Update

Sorry not to have been around for a while, life has been intervening a little too much into my blogging time. Having spent this morning doing lots of the work involved in running a business that nobody pays you for, I am now just off to get changed before going up to London to play at St James's Park with the Band of the Surrey Yeomanry.

More later - I promise.

Doctor Who

Last night (Saturday) we (the whole family - yes all three of us), actually went out together to a concert that none of us were performing in. That may not sound so unusual, but for us it is quite an event. My wife treated us to seats for the Doctor Who Prom. I think this is the second of these, the first was such a success that they decided to put on another this year.

For my wife and daughter it was the first time at the Royal Albert Hall, I think both were suitably impressed, and I had the chance for the very cheesy line "It's a long time since I was here in the audience!)

The programme was a mixture of some short classical pieces and musical from the TV series, for me most of the pieces were a little short, with too much introduction from the stars, but for the target audience this was probably about right. I enjoyed most of the music, and the enthusiasm from the audience was contagious. All round an excellent evening

Of interest to me, of course was the bottom end of the brass section, where the tuba player had two instruments a standard British style EEb and what looked to me like a 5/4 CC which he used for the "Rode of the Valkyries". Next to him the Bass Trombone also had a Contra Bass Trombone, used for some of the Doctor Who music.

In all it was a real monster Orchestra with I think triple wood wind, seven horns, six trumpets, and six trombones, and of course only one tuba. With a lot of use of the mighty organ and an orchestra that big, the poor lone tuba player did get a bit swamped, but overall a very big exciting sound, I hope that a lot of the younger members of the audience were inspired.

Pressure Wash

I mentioned the other day that I was cleaning some paving up with the pressure wash. There is always an issue doing this with the pressure of water damaging the pointing. In this case there wasn't any pointing left so not so much of an issue. There wasn't any pointing since the paving had been cleaned this way a few times before. However my customer did observe that each time it was cleaned the paving seemed to get dirty(er) quicker. I wonder if the water lifts off a smooth finish from the casting, leaving the surface a little rougher and therefore more susceptible to gathering grim? Any thoughts?

These pictures give some idea of how dirty the paving was, it looked pretty much black or at best a dingy dark grey, after cleaning you could tell that this was in fact a pattern of green and light grey slabs. Generally I am not a fan of coloured paving slabs, but in this case I have to say that a lot better clean than dirty.

The rather yawning gaps between the slabs where they may once have been pointed showed up like a missing tooth in a pretty smile, since the slabs have become pretty uneven I thought the best thing was to just sweep some sharp sand intro the cracks. I suspect that the ants will soon lift this but it looked a lot better in the short term.

More Work - good!

Yesterday was a little less stressed that the previous couple of days, a straight forward morning in the garden, weeding, tending plants, potting on some cuttings, the sort of thing that I LOVE. I feel so close to the creative, nurturing side of the trade on mornings like this. In the afternoon I carried on with a clearance of an abandoned plot I have undertaken to do.

I have had two goes at this so far, and have made a big difference, I hope to get to a point soon where I can start setting this plot up as a garden again.

In the mean time here are some more photos from my own garden

It looks like it is about to stop raining which is a shame since here in the South East we really need it, so I had better go and get ready to go and do some work this morning. This afternoon and evening I am playing supporting the All Souls Choir for a concert raising funds for ASLAN, All Souls Local Action Network, working with the homeless. I will be playing trombone for this one so a little out of the comfort zone again.

too tired

Just too tired to think, after long hard day..............

Passions

When I started writing this blog, my idea was very much to chart the musical life of an amateur tuba player, but find that a lot of what I write is about my gardening. I think this is a reflection of both my life and my passion. On the course we are currently following in my Church Home Group the writer comments that "you can tell where a Christian's passions are by what he prays about", well, I think you can tell a bloggers passions by what they blog about.

We watched the wonderful film Julie and Julia the other night, following a couple of women who followed their passions, eventually finding success and fulfillment through food (another passion of mine). This is an excellent film especially interesting to foodies, but very funny and absorbing to anyone. It also got me thinking about passions.

Clearly music and gardening are currently my two personal over riding passions - I have made a conscious decision not to write about my family - so that will be they will form majority of this blog. I am writing this first thing in the morning, so now I am off to work, this morning pressure washing a patio, I just hope I manage to leave some of the pointing in place.

More later, hopefully with some nice photos.

Sacrilege

I am now going to upset a lot of people in the brass band world.

Yesterday Croydon Brass played out, and it was an excellent performance, I have been thinking about why it was so good, and have decided that it was not just the quality of the players, although that was impressive, it was in part the instrumentation. We had French Horns!

