Wide blue sky

What a joy to see the sun!
In my first week back in Brisbane I saw family, friends, the beach and the optometrist; I found it quite difficult to see with so much light and had to buy sunglasses. And, although nobody can notice it, I have lost that bluish tinge my skin had aquired through lack of sun exposure.
I've had my neice and nephew for sleepovers (multiple) at my place and at the beach. I even did running on the beach and swimming with them. (For the benefit of readers from outside Queensland, locals don't swim until November - it's too cold.) It's just glorious to see the sun sparkling on the blue ocean under the immense blue sky. And to feel the sun and the water on my skin again. I may have been a little vitamin D deprived...
We also went to the local park and feed the water lif. There were 2 types of ducks, little tortoises and big eels. I forgot to take my camera. Too busy living the moment.
The jetlag was shocking. It has taken weeks for me to sleep properly and be able to concentrate on conversations, emails etc. (Apologies for those who tried to communicate with me.)
I am back on track now. In fact, I started my new job on Monday. I'm really enjoying teaching again, particularly the classroom music. And the unit for year 9 is...JIGS! Nice.

A Fine Finale

After the lovely weekend in Paris, we flew back to London and caught the train to Stratford Upon Avon for the final adventure before returning to Australia. I had organised tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet in October. Maeva and Jenny drove down from Newcastle to join Tony and I for the evening. Tony and I had already sampled the delights of the pub built in 1596 before the others arrived. We had dinner at Lambs of Sheep Street which was stunning, then headed off to the Theatre.

WOW! What a production! David Tennant and Patrick Stewart starred, but all the cast were great. We all enjoyed the production. Afterwards we went to the next door pub (where the actors hang after the show) to complete the evening.

The next morning we visited Shakespeare's birth house.

After a sad farewell to the girls, Tony and I headed back to London.

Paris

After a wonderful celebratory lunch with friends after my recital, and a celebratory evening with other friends, I finished packing my room. Tony and I left early the next morning for a weekend in Paris. As you do.

We stayed in a little hotel between St Germaine and the Latin Quarter. The driver we'd booked had no idea where the hotel was. Actually, he was very incompetant, but we eventually found the hotel and got settled. After lunch we went on a bus tour of the city.

After the bus trip we had a fantastic dinner overlooking Notre Dame. I got some roses, as I'd had to leave my gorgeous recital flowers in Newcastle. We wandered back to the hotel through teaming backstreets, stopping to hear a fantastic busker singing original songs.

The next morning we had plannd to climb the Eiffel Tower, but couldn't get to it as the surrounding streets were closed. We went instead to Montmartre and visited the Dali exhibition which was fantastic. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets.

Recital

The week between handing in the dissertation and doing the recital was mad! Not only did I have rehearsals with my 4 accompanying musicians, seperately and together, but I also had to pack my room and ship excess baggage back to Australia. I also tried to show Tony around some of the local sites, although we did seem to see more of the gorgeous old pubs than anything else.

We did get to Jesmond Dene and Leazes Park (beautiful parks), the Newcastle castle and Durham Cathedral. Not bad for a week.

The recital itself went well. I had lots of friends come, which was so lovely. And a HUGE thank you to everyone who sent the gorgeous flowers!!!!!!!!! It was so exciting that so many people were supporting me.

Dissertation

My dissertation was due yesterday. Of course, as always happens, technology failed at the last minute.

My printer stopped working with two sections (of eight) left to print. I thought it would be a simple turn off, turn on kind of fix. Apparently not. When I'd rebooted my computer, the printer drives were sumehow uninstalled.

So I thought I'd save the documents to memory stick and take it to uni to print. Apparently not. I couldn't get the memory stick to accept the files. 'Error' came up every time I tried to print or save.

I could still email, so I got the files emailed as attachments, and headed over to the music department. Unfortunately, the only person on in reception was a temp, who wouldn't let me print the documents.

I headed over to the library, where there is a print shop and bindery. I asked if it was possible for them to print the documents from email attachments. 'Sure. Just email them to print services.' So I sat at the computer and sent off the emails.

Then I overheard the staff member tell another student that the print shop had closed and would not be printing again until Monday at 11am.

I was getting a little stressy by this time, as the clock was ticking.

However, there is a computer cluster in the library. I went an asked the staff there if it was possible to print from email attachments. 'Yes, if you've got a university email account.'

Fortunately I'd used my uni account. I logged onto a computer, opened my account, opened the document and clicked on print. Nothing. I clicked again. Hmmm.

I found the printer bank, and there were two printers amost finished my 40 page document! Luckily I needed two copies. I went back to the computer and sent the other doument twice, logged off and collected the copies. And I didn't have to pay as apparently every student gets a £5 print credit. That information would have been kinda useful earlier...

Back down to the bindery. Put all the documents together (I hope in the correct order) and submit for binding. Receive the bound copies. Get back over to the music department. Time and date stamp the work, and submit. Right on the deadline.

