Hard work

Today has been hard work, in many ways just hard slog, but also good rewarding stuff.   One of my customers has been concerned about her pond for ages, it would be filled up, then g down a few inches in short time.   Obviously there was leak, rather than tr to patch I decided tat the best thing to do was to empty the while thing our and put in a fresh liner.   This would also give me he opportunity t level up the edges; when it is was put in there doesn't appear to have been a spirit level available!.

The pond itself is a nice natural type pond with broken paving slabs around the edge over gravel ad some feature rocks.   There are a few plants and lots of frogs, newts and even some toads but no fish.   Today I emptied out the pond, lifted all the slabs and rock, and cleaned up the gravel.    I managed to raise the side that was low with some soft sand and put in the new liner and filled with water.

By this time I had lost the light so I will have to go back tomorrow to finish dressing the pond.   The rocks and paving will go back more or less as they were but I have divided the plants which should leave a bit of room for the amphibians.   I will try to get a couple of photos when I am finished.

Although I really want to get this pond finished I could have done without working tomorrow, as I want to make sure that I am proper set for Sunday, and I need to pick up all the band kit in the afternoon as well, oh well who wanted an easy life anyway?

The Program

I should have said what the program for the festival is we are playing three pieces
Finnegan's Wake by Archibald J. Potter
The Sun Will Rise Again by Philip Sparke, and
The first three movements of Robert Russell Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances.

this is a good varied, and challenging program.   Let's hope the adjudicators agree.

Another day another dollar

Funny old game in't it? Today I acquired my new laptop, courtesy of a highly valued customer.    have managed to transfer all my files across and am just beginning to get to grips with it, this does however mean that I have not done much that pays me today!   Still I have managed a fair bit of admin stuff that needs to be done.

This evening we had a CSB rehearsal, I am getting the hang of the Trombone after m long lay off and beginning to remember why I took it up to start with.  We rehearsed the selection we are going to play at the the Colchester region round of the National Wind Band Festival and it is beginning to sound fairly well, still plenty of work to do though.   Musically I am mostly concerned with Sunday's Remembrance Service, we now have a drummer who will be playing so I am greatly relieved to know that we can start the National Anthem with a drum roll.   The congregation expect this, it gives them a chance to stand up and prepare themselves,whereas for eh last few years we have had t play an introduction and that just seems to confuse people.

Practise

I have a few performances coming up, with wind band, brass band and orchestra.   Now as a conductor I am always telling the members of the band that they have to practise, it's simply not enough to rely in the playing we do at rehearsals.   We need to practise so that when we get to the rehearsal we are ready to rehears the piece not practise the instrument.

The trouble is a lot of the time I don't follow my own advise, and now I have been found out big time!   All the time I was playing Tuba I was OK, I could pretty much cope with anything thrown at me, but at both the Orchestra and the Wind Band I will be playing Bass Trombone at the next few performances, and I NEED TO PRACTISE.   If you live near me I apologise but I just have to do it.

The Orchestral job is with the London Charity Orchestra and we are going to be playing lots of "lolly pops" including the Capriccio Italien, Roman Carnival, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Dambusters, so it looks as though I could end up with quite a bit to do.

Remembrance

HMS Belfast in 1948

The Croydon Band will be playing for the remembrance service on HMS Belfast again this year.   I think this is the most important thing we do as a band, it is a real honour.   Two of our cornet players will be playing the last post, as well as the full band accompanying hymns for the service and some solemn music before hand and some marches afterwards.   Tonight was the last rehearsal for this, and all in all I think it went pretty well, we have a decent selection of solemn music for before the service, and a couple of appropriate marches for afterwards "A Life on The Ocean Wave" and "Hearts of Oak".   For years we used to play "On the Quarter Deck" and I could never understand why, it's not a very good march and nobody ever recognises it, so last year we changed to "A Life on The Ocean Wave" and got quite a few favorable comments.   I just hope that this year we are able to get it right again.

This is the second of these services I will have conducted, but I have played in them for many years and have always got a kick out of seeing how important it is to the veterans, especially those who served on the Belfast herself.   Last year I was very nervous, I hope that this year I will be a little more relaxed, and will be able to enjoy the experience.

Cartoons

I love cartoons, I must have said this before, but it's true.   This one tickles my fancy and is specially for all you closet Jazzers

Hi Honey, I'm home

Well I know it's been a long time, but here goes, lets get restarted.

I'm still conducting the Croydon Brass band, and we have had a few gigs, including two to celebrate our Centenary year. the last one was last month, and I was very encouraged in that most of the band that played were regular members coming along to rehearsals each week.   When I took over back at the beginning of 2010 we had only four or five players at most rehearsal, now we regularly have have 11 or 12, that means that we have more than doubled our regular attendance.   Which in turn means that we Can play some good challenging music and put on decent performances.

The Croydon Symphonic Band is still strong, however we have lost one of our bass players and one of our trombones, we have had some new members join so the numbers are more or less the same, but we are short on heavy brass.   The change in Bass players has left me with a problem, the chap who has left played a Cervany BBb. ad the New Toy blended nicely in tone, the new player uses a Besson Sovereign, my CC just doesn't blend at all so I have been using new Little New Standard EEb which works perfectly, the problems is that I am just not using the CC at all.   I am playing the EEb the Euph and the Trombone but the Mrs T and the New Toy seem to just be living in their cases.

Since I need the money to buy a new van I am planning to put the CC up for auction on e-bay, a great shame but I can't see a way round at the moment.