out on the town

It's Saturday night and we had a little celebration, it is coming up to a big birthday for my wife so we had to celebrate, during the summer we saw the Spaghetti Western Orchestra play a prom on TV. We enjoyed it so much that we decided there and then to make sure we saw them live next time they were in London. Well they are in London at the moment, they are at the QEH (Queen Elizabeth Hall) until Wednesday, we went to their performance tonight.

Perhaps I should explain that they are not a conventional orchestra, indeed five guys play everything making a much bigger sound than I for one would have thought possible. This is something that comes across so much better live than on a recording or on TV. I know that as a musician I may be biased but it is true, live is best, for sound, communication with the performers, for atmosphere, and for enjoyment.

Without a doubt this has got to be one of the best shows I have ever seen, and the only time that I have spent an entire concert with a smile on my face. By the very nature of the band the repertoire is a little limited but the standard of musicianship and the visual impact of the performance and the production was excellent. While maintaining their high level of musicianship they also managed to extract music from coat hangers, cereal, an apple and sundry oddities (Jaws harp duet!, ukulele, mandolin, bassoon, harmonica and plenty of others). My recommendation is to see them as soon as you get a chance, even if you are not a fan of Morricone you will still find plenty to enjoy, they even had my 14 year old daughter singing along to the Good the Bad and the Ugly! I don't think I can beat the description "Genius and Insane in equal measures"

Anyway take a look at their website http://www.spaghettiwesternorchestra.com/ check out the clips and make an appointment to see them live. I don't think that there are many bands that can entertain my wife, my daughter and me at the same time.

They are nice guys as well, they signed a CD for my wife, with a little note for her birthday - I hope I managed to score a few brownie points tonight!

Weird

I spent a (very) little time in our garden today, amongst the dead leaves I haven't cleared up, all the weeds and shaggy grass we do have some flowers.   In fact we have quite a few flowers out, at the moment Winter Jasmin, Cyclamen, Primulas - not too weird eh? we also have daffodils and roses.

I know this has been a weird year as far as weather goes, we have had a daffodil out on new year before, but I think this is the first time I have seen a pink rose flowering through winter Jasmin.

I start back at work tomorrow, nothing scheduled but plenty to get on with, then there is a shed to mend and on Friday I start what will be the biggest job I will have undertaken since starting the business.   Starting off I have a fair bit of clearing to do, then we will be putting in a large deck and finishing off with a paved area.   I will be doing this job more or less in reverse ideally I would start with the paving then the deck, but the layout of the garden dictates the order.   This is a big job and I will be putting a lot of work into it, and maybe a few posts as well.

On a personal level my wife had to be rushed into A & E and will have to g into hospital for an urgent opp within the next 10 days.   At any moment she could get the call to go, she will then have to stay in Hospital for at least a week, and will then have to be off work for a further three weeks or so.   All in all it looks like we're in for a busy start to the year.