And today I found out that one of my housemates (in another department) has applied for a three month extention, received a two month extention, and NOT been penalised.

No points for doing the right thing hey?!

However, it's in and I can get on with final preparations for my recital.

And pack.

Yorkshire

Last weekend I went with friends to the Whitby Folk Festival on the Yorkshire coast. To get there we drove over The Moors. I had pictures of Jane Eyre (who's aunt Mrs Reid came from Gateshead- across the river from Newcastle incidently) and Tony's health warnings ringing in my head 'Stay off the Moors...'! They are beautiful and bleak.

Whitby is a pretty little seaside town.

There's a replica of the Endeavour in the harbour/ river, because James Cook was born in Whitby. There are also lots of Goths because Dracula arrived from Transalvania at Whitby. It's also the home of beautiful Whitby jet. (I didn't just spend my time having fun, making new friends and playing music!)

On Sunday I performed at a festival concert featuring tutors (including Vic Gammon, Sandra Kerr and Alastair Anderson) and students from Newcastle University. I did a solo, some duos with Vic and a song with Vic and Sandra. It all went well and was very enjoyable.

I couldn't stay for the week as I had to get back to Newcastle to finish my dissertation. Maybe next year...

I did have a lovely trip back in the train, looking across to the Moors again. Apparently it was a 'direct' train. However, when we stopped at the first station, exectly 2 minutes from Whitby, I realised that perhaps my understanding of 'direct' was somewhat different from Northern Rail's!

Graham's Visit

And yet another Australian visitor! Graham came to Newcastle during his recent trip. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we went to the Coast. We got the Metro to Whitley Bay and then walked to Tynemouth and visited the castle and priory ruins. It was lovely to be out, in the sun, walking on the beach (ok, we didn't take our shoes off). I even got a pink nose from the sun - oops! It was also great to catch up with someone who's known me for more than 11 months!

The first picture is me at Whitley Bay. Note the short sleeved shirt!!!!

This second picture is of the castle ruins at Tynemouth.

Cloudstreet

Cloudstreet came to South Shields folk club again, and once again I got to play with them. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera though :(
It was a great night, with a nice little session to begin, Rebecca (Aussie cellist touring with Cloudstreet) and I doing floorspots (we were the only two floorspots who didn't reference Australia!), and fun musick making.
And it was lovely to catch up with fellow Aussies!

Another Heartbreak Play

So impressed were we with Heartbreak Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream, that Meava, her boyfriend Luke and I decided to see another play. This one was an all male cast performing Henry V, in Jesmond Dene, a picturesque valley garden about a half hour walk north-west of Newcastle city centre. We'd had a couple of gorgeous, hot (25 degrees!) and sunny summer days so Maeva and Luke were in very light clothes. I was in jeans and a longsleeve t-shirt. They both laughed at my overnight-sized bag, in which I'd packed 2 jumpers, my coat and a throw-rug, but I've found the English weather to be quite changable and it was, once again, an outdoor performance. By the time we got to the Dene the temperature had dropped and the audience were sitting there in their coats.And halfway through the play the fog rolled in! So we did need all the cold weather gear after all!

The play was great. They had set it as a sixth form (year 12) preoduction in honour of a deceased former pupil. They wore school uniforms and added relevant prop costumes to represent all the different characters. Once again, it was a small cast (of six) playing all the roles. They particularly hammed up the female and French roles. But the St Crispian's Day speech was beautifully tragic. The only thing missing was Patrick Doyle's heartbreaking soundtrack. My photos of the evening were all disappointingly blurry: I may have been shivering too much to hold the camera still! But this one gives a flavour...

I've got a cellist!

There was a bit of an ongoing saga with cellists for a while. However, I've found a great one (Lucy) who plays with Methera, an amazing folk string quartet who I saw play in Durham in May. I went down to her place for a rehearsal. She lives near in a gorgeous village about 2 hours away. We spent a great afternoon rehearsing. I'm really looking forward to the recital now.

The train on the way back to Newcastle was delayed an hour due to an 'incident on the track'.

While we were waiting to pull into Newcastle Station I took a photo of the Tyne and its bridges. They are the rail bridge (that I'm on in the train), the Metro bridge with a Metro train on it (local train system (don't say the 't' if you want to sound Gorgie!)), the High Level bridge (which is being upgraded and will be open again in 2 years), the Swing bridge ( a low level bridge that opens to let ships through), a bridge that has a similar design to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but much smaller, and the Millenium Bridge (a pedestrian bridge tha 'tilts' to let ships under. This photo is looking out to the east, towards the Coast. You can just see (almost) the silvery arched roof of The Sage on the right bank, (where I'll be doing my recital).

Apologies

I've heard that a few people were concerned that I hadn't written anything on the blog for a while, especially with the last entry being about not doing well with the food test. I'm really sorry. I'm actually very well, I've just been busy with assessment taks.

However, I have managed to have a few outings during the summer (which finally arrived!).