For the uninitiated brass bands usually use Eb tenor horns, these are "Saxhorns" a bit like tubas that have been put on too hot a wash. French horns are on the other hand much longer narrow bore pipes, indeed they are different to every other brass instrument in so many ways, but they make the most marvelous sound. Indeed I think the Orchestral Horn makes the most exciting sound in music. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoyed Saturday so much.

It was wonderful a the conductor to have so many good quality players, they followed everything I meant to do, and ignored all mistakes, it could all go to my head, but it's still a good thing that you can't hear the conductors wrong notes.

Brass Band Gig

This morning we played for the reopening of the New Addington leisure centre, although I wasn't aware of an audience we did have some very favorable feed back from centre staff and local shopkeepers, which is always encouraging.

We did have a few friends helping the band out and I think it was the best we have sounded since I took over conducting the Band. When numbers are a little low it is very easy to get a bit despondent, but this morning's performance has really encouraged me again. We don't have any more engagements in the diary now until remembrance Sunday, but I hope to put together a concert in October some time, so will start rehearsing some music for that.

I did remember to take my new camera, but didn't remember to use it, hopefully I will be able to blag a couple of photos off some of the others to put up here..........watch this space!

Busy Busy Busy

It's been a busy couple of days, and doesn't look like getting any easier so in the mean time a few pictures from the garden

Hostas is pots on the Patio

The "Frog Prince" on guard duty

Hydrangia in pot with busy lizzies - this "deck" is made out of timber I reclaimed from a block of garages, they were the lintels over the garage doors, so solid and heavy they should last for ages.

Last year this was a mixed border with a couple of shrubs, roses and a bit of bedding, now veg in raised beds. I keep thinking of growing a peach or nectarine against the wall.

All these were taken on my new (second hand) digital camera so I hope the improvement shows. Now back to the grind, tomorrow we have the funeral then back to "normal" on Friday and another brass band gig on Saturday morning.

A good weekend

Quite a weekend!


The Brass Band played at a local School Fete on Saturday, with a couple of helpers from other local bands. I think we put on a reasonable performance, but we do still have to rely too heavily on the solo cornets, without a regular solo horn or solo euphonium the cornets have to carry the band a lot of the time. On the personal front, I think I am slowly improving as a conductor, but there is still a lot of scope for more improvement. I look forward to not worrying about my technical performance and thinking more of making music.

The school we were playing at is a Roman Catholic Church school, there were a lot of people there including the Local Bishop who had a few nice words for us.

On Sunday we watched the British Grand Prix, I didn't have high hopes for the British drivers, but both did very well. I was particularly impressed by Jenson Button, finishing 4th after starting down in 14th. Even if he doesn't win the Championship this year I think he has shown that last year was not just a lucky blip. Drives like this weekend show that he is a worthy champion, indeed I think he would have been on the podium if he hadn't been running low on fuel.


A little more work in our garden has it almost straight, however I found a major ants nest in one of the new raised beds I put in earlier this year. I'm not sure if they are effecting the courgettes we are growing in the bed.


The picture is of some lillies we have already out. We grow lillies in pots since planting in the ground they only seem to flower for one or two years, and then just rot. Growing in pots we get year after year of colour where ever we want it. I am pretty pleased with the garden this year we have already started cropping from our little veg patch with lots more to come.



This is a picture of our seating area made from reclaimed timber lintels. Although this is meant to be a seating area we tend to fill it with pots. I am particularly pleased with the hydrangea (a cutting from Fowey) alongside the pink busy lizzie. Not so pleased with the quality of the picture, my old digital camera seams to have developed a few problems, and compared with my daughters new one (see lillies above) the overall quality is not there either. I think I need to spend some money and buy a new one, it's just that I hate spending money unless it's on tubas or plants.

Smith Square

Well we played and generally I would say we played pretty well. I have had to pause a little before saying this as personally I did not perform to my own standards which is always disappointing, and can also cloud my judgement about the overall performance of the band.

We did have a few very challenging items in the programme, which the audience seemed to appreciate and enjoy, we started with the Holst First suite in Eb, this is a "classic" of the wind band repertoire and is well known to many classic fm listeners as well. Since it starts with a Bass solo it is also dear to my own heart. Well about 3 notes in our string bass (yes we do have a string in a concert band!) had some sort of technical difficulties which sounded a bit off, but we carried on, and carried off the piece. Philip Sparke's "A weekend in New York" is a very difficult contemporary piece with something for every section of the band. It is the first time we have performed this piece so in all honesty most of us were happy to just play all the notes in roughly the right place and order, but a great piece and once we really get to grips with it and start to bring the music out I think it will be a stormer for CSB!

We finished the programme with a transcription of Bizet's Carmen, this took most of the second half and is a very good interpretation of the original suite, if a little boring on Bass - never mind I think everyone enjoyed it.

All in all a pretty good concert with a pretty good audience - it's always more fun playing to a decent appreciative audience than a half empty hall! so if you were there -thank you!

