Proper Gardening

I seem to have spent quite a lot of time over the last month on "projects" relaying a patio, clearing over grown borders etc. so it was really nice today to get on with some proper gardening. I spent this morning planting up containers with a range of bedding plants, including my current favorite Cosmos Sonata. I love the delicacy of their foliage as much as the pink or white flowers, in containers they are also useful for a bit of height.

And then this afternoon more standard maintenance work grass cutting, weeding, cleaning out old foliage etc. from a border, all in all a really satisfying day's work. However I did realise as I arrived home around 6:30 that our home group would be arriving in an hour and a half, I had to get washed, changed and fed, and I haven't done any practise since last week's rehearsal when I committed to lots of practise this week!

Such is life, trying to do too much in too short a space of time

Memories of Cornwall & Monday night's rehearsal

For some strange reason today's work seemed to keep reminding me of our last couple of holidays in Cornwall, our first job was a bit of a clearance, an over grow border needed to have it's edges found, then over to another garden where we planted some asparagus, and some osteospurnams. This reminded me that the osteospurnam I grow in my front garden is a cutting from one in the garden of the house in Fowey we stayed in the last two time we went to Cornwall. Of course I love to visit the gardens in Cornwall, and it is one of the strongholds of Brass Banding, there are some very nice beaches and restaurants as well; we have really missed Cornwall the last couple of years.

Then up to the Vicarage where I found the I had put in a cutting of the cutting from Fowey. Last time there I also took some cuttings from the huge but lovely Hydrangea beside the house, we now have two Hydrangeas out growing their pots and one has been given to the friends who let us use the house (now sold)

So after a hard, but good, days work in the gardens, it was off for a Brass Band rehearsal, we had a decent turn out with someone from every section of the band apart from the basses. This meant that for the first time for a few weeks we could do some proper work on a couple of pieces. We just took a couple of straight forward "Bandstand" pieces but took then apart, looked at what made them work, the articulation, dynamics, which part is important - when to bring it out when to support -, and made some real strides forward in our playing. At times it was quite hard work but ultimately very rewarding.

After rehearsal up to the Grape & Grain at Crystal Palace to listen to the "Big Beer Band" and sup a couple of pints of "Doombar" Cornish ale, which of course only served to reminded me of sitting on the terrace of the Galleon looking out over the Harbour at Fowey










Funny old day really..........

Front Garden

I did actually manage to get some work done in our garden today, but there is still a lot more to do. I bit the bullet and completed trimming the hedge, but yes, I am afraid I did cheat and use the trimmer rather than do it properly. It will be interesting to see if I do get lots of black edges to the leaves where they have been cut, and if I do just how unsightly it is. I will keep you all posted, I know you are anxious.



After trimming a hedge I always like to give it a good drink, and then a feed so at the moment the sprinkler is in front of the house giving that garden a good soak. A few years ago I lost patience with the lawn in front of the house, it was too small to be any use and we would not want to sit out in front so I dug it all up and planted flowers. Over all I am really pleased with the result, a couple of shrubs - a Japonica and a Skimia - will have to be moved, they just don't work where they are, but the general effect is very nice. The great thing is that there is less maintenance than there was with grass!

Tubas, Tubers & Gloria

Well all a bit strange today, Gloria (my Transit Van) had to go in for her MOT so I couldn't go out and work this morning, so actually had a short moment in my own garden. The only trouble with being a working gardener is that so often I finish work so tiered that my own garden gets neglected.

Smudge is helping out, alongside the heron on guard duty. after that he got a little tiered and had to have a sit down .

I have so many jobs around the garden to do that I think I shall have to arrange a day off, just to work on my own garden. All the produce is looking good but there is a lot to do around the ornamentals. First priority has to be to finish trimming the front hedge, this is griselinia, an evergreen large leafed shrub so it should really be trimmed using secateurs to cut each

individual stem, but I have left the job half done for so long I think I'm going to cheat and use the petrol hedge trimmer, then it will only take a few minutes.