There were a couple of birthdays in June. We had an outing to a Spannish restaurant for Maeva's birthday, which was lovely. And then she had a dessert party here in the dodgey kitchen. (We're all looking forward to returning to decent kitchens in our respective countries.)

Mareika organised an entire weekend of events for her birthday. While I didn't join the fun at the horse races, I did go to the play.

Heartbreak theatre are a travelling group doing a variety of plays in outdoor settings. We went to a local castle (as you do) to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. There were only 7 cast members, who between them played all the parts. They were fantastic. We were really lucky - it didn't rain on our picnic or the play, although it was REALLY cold. We were all huddled in coats and blankets. However, it was a really great night, despite the cold.

Stuff

Ok, so I didn't do so well with the amine test. It was fun while it lasted though.
Good luck to the Fiddle Club members who are playing at The MadAss Folk Club (at The Muddy Farmer) Thursday night. I'm sure you'll be a huge hit.
Also, good luck for that last little bit of school term to all those teachers who are writing reports, doing make-up lessons etc. You're nearly there!

The Recipe

Thought I'd share the joy...
I modified some recipes I found on the internet to come up with
CHOCOLATE BROWNIES (gluten and dairy free)
125g dairy-free margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
125g dark (dairy-free) chocolate, chopped (I follow the rule that any ingredient should be of a good enough quality to eat by itself, so I used Lindt 70%.)
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup gluten-free all purpose flour (Orgran is good. Do you have any idea how hard it's been to get here?!)
1/3 cup cornflour (Lots of other recipes suggested cocoa powder, which I neither have nor like, so I substituted cornflour.)
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1 cup cashews (or other nuts or none! Cashews are the only nuts with low salicylate though.)

Heat oven to 180 degrees.
Grease a cake tin and line with baking paper.
Put butter, sugar and chocolate in a microwave-proof bowl and heat in microwave on medium high for 1 minute. Stir.
Repeat for up to 4 minutes or until ingredients are melted and combined, stirring after every minute.
Stir flours and baking powder into chocolate mixture until well combined.
Add beaten eggs.
Add nuts (if using).
Pour mixture into prepared tin.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. (Unless you're using a dodgey student-type oven in which case it may take half the recommended time or double the recommended time, but certainly nowhere near the recommended time!)
Allow to cool on wire rack before slicing.
I iced my brownies with (call the heart foundation!!!) an icing I made by melting more chocolate and margarine and combining with pure icing sugar. I have no idea of amounts because I was doing experimental chemistry. I did need to add hot water though to make it a spreadable consistency.
Enjoy.
Oh, by the way, there does seem to be a direct correlation between the amount of chocolate I'm consuming and the, um, curviness of my figure...

OMG

This week I'm doing a food test. It's to test my reaction to amines, a chemical the occurs through protein breakdown. Amines are in foods such as cured and smoked meats and fish, fresh salmon, tuna and sardines, bananas and some other fruit and vegetables...and CHOCOLATE. The test involves eating 2 bananas and 60 - 100 grams of chocolate per day and seeing what happens. (Yes Lisa, I'm rivaling your chockie consumption!) As many of you know I haven't eating chocolate for about 15 years, so it's quite a revelation.

Yesterday I had some dark chocolate (it's dairy free). It's got such a strong flavour; I could taste it for hours!

Today I felt the need to experiment. So I made brownies with a block of Lindt chocolate...

I HAVE NO WORDS!!!! I see why everyone says 'You don't eat chocolate?! I'm so sorry. Poor you.' etc etc.

Now let's see if anything happens...

Concert

Last night I was the Guest Artiste in a concert. My friend Chris conducts the choir at Heddon On The Wall (about 20 minutes west of Newcastle) and invited me to do some solos in their summer concert. (It was a lovely day: the temperature got up to the low 20s!)
The choir sang beautifully. And I did very well too. I played a very diverse repertoire, from Bach to The Mission, with Scottish and Australian traditional tunes as well.
And I won a prize in the raffle!
Afterwards, we (including some of the other PhD students from Chris's course) went back to Chris's place for supper. It was a really lovely evening. And I really enjoyed performing, which is a relief because I've done a couple of fairly average masterclass performances recently. (Could I be reverting to my less than positive undergrad experiences?!)
Anyway, it's all good again and I can't wait for the recital in September.