For Shayla

It appears that a recent post by the admirable Shayla may have been misinterpreted by some as being a little - anti male... I thought it was all in good humour but for those who didn't get it maybe this sculpture snapped at Wisley last year will help

I don't know the artist but I want to thank them for a great laugh

Busy day

A long and difficult day some good some not so, this morning I had to go to our local police "mega nick" to give a witness statement, the incident is not important but it took so long to make the statement that when I was finished and eventually emerged from the depths of the Police Station, Gloria (my van) had a parking ticket, so much for civic duty!

I was so long that I ended up starting work so late that over all I ended up missing one job out all together. However I did get to lift my first early potatoes, not a bad little crop, all clean and totally free from slug damage blight or any other problems - nice.

This evening would have been the golden wedding anniversary of my parents in law and a celebratory dinner had been planned before the death of my father in law last week. It was decided that we would go ahead anyway, and although a little difficult at time it was a good evening with good friends able to remember in a convivial friendly atmosphere.

What should have been an easy day with a bit of spare time ended up being quite stressed and very busy - and still no practise for tomorrows concert. I have to admit I do not feel ready, I know I am good enough to "get away with it" but I don't want to bluff I want to be in a position to make the music work, not be worried about playing the instrument or the notes. Wish us luck!

Mystery Tuba

A couple of you have asked about the tuba picture in my last post. Maybe I should start a mystery picture competition because this is a detail photo of the valves of Mrs T.

Maybe some of you were fooled by the sideways shot others may not be familiar with the great and wonderful Mrs T so here is another shot.

I like to think that Mrs T is a rather special Tuba, certainly I have not seen another like her, she is a Hawkes & Sons Excelsior Sonorous BBb Cavalry model, 3 valve non compensating, but with continental style tuning slides above each valve.

I have seen a couple Ebs but never another BBb, despite being made before the first world war she still blows well with a big fat sound and a full register with good intonation throughout. She was originally made in sharp pitch but has been converted to concert at some point, and has a medium bore mouthpiece receiver, so I can use my much loved Schilke 69.

Just to show that she is no a museum piece, more like the mad wife locked in the attic, here she is with Mike, Ron and me outside the beer hall we were playing in at Expo 92 in Seville.

I don't use her much now, as with all BBbs (British ones at least) I find she is a little "woofely" difficult to get a good attack without becoming overbearing. EEb are much more agile and accurate, and the CC gives me most of the best of both worlds. So now she only really comes out if I am playing with a Brass Band, which now I am conducting will be even more rarely.

More jobs for the Band

I have just had a phone call from the brass band chairman telling me we have another job!

That means that we have jobs the Saturday after next and the Saturday after that. This is really good exposure for the band and gives us something extra to work for. The event is the re-opening of a leisure centre so hopefully this will increase our exposure as well. I alternate between despondency and excitement where the Brass Band is concerned whereas with the Symphonic band I just try my best, maybe that is the difference between being a Bass player and an MD.

I was going to put in a picture of the band but find I am short of one so here is some more pornography

Vine eyes and Alligators

The excellent Shayla ( http://shaylas-journal.blogspot.com/ ) has posted today about using vine eyes and wire to make use of vertical spaces in the garden. This struck home as this morning I was using just this system to secure a rampant Iceberg rose to a fence in one of my customers' gardens. The idea is that vine eyes are screwed into fence posts or a wall, wires are then passed through them and climbing plants tied onto the wires for support. the usual way to screw in the vine eye is to drill a pilot hole then screw in the eye passing screw driver through then hole to use as a lever....

Vine eye

However I have found that rather than sticking a screwdriver through the hole even easier is to use a "Gator" wrench. This will grip the head of the vine eye and screw it in easy as - well just easy! The splines in the wrench grip anything, any shape up to about half an inch which can be really useful, I always Carry one in the tool box in the back of the van (Gloria) since it can save me having to carry half a dozen sockets and spanners. Other than this little bit of technique I have to endorse every word of Shayla's comments. Indeed I hope to grow a peach or nectarine against a wall in my own garden using this system, when I have the time.

Next week how many uses are there for a pencil..............

A little horse

So;- A white horse walks into a pub and orders a pint, to make conversation the barman says
"Did you know we have a Whisky named after you"
and the horse replies,
"What Nigel"

Family

We have had a family bereavement, my Father-in-Law died yesterday morning after a short illness, so I may not be posting much. Although loss is always a trauma this was anticipated as he had not been well for some time, and had reached an age when treatment is difficult, none the less this was still a shock. However my Mother-in-Law, Wife, and Daughter all seem to be managing well, indeed my wife insisted that I attend last nights rehearsal.

I expect at some point it will hit them, maybe after all the formalities are completed. In the mean time back to work, and I really must do some practise.