My first early potatoes are ready to start lifting so I am going to harvest a few for dinner tonight, but before then I must do some practise. On the 7th July the Croydon Symphonic Band are playing a concert at St John's Smith Square and with having played all those silly little things recently I must do some tuba practise. I have just heard that fortunately Gloria passed the MOT with only a new tyre needed, and a couple of simple jobs to do before too long, so I will be able to to get out to work this afternoon, I need to cut a Vicarage lawn before the parish garden party on Sunday.

Hard Work

I have just completed another one off job, clearing a couple of very overgrown beds and cutting back some out of shape shrubs. While I love my work, and just about every aspect of gardening this was pretty much just plain hard slog, today I even had the radio on!

Since I wanted to spend no more than a couple of days on this job I had help, my colleague Sue was musing over lunch yesterday, "what do I miss about office work?" and the only one thing we could come up with between us was the pub at lunch time, the worst factor of this is that in most offices you can't even have that indulgence any more.

Any way clearance over, tomorrows challenge is getting the Van MOT'd. I'm really looking forward to some proper gardening, I want to plant something! Sitting on my patio are about 20 trays of bedding waiting to go in at various customers gardens, then there is that hedge to trim, a few lawns to cut, a cherry tree to cut down, a new installation .............

I don't think I'll get bored

Saturday's Gig

Well, I have left it for a little while to write up on Saturday while I tried to work out exactly how I feel about what happened, but in truth I'm still not sure how I do feel. Two of my friends came along as "deps" to help out the band, which was just as well since for a number of different reasons only two members of the band turned up.


This meant that we were reduced to two cornets, a Euphonium and me. I had taken a tenor horn along as I feared I might have to ask a cornet player to cover horn, however in the end we had to play as a quintet with me on horn. If I am not a Euphonium player then I am definitely not a Horn player. However despite my personal horror and disappointment maybe the important thing is that the customers enjoyed our performance, and it is amazing how much music can be played with just five players.

After the first set it started raining, so first we had to take cover in a marquee, and then indoors, if we had had more players we would not have fitted under cover, so as they say every silver lining has a cloud......

One of the deps was my very good friend Allan Wilson. You may not know the name but I am sure you will have heard some of his work. Allan is an extremely talented and hard working recording conductor with a list of credits that is stunning. Take a look at his site http://www.allanwilsonmusic.com/Home%20Page.html this shows the range of his professional conducting and arranging work, but does not give more than a hint of what a fine player he is. It is truly awesome to have someone of this stature come and play with us.

Links

I just found out that I had made an error on the link with All Souls Orchestra, I have now corrected this so please take a look at the site, and better still buy a couple of our CDs. I would like to stress that all the orchestra and soloists give their time free, and any income we get goes to support the ministry of this Christian Orchestra.

Go on buy a CD or DVD you know you want to.

The photo is of Proms Praise our annual event at the Royal Albert Hall. The shot is taken from the gallery and shows the scale of the choir, orchestra and audience. I tried to find one that showed me and the new toy, but nothing available at the moment

This has been a very heavy week - work wise. A job that I had hoped to complete in two days, but had allowed for two and half, ended up taking about four days in all to complete. Last night I completed the job and am generally pretty pleased with the result. On of the draw backs of self employment is that you can't just clock of at 5:00 and come back in the morning, no the job must be finished.

The majority of my paid work is gardening, usually maintenance, looking after the plants, weeding cutting grass etc. but I also do a little landscaping, the job I have been engaged on is re-laying a patio. When I lifted the stones on Monday I found a strange mixture of materials underneath, including poured concrete in lumps. This meant all sorts of problems and a lot more work than expected, then the Builders Merchant delivery of materials was about six hours late. The job has been a pain in bottom, but the customers are a really nice couple and the completed job, although not perfect, is a major improvement on what was there before.

Not a great shot but this shows the finished paving with a nice french gully running round between the house and the paving.

On a different note I am looking forward to conducting Croydon Brass on Saturday, this will only be my second outing with them as M.D. so it is all still very exciting.

Last Night

Well another couple of frustrating days at work, problems, problems, which means more hours and less reward, but sometimes that is the joy of self employment. Thank God for music! last night we had a small but perfectly formed rehearsal of Croydon Brass Band, running through some small band pieces working on ensemble and listening, it actually ended up being quite fun!