Fiddle Band Tour

I spent the weekend in the Scottish Borders on a Fiddle Band tour. FIddle band is the group run by Catriona at uni. It's a non-compulsory group for fiddlers from all years of the course. We meet once a week for rehearsal (and cake).
On Friday evening we all went up to Denholm where we rehearsed until 11:30, and then again the next morning. During the afternoon we witnessed the Denholm Rideout. This is a festival that started in the Victorian era when the common lands were checked. It involves a very large group of horses and riders visiting various villages in the district over 5 weeks. The procession is lead by the Cornet a young unmarried man who has various duties for the year, and the Cornet's Lasses who also have various other duties. It is a huge honour to be chosen in these roles. (Apparently, it's so huge, that there are many young couples who put off weddings so they are in the running to be chosen.)
Off course, I took my camera. And left it in my bag all weekend! Oops...
Saturday evening we drove to Thropton, back across the border, for a concert organised by Alistair Anderson. We did two halves of a mix of fiddle band and solos (yes, I did a solo which went quite well) and small groups. There was even some Lancashire clogging. It was a very enjoyable concert.
After a small petrol crisis (!) we headed back to Denholm. As we reached the crest of the hill of the border we saw a beautiful red sunset - at 11pm! All arrived safely back in Denholm, where some of us even slept.
On Sunday we went to the Coldstream Gaithering, a festival/ workshop weekend in Coldstream a small town in the Borders, closer to the coast. Some of us went there early to attend Liz Doherty's lecture on Cape Breton music. (Liz is one of my heros and it was just great to see her again.) The fiddle band then played in the second half of the workshops concert.
It was a great weekend in gorgeous surrounds and next time I promise to get my camera out!

Spring is in the air

Hurrah! It certainly lifts my spirits to have (a little) heat, sunlight and colour.

There are beds and tubs of gorgeous flowers all around uni. My favourite bed is outside the music building (Armstrong Building) and has flowers in hues of blue and purple (surprise surprise). This photo has part of the flower bed and looks towards The Arches and the Toon. The music building is to the right. Note the sunlight on the left!!!

And Jane, there are bluebells down the road. It makes me smile.

A Bad Day

Although it started quite well, today was not such a good day.
I had a meeting about poster designs for my final recital. The date has FINALLY been set for 5th September and Emily (a folk singer on the course) and I will be doing our recitals in Hall 2 at The Sage. This is very exciting. However, Christine Hanson, THE cellist who plays on EVERYONE's Scottish fiddle CDs here, the one person I had organised to play with me can't do it on that day!!!!!!! So now I need to rethink the whole thing.
This afternoon we had a masterclass. I played pretty badly. :(
So then I did my washing - a monumental task which takes 2 hours because I have to go over to Richardson Road undergrad Halls to use the laundry. Which only has 12 (horrible industrial) machines for approximately 1200 people, so there's always a wait. Then it's best to stay there while the washing machine is on because they sometimes stop and you have to restart them. And you really should be there when it's finished or someone waiting for a machine will take out your clothes - usually dropping your most intimate items on the filthy floor - and dump them somewhere.
So I stayed and did some reading about old-time fiddling in Georgia. And once I'd put my washing in the dryer I went home to start preparing dinner. Except when I got home Hamed was cleaning the cooker because we've got a kitchen inspection in 2 weeks. (He's keen.) And this was great except he needed my advice because I 'have the best idea of hygene'.
So I went back to get my laundry, stopping for a nice chat with Otis who's a first year folk student who lives in 'Ricky Road', who was supposed to be studying for his exam tomorrow, but was leaning out of his window instead.
When I got back to my place (again) something smelt burnt. This is not good because all the rooms are fitted with smoke detectors. So I'd just started preparing my dinner when lo, the fire alarm went off.
So we all trundled outside to wait for the firebrigade. Who came and used their nifty smoke-sucker machine to get the smoke out of next door's, where some twit had burned their dinner. And then they nicely suckered the smoke out of our house because somehow the two houses are connected. (Someone burns their dinner next door, our house fills with smoke and our fire alarm goes off. Good system.)
I think I finally got to have my dinner at 10:30pm - very Continental. And I've been sitting in my room with the bathroom exhaust fan on and my window open and the heater on. And trying to breathe. Tomorrow will be so much better.

The Very Busy Week

Tuesday evening I travelled down to Durham with friends to see Methera, an amazing folk string quartet. They were stunning. It was a lovely concert with beautiful sensitive playing and a range of traditional English and Swedish, and newly composed tunes. It was very inspiring.
Wednesday I travelled to Arwinton, about an hour and a quarter north-west of Newcastle, for a concert with the Stage 1 folk degree students. I've been singing in their vocal group all year (the same group I sang with at my concert in November). I also played in their large ensemble. It was a successful, well-attended concert in a lovely old church. The vicar (?) was very welcoming and supplied loads of sandwiches and cakes. Oh how English! :)
Thursday night I had a rehearsal of the film music I played in February because
Friday night we recorded aforementioned film music. It was a 4 hour session (which went well), but when I arrived home at 11pm I decided that hunger over-ruled tiredness and baked some biscuits! Cashew butter biscuits, just slightly gooey. Yum!
Then Saturday I trained it back to Durham for a day of seminars on music and meaning. They were mostly interesting, but the highlight may have been eating my packed lunch on the lawn of the Cathedral. The music department of Durham University is right next door to the Cathedral. And Spring has finally arrived!!!! It was lovely, although even after 5 rain-free days the ground was still damp. And we I got back to Newcastle I ran into Maeva and Luke on the lawn outside the campus theatre and joined them for a drink. You've got to love long evenings.
It seems that now it's a bit warmer everyone flops onto any patch of (damp) grass in the sun. Although, because of the numbers of people here, your personal patch tends to be quite small. (I never realised just how large an area my personal space was...)
AND the sun is quite special. After months of hideousness, it's hot (oh no - I'm turning English! I think 20 degrees is hot!) and light and there are gorgeous flowers everywhere. I even saw a number of sunburnt people on Saturday. I, on the other hand, look decidedly faded. I realised that I've had 12 months of winter!!!
On Sunday, Bridget's parents came to Newcastle to have lunch with me. They were travelling from Scotland to London. It was really great to see them and catch up on the news. Kinda nice to have someone's mum around on Mother's Day too, particularly as it wasn't Mother's Day here.

Cruise on the Ouse

I've been quite busy in the last couple of weeks (oh what a surprise).
On Saturday 3rd May, Chris and I went to York to play for a 50th birthday party. It was a boat cruise with a BBQ down the River Ouse. On a boat called 'James Cook'!
We left at 7pm, and as it's now light until about 9:30, we had more than half the trip in the dusk. It was so beautiful! York, of course, was lovely from the river, but we also travelled further along the Ouse. Imagine being in all those British movies where young persons are punting on full rivers or picnicing on the banks. Chris thought Jeeves and Wooster, while I thought Wind in the Willows.
AND I had a ball playing with Chris; lots of old favourites came out. There was even some dancing. I even came home and wrote a cute little jig to commemorate the wonderful evening (not even a drop of rain). It's called Cruise on the Ouse. It rhymes you know.

J&J go to Oz

The time had finally come for our ways to part. We said our goodbyes in Paris, as I headed back to Newcastle and J&J went on to Singapore, then Brisbane. They felt the heat, and I came back to rain, drizzle, greyness and cold. And uni. And lots of work.
The biggest commitment was the University Orchestra playing Mahler 8 with 3 choirs and 7 soloists at The Sage Gateshead. IT WAS HUGE. In every way. There were over 300 people on the stage, and the audience was full which was really exciting. Also, it was really hard, not only in the parts but also just co-ordinating that many people. The first section went really well, but there were a couple of 'moments' in the second section. But all in all it went pretty well. (Yes, there are only 2 sections and it was the whole concert; an hour and a half of constant playing. I was fairly tired afterwards!)
It was exciting to pull it off, and exciting to play in Hall 1 at The Sage. (This is special.)

Off to Paris

This post is dedicated to all my little violin players who played this tune...a lot.

Uni started back on 14th April, with recitals by some of the Masters students (not me) which were great. That afternoon J&J and I flew off to Paris! It was the first time there for mum and me.

Spring in Paris is lovely. It was still pretty cold (especially on the open-top bus!) but the skies were clear. We saw all the famous monuments and sights. We went up to the observation level of the Tour Cite (City Tower), which had fabulous views of the whole city.

We visited the Louvre ( yes, we saw the Mona Lisa) and Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur. These places seem almost unreal, and yet familar. It was almost overwhelming as Paris is SO huge and so full of people!

Despite not having used French for 20 years(!), I understood some of what was said to me and generally made myself understood in French. Although , it's a good thing most people spoke English too. :)

Scotland

After a day in York together, J&J spent a few days touring Scotland without me so that I could do some practice and study. I joined them afterwards in Edinburgh and then Glasgow. The more I see of these places the more I love them.
In York we did the (very cold) open top bus tour of the town. We also did Betty's. Actually, it was Big Betty's, and so yes, we did queue. But we had a lovely lunch. And dad also had the 'little rascal' specialty, a sultana-filled scone/ biscuit thing.
Edinburgh is such a beautiful city. We went to the Castle (of course) where we saw a bridal party descend the Lang Stairs (complete with umberella-carrying attendants) and the Scottish Honours and Crown Jewels. Nice.
Down the Royal Mile is Mary King's Close. Although there are many closes in Edinburgh, this one has been 'preserved', because the Royal Exchange was built over the top of it. We took a tour of the close, seeing the tiny houses, cellars and even a byre (like a barn). Conditions were quite cramped and unhygenic. Great tour though.
We found a Scottish restaurant for lunch where mum was introduced to Cullen Skink, a smoked haddock and potato soup. She took notes so she could replicate it at home. I was introduced to the local whisky, Glenkinchie. I, too, took notes.
We finished our Edinburgh day with a little trip to the Whisky Centre, next to the Castle. Lovely. The first time I visited Glasgow I really didn't like it. However, I am starting to appreciate its charm, which is quite different to Edinburgh's. We visited the gorgeous Macintosh House at the Hunterian Museum. I would like a house like that! I bought myself a cross-stitch kit of The Rose.

We then visited the Willow Tearooms (designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh) for lunch. Nothing like immersion when you've got a theme! It's such a beautiful place to take tea.

We spent the afternoon at The Tenement House, a National Trust run house in Buccleuch Street. After practising saying the street name for a while, we looked through the house, which had been owned by one lady for many years and had been unrenovated. It showed what life was like in a Glasgow tenement at the start of the 20th century.