After rehearsal up to the excellent Grape & Grain to listen to some jazz from the Big Beer Band before home to bed.

I have just had a little play with blogger and my profile, interestingly there are 12,900,000 bloggers who list one of their interests as "Gardening", 184 who list "Tuba" and 1 - me - who lists Singer Cars so here's a photo of my old (as in former) car Jade, a 1966 series IV Singer Vogue Estate

Battersea - again

Well - I think I got away with it - I am not a euphonium player. However I think there was only one piece where the bull failed me and I just had to go silent, by the time I had worked out what the notes were it was too late to try to play them. I am used to leger lines above the staff, but not that many above!

More disappointment in that we weren't in the bandstand, but on the plus side there was a bar, and a lot of money was raised for Kidney Research UK.

I now start looking forward to the next performance, which is stick waving with Croydon Brass next Saturday. The band has not taken on many summer jobs this year so each one is a big event for me. Final rehearsal is tomorrow evening when I need to finalise a programme, so off now to look through the scores and make some decisions.

If you have been - thank you for reading, and please leave feedback

Battersea

Yesterday was a day of simple old fashioned hard slog. Adopting the Biblical principle of six day you shall labour and on the seventh rest, I often work Saturday mornings. Yesterday I proved Murphy's law and every thing that could go wrong did go wrong, I ended up working from about 10:30 in the morning through to 7:30 at night.

The worst thing is that none of it was fun, cutting grass cleaning paving and then cutting down some conifers, it just all took longer than expected, and I had trouble getting a new, and much needed, chain for my chain saw. Today I shall order a couple of spares of e-bay.

Managed to watch Doctor Who and collapse.

This afternoon I will be playing with All Saints Concert Band at Battersea Park, I am quite looking forward to this since in all my years playing I have never done a bandstand concert in Battersea Park. This park was a major park of the Festival of Britain, and still has some of the show gardens, the lake with wild fowl, a Pagoda and other features put in for the Festival, the picture is of the "Old English Garden" very formal, but also very peacefull in the middle of town.

Not looking forward quite so much to playing since I am covering Euphonium, although one of my favorite instruments I am not a Euphonium player, it is just a bit too small for me, but we shall see how I, and the rest of the band get on.

Last Nights Concert

It was nice to go to a concert where I wasn't playing or conducting. The performers were very good and very entertaining, this is not the type of concert I would have gone to if my daughter had not been singing so I was very pleased, and pleasantly surprised to enjoy the evening so much.
A high note (sorry) came from a mens barber shop choir the "Kentones" if you see them on a bill, well worth a listen! They just finished 14th at the National Festival so that's pretty good by anyone's standards.
On another plus I hope my wife will be home tonight after a week caring for her parents!

Not A Lot

Well not such a great re-start to my promised blogging, but then like in most lives not much is happening in mine, at least not on a day to basis.

As a parent I am now beginning to realise just what my parents went through have a tuba playing son. My daughter sings and plays guitar, so it's lifts to and from school on guitar lesson day, lifts to and from singing teacher, lifts to and from concerts. Don't get me wrong there is nothing like the feeling I get when I hear her playing or singing, and from my own experience of how much my own life has been enriched by performing music I know just how important these early stages are.

Tonight my daughter sings in a concert at a well known local venue, I am really looking forward to hear it. Only trouble is it is more and more unusual for me to get to a concert that one of us isn't performing in.

Keep following I shall try to get better, thank you for reading

The Wanderer returns

Well it has been a long time since I last posted, and so much has happened. Mrs.T hasn't been out much, but that is more down to competition from younger tubas, and a change in my musical activities.

It seems that I will not be playing much in a Brass Band now, not because I have rejected Brass Bands, no more because I have just been appointed (temporary) Musical Director of Croydon Brass Band, more to the point I agreed to do the job until they could find a real conductor!.

I have already waved the stick for one performance and after the nerves subsided really enjoyed the experience, just hope I can do the band justice and help them build up to their former glories.

I promise I will post more so keep checking