I love discovering these little gems as well as the bigger tourist attractions of all these places.

More Snow!

After our trip to Belfast, we headed down to Hedon (near Hull) to stay with Linda and Allan. They took us to Lincoln, where we visited the street market, had lunch in a very nice vegetarian cafe and went to Evensong in the stunning cathedral. High Anglican is very ceremonial, but the beautifully articulated voices did bring to mind the Mr Bean episode in which he falls asleep, 'sings' hymns and eats a lolly during a service!
That evening back in Hedon it snowed. Again. In April. Mum was very excited and thought we should get photos of the 'frosted' church across the road. Of course, I was the photographer; nobody else was that excited...

Geneology Part 2

For mum's birthday we took her to Belfast to see where her father's family, the Coulters, were from. We found the two houses where he had lived before emigrating to Australia. They were quite near the beautiful Queens University in the city.

We also did a taxi political tour of the city, which was interesting but very sad. There is still a wall dividing the Falls and Shankill Roads. The checkpoints on the crossroads are still locked every night!

We also did a great day tour up to the Giant's Causeway and around the Antrim coast. It is such beautiful countryside! We loved it all.

Geneology Part One

Nixons come from a small area in the southwest of Scotland. The family was associated with the powerful Armstrong clan, who were Border Reivers (basically, they were theives). Dad had done some internet searching (what DID we do without it?!) and discovered the existence of an Armstrong Museum in Langholm, southwest Scotland. So off we went!

It was a bit of a journey, although maybe I've been here too long when I think an hour and a half train trip plus a 45minute bus trip is a bit of a journey! It was a lovely trip though. We saw lots of new lambs and loads of rabbits.

We had a picnic in a little park outside Langholm, which we shared with lots of ducks.

The museum was interesting, but didn't have much about the Nixons. It was great to see the countryside the family was from though. And it was a fine adventure.

The Beach

After a week visiting friends in Taunton and Penarth, mum and dad (J&J) came up to Newcastle to visit me. I, of course, cooked up a welcome feast that we ate for days!
I showed them around the 'toon'. It's a very atractive toon, with lovely old buildings. My favourite street is Grey Street, which curves beautifully down to the Quayside from Monument. The monument is a large statue of Earl Grey, who introduced important social reform legislature, raised up on a huge column. My reveretial father nicknamed him 'The Teabag'.
One sunny(!), but cold, afternoon I decided to show J&J my local beach. After meeting at The Teabag we took the Metro (local train system, pronounced Me'ro) to Tyneside, about 25 minutes from the centre of toon. We walked down the Tyne bank towards the sea and around the headland to North Shields. It's very picturesque, but I forgot my camera!
By this stage, we were frozen stiff, so we popped into a local pub to warm up (and continue my whisky education). We set off again, intending to walk to Whitley Bay, the next beach, but found another pub with a very nice menu about halfway there. So we had British fish and chips instead. Lovely. But I am looking forward to unbattered fish!

My Holiday

Too much travel, too little blogging!!! Let's start at the very beginning...

Off to London to meet mum and dad. I met up with them at the hotel. They were somewhat jetlagged, very cold and not impressed with the box-like room, rabbit-warren layout and multiple firedoors! Actually, it was a pretty good hotel by London standards! After lunch and a lot of talk, we set off to explore. We spent the afternoon on the hop on hop off tour bus; despite the snow we bravely sat in the open top deck. (How do you pick an Aussie in London?!)

We also got a trip down the Thames in a glass-topped boat (so we could watch the snow fall).

The next day we got back on the bus to do the rest of the circuit. There is an old Twinings tea shop on Strand which we visited hoping to get a cup. Unfortunately, they don't actually serve tea there!We were directed across the road to 'the old Bank of England'. While dad went off in search of medical museums, mum and I took tea in the beautifully renovated old building. The atmosphere (and the chips) were wonderful.

Due to the excessive cold we didn't do the walking tour we had planned. However, we did explore the delights of English pubs, where I embarked on a new project, under the careful tutorage of the parents - learning to drink whisky :)

I left London feeling I was finally starting to like the town. I think on previous trips I'd found it overwhelming.

Easter

Ok, so it didn't snow at Christmas. But snow at Easter?!Poor little tulips.
I braved the snow yesterday - it wasn't heavy but it was bloomin' cold - to go and see Nigel Havers in 2 one-act plays called Single Spies. The plays were average, but he was great.
Afterwards, I went to Marks and Spencers to get some vegies. The absolutely HUGE array of obscenely large Easter eggs in a large variety of shapes and flavours was almost sold out! The English certainly DO chocolate.
Thanks for all the texts from the National. It was lovely to hear from everyone.
Off to London tomorrow. Yippee.

Easter

Since 2001 I have gone down to Canberra every Easter for the National Folk Festival, to fiddle, eat, dance, eat, see brilliant concerts, eat, work at Beth and Mike's shop, eat, and see friends from all over Australia. THIS YEAR I WON'T BE THERE!
So to all the fiddlers and dancers and those who do both (yes, George and Davydd, we know you are stars and can do both at the same time) have a hobbit meal for me!
And to those going to Tassie or the beach or just hangin' around, have a lovely break.
I will be going to London on Monday to meet up with mum and dad - yippee! My Easter holidays will be spent in London, Newcastle and Northumbria, Belfast and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Paris. I will be working on my dissertation in between, but I guess I shouldn't complain...

Westside Story

It's been a busy week of peparation for Westside Story. Rehearsal with way too much sitting around waiting to begin etc. Yesterday we did two shows at The Baltic and both went very well. The Baltic is a gallery near The Sage on the Tyne river. Very nice views. There were police everywhere because the Conservative Party were having some do at The Sage. In fact The Sage was closed for three days; the undergrad folk classes were cancelled!
I was really tired when I finally arrived home at 1:30am, and today I didn't wake up until midday! I do feel much better for the sleep though.
And now it's holidays. Hurrah! So I'm off to the library to catch up on the work that didn't get done this term with all the paying in musicals...

Birthday

To celebrate my birthday, Maeva and I thought we'd go out for some light entertainment. We went to see 'Metamorphosis', which was fantastic and not nearly as depressing as I thought it would be. The 'jaw-dropping aerial physicality' really was! The stage was divided into two parts: downstairs, where the family mostly stayed, and upstairs, where the son/ insect lived. Upstairs used an interesting perspective, like you were looking down on top of the room, like looking into a shoebox. This meant that the son/ insect was often hanging from various objects giving the effect of 'sitting' on a chair or scurrying across the wall. It was truly outstanding.

I made mini pavlovas for a mini party. I even found fresh passionfruit to put on them to make them authenticly Australian. Maeva had NEVER had passionfruit before!!! She was impressed, and thought it tasted very tropical. (Ah, warm, sunny, golden-sand beaches. I do find myself lost in daydreams sometimes...)

I also attended a workshop on Baroque string playing which was very interesting. And I've just come home from an individual lesson with the tutor, Simon Jones, to get ideas on playing eighteenth century Scottish music. Interesting. I also played the same works for a masterclass on Wednesday, which went well I think. Definitely a lot to think about...

Thanks for the tip about the PTSS blog Penny. I really enjoyed hearing and reading about what everyone's up to, particularly Kirsty's exciting news.

And your remedy sounds fantastic Wilhelmina. Beware the mulled wine at the National - the scent wafts out as the sun sets and the temperature drops...

Reminiscing

March already! Time is just flying.
Wilhelmina, I love that poem you posted. My mum used to read it to me when I was little, and I wrote music for it when I was in high school. And it is just like that here.
I hope everyone's school, uni, work, dancing, music-making are all going well.
A quick plug for Bridget's band, Sunas, who are touring Tasmania next week, but will be back in Brisbane for St Patrick's day. You can google them for gig details.
The production of Westside Story which I'm playing in got postponed by one week due to the venue being double booked. Oops. I played this musical 20 years ago (there's a give-away!). Oh, it takes me back...

Feelings

So I hadn't been asleep long when I woke up to find my bed shaking. In my very dozy state I thought 'How could there be anyone under my bed?!' I couldn't work out if I was having a very vivid dream, but I was too scared and tired to check under the bed and was asleep again within seconds of it stopping.

Today I found out there had been an earthquake in England through the night. Exactly at the same time as the monster shook my bed as it happens. A bit scarey all the same...

This afternoon I went for a walk; you know, getting out, clearing the mind. And, oh joy, the first spring bulbs are coming out! Not the bluebells yet Jane, but snowdrops, yellow and purple crocuses and daffodils. All the songs of green men, springtime blossoming and winter ending make so much more sense now. I always love spring in Brisbane, with the jacarandas and my frangapanis and all. But here everything has looked dead and bare for months and you get to see things coming alive again. What a pleasure - it makes my heart glad!

These daffodils are across the road from my house. It's still very cold, so I think these flowers are very brave. I'm looking forward to being able to go out without my coat (and multiple jumpers!). What a Queenslander!!!

Royal Shakespeare Company

On Friday night Maeva and I went to see the RSC production 'Noughts and Crosses'. It was adapted from the book by Malorie Blackman, and is loosely based on Romeo and Juliet. The Noughts were white people who had no political voice, little access to education and limited job opportunities. The Crosses were black people who had political and economic power. Callum (a Nought) and Sephy (a Cross) were the two teenagers in love.

The story was very powerful (politically and emotionally) and the production and acting were fantastic. I have been thinking about it since.

Busy Bee

So much to tell!
It's SO cold. I thought Spring was coming. There were little shoots on plants and I saw a couple of pink buds. It was getting warm: it even got up to 12 degrees a couple of weeks ago. But no! We're back in negative numbers again. It was so cold yesterday that there were patches of thick frost still on the ground at 5pm, where the sun obviously hadn't shone during the day.
Last week I had, well, a manic week. Surely not, I hear you cry! But strangely enough I had over-committed. I was playing in the orchestra for the Newcastle University Gilbert and Sullivan Society's production of The Mikado, which ran for 3 performances. It went quite well. Only one little incident really. On openning night we could hear the smoke machine going throughout the (5 page) overture. The curtains openned for the first number onto a cloud of thick smoke, so thick you could barely make out the actors. You can see where this is going? Yes, we were barely through the first page of the number when the smoke alarms went off! Luckily we'd been through the drill. Off we all toddled to the meeting point, while the fire brigade came and confirmed that it was safe to re-enter the building. Now, while this wouldn't be a problem in Brisbane in February, let me tell you that taking thinly clad bodies and instruments from a well heated environ to the open-air carpark in Newcastle in February is a completely different matter. It took another 3 numbers once we were back inside to get fingers working and instruments back in tune.
On Saturday evening I also played in another performance. Two of the PhD students I know had made a silent film and one had composed the music for it. It was being presented at The Sage on Saturday. They wanted me to play and Sergio wrote a part especially for me. So I spent last week in rehearsals for the film and The Mikado. It was going to be fairly tight doing both performances on Saturday, but as the musical director and the Mikado himself were both involved in the film as well, I thought it would work. The 23 minute film was being screened at 6:30pm and The Mikado started at 7:30. And the venues were only a 7 minute taxi ride apart.
Once again, you can see where this is going... Due to technical staff illness at The Sage, the film performance was delayed by half an hour! But they didn't tell the performers, who were getting more and more twitchy as the minutes ticked by. Once we finally played, it all went very well, and we were in that cab by 7:25! Let me just say that I've been sleeping a lot since then.
And guess what? I've agreed to lead the orchestra for Westside Story; rehearsals start this week and the show is on in the first week of March.

Celtic Connections

WOW! What a line up at Celtic Connections this year. I saw Diamh, Shooglenifty, Aly Bain, Blazin' Fiddles, Bruce Molsky, Phil Cunningham, Annbjorg Lien, Christine Hanson, Catriona Mackay (and other harpists), Southern Routes and kd lang. All fabulous. And I did workshops in fiddle, gaelic and puirt (mouthmusic) and stepdancing (where I actually worked up a sweat). Pretty busy, but a great way to end semester 1.

Semester 2 started straight away. I'm playing in the Gilbert and Sulivan Society production of The Mikado next weekend, as well as for a film that a couple of PhD students have made and composed music for - also next weekend.

This weekend I popped down to London to see Wicked. It's a musical about the witches from The Wizard of Oz. It was great - story, cast, songs, singing, costumes, set -all great.

I also did a London Walk about Sheakspeare. This is the New Globe theatre where Sheakspeare's plays are staged in the summer. (The lovely thatched roof does not cover the building!) I might pop down again to catch a show when it's warm...

It's been a while...

Apologies for the delay; the uni work is quite full-on at the moment.
So - New Year's Eve. Lisa and I went up to Edinburgh to join Holly and Chris for Hogmanay. We got tickets for the street party in Princes Street. We saw Salsa Celtica, an amazing mix of , well, salsa and celtic music. It did my head in a bit to hear small pipes and fiddle playing MacArthur Road with maracas and bongos underlaying the salsa beat! I couldn't merge them in my head.
At midnight we watched the fireworks over Edinburgh Castle. WOW! very pretty. But there were SO MANY PEOPLE. It was a bit scarey, because we couldn't move, and being somewhat on the short side, I felt very overwhelmed by all the people. Lisa took photos, so when we've worked out how to get them onto my computer I'll post them.
And on the topic of photos, thanks Wilhelmina for the great photo of Sunas. What a star is Bridget?! Looks like Woodford was pretty muddy. Good to get the rain though.
I've been working really hard as it's the 1st semester assessment at the moment. I did a presentation last week that went quite well. Matthew, you would have been proud of my technological advancement! I worked out how to use Powerpoint (even embedding music tracks and hyperlinks to websites, and having text fly and fade and coloured circles appearing on examples in the score!!!!!), AND problem solved all the tech issues on the day. Big pat on the back. As I'm sure you can all imagine, I had loads of information but kept to time by being (surprise) very organised with a script. I also had 2 extra versions just in case of tech failures. And once I remembered that Powerpoint does not yet read minds, I even got the slides working in sync!
I followed that with a tutorial (meeting) about the literature review due in March. (It's sneaking up on us you know.)
This week I have another presentation to give on the progress of my dissertation. And then the 5000 word essay is due the week after. Then it's Semester 2. That's halfway I guess.
Lisa , Maeva and I went to see the final night of A Christmas Carol. It was a very good production. We all enjoyed it, although Maeva did have a little doze. She arrived today from Canada and was somewhat jetlagged.
Better get back to the presentation preparation... (Next time there'll be photos I promise.)
PS Davydd's tune is great!