5th December 2013

The one without Cat ...

Numbers were down last night, and so was I, popping paracetamol and feeling shivery - I'll bring a note from my Mum next time! Here is the running order for next weeks concert. More info as Ed supplies it!

Part 1

I Love It When You Call A Winter's Tale Somewhere Only We Know In the Bleak Mid Winter Keeping the Dream Alive

Part 2

The King and I Uptown Girl Groovy Kind of Love First of May O Come All ye Faithfull

28 November 2013

The one were we got into position ...

But first we started with a nice carol, round the Christmas tree. The brave and strong may attempt the descant parts of course! We had fun deleting 2/5 of In The Bleak Mid Winter, so that should help us fast forward to spring! There are some very odd verses in there if you ask me!

And then we got ino concert position, ready for our concert in 2 weeks time! And sang through King And I Number! Got reminded to SMILE as usual, then we sat back down again and worked out way through our running order. Ed didn't ask me for the keys this time, and I mostly rested my voice on account of having a cold. 

The First of May was sung with passion, this week in the key of C-2, up slightly from last week. No it's beginning to sound like I'm doing 'the charts'. A childhood listening to Radio One on Sunday nights, me thinks!

Somewhere Only We Know was followed by A Winter's Tale. I asked for the keys and promptly forgot them!

Next week we will be in the common room making room for a Christmas Market! You could always buy some popcorn to much through during the practice. No throwing it at Ed if his microphone goes pop or slips down his cleavage ...

Keep singing my dears, as it's less than two weeks until our pavvy concert! XXXX

22 November 2013

St. Mary’s Church Concert - A Rather Posh Evening with Ed Hintze and Friends!

A Rather wonderful and varied evening was had by all who attended A Rather Posh Evening with Ed Hintze and Friends down at St Mary's Church. Ed and Friends including some well-loved members of his choir, Dorset for Singing gathered around the beautiful grand piano and sang their hearts out, raising a a rather impressive £165 for Parkinsons UK!

The concert featured a good variety of entertainment, and included an instrumental version of 'winner takes it all' so we could really enjoy the rich sound of the special piano too. Ed treated us to his best Richard Clayderman impression, and of course, a few of his jokes dotted about the evening too!

Part 1

All By Myself – Ed
Just Give Me a Reason – Julie, Ed
Somewhere Only We Know – Cat
The Sun Whose Rays – Caroline
Rusalska’s Song to the Moon – Caroline
Runaway – Carol and Neil
The Winner Takes It All – Ed
A Thousand Years – Julie
Tit Willow – Ian
When I Was You Man – Julie, Ed
The Cherry Tree Carol – Carol and Neil
Gethsemane – Ed

-Interval-

Part 2

Rusalska’s Song to the Moon – Caroline
Don’t Know Why – Julie
Fly Me To The Moon/Summertime – Ed
Slow – Cat
Starlight – Ed
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – Cat
You Are So Beautiful – Julie
Anthem - Ed

21 November 2013

The one with the cleavage ...

We gathered in the common room and realised that we had a Christmas concert imminent and no festive numbers! Then Ed sneakily asked me to check the blog for keys before we started. So you don't know that, right? The blog actually has a useful purpose after all!

A huge thank you to Jack and Harry for working out how to put words on our lovely website! We wont need a £500 webmaster after all ... or any expensive microphone stands, look .... 

In NOTICES - Ed is gathering names for soloists to sing at our Christmas concert, so let him know if you are up for it. Then he plugged tomorrow's concert, which of course I will blog for you at the weekend. Because i love you!

We kicked off with The Feeling, but using very old words. And extra free words thrown in by choir.... 

It nice to be Keeping the Dream Alive, but it looks like we are completely lost with out the uppy- and downy-arrows!  Because they were missing tonight! Jack to find all new words for next time!

Of course we were all in the wrong places, seating-wise, for The King And I. ''And now and then, we'll sing, something out-of-key!'' 

So in a bid to Festive-Up our next concert, we had a shout out ... In The Bleak Midwinter was first up for a Christmas Sing-a-long. We popped a blues pop ballad sound with it and rocked the common room. Happy Christmas indeed, but we need to perform it more gently for Lesley, but more roughly for Jenny. Ok!

We killed Aled Jones, then moved onto a bit of Slade in various keys - ending up in PLUS 3. 

Away in a Manger was chosen to be an interactive number. I suddenly felt very small again singing that one. Well, smaller. Cough! Then I found out I don't know Jingle Bell Rock! Little Matty didn't like that one either ...

We had an education searching for lyrics for Holly And The Ivy, I can tell you! The Internet is a scary place! And then Santa got stuck up the Chimney, briefly before A Winter's Tale... F-5 for that one!

The First of May is well know to us, C-3 was given a try! 

And the cleavage? Ed could not be heard at the back in the common room, so he plugged in a microphone and was in need of somewhere to wedge it. Oh how we laughed at such innovativeness, or was it at the inevitable droop? How I love Dorset For Singing! I might get banned from blogging after this session though!

Keep practicing. Please. Love you, Cat xxx

14 November 2013

The one with the Top A Flat .... Where Ed had to rapidly De-Camp!

After a shorter warm up this week, we had notices then dived right into The King and I. 

Our 12 dec concert is now live on the official pavilion website, where you can boom tickets for friends and family and other innocent victims. Keep a out for details of our tour D'Oxford! Possibly the 4th July weekend! And we might do a flash mob at some point, but its all very hush-hush at the moment, well it has to be, otherwise it wouldn't be a flash mob, would it?

Julia the Christmas pudding lady also co-ordinates carol singing this festive season. See her for pudding orders, and meeting to entertain folks!

Ed de-camped during The King and I number, and in a moment of passion, bit his own lip. He was so pleased with our progress that we raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he wept tears of joy as he praised our efforts! I can still feel a sense of pride lingering ...

The song will never be over! But once we became happy again, Keeping The Dream Alive was put to bed. It was only revision, anyway!

Right Here Waiting for us to get it right was, Right Here Waiting. We will look at this one again next week, and if it doesn't show signs of recovery, it will be put to sleep, so it won't suffer. It's your choose DFS!

We dug out the original Uptown Girl, and I had a quick scroll through this years blog posts to check which key it was in, man, I love my eye-phone! They didn't pay me to say that BTW. The bum notes were all Ed's this time! We will end with a great, big GIRL because a choir can't really do repeat-to-fade!

Next week meet in the common room, our favourite room! Love you lots xxx

7 November 2013

The one where we did it standing up...The warm-up, that is!

So sorry for the pre-half-term lack of blog, I've brought a note from my mechanic detailing the MOT failure of my car if you would like to see it? Better than a note from your Mum any day.

In notices, we have a Meeting - 7pm Wednesday 13 november Wyke smugglers. We will talk about our tour any many other pressing choir matters. Email Ed if you have anything for the agenda, especially if its wine ...

Downtown abbey's church has accepted us for a concert which is nice! Who needed the actual abbey anyway? The acoustics of churches are much better, as we well know after our years of performing together, now.

Concert imminent - 'Ed Hintze and Friends' performing on 22 November at St Mary's in town at 7.30pm, Only £5 for tickets and its all for charity! Can't wait to try out these acoustics! One of the Friends is going to be out lovely Julie and the other one is me, come along and show your supports ....

Our ocean room 'pavvy' concert is all booked too, my, aren't we popular! Thursday 12 December for that one. Raffle prizes wanted please, hand to Carol, to be collated and basket-ed beautifully.

Groovy kind of love needs to be more choral. We worked on the harmony parts again. In case we forgot them. Then the ending got a bit high!!!! It's going to be a show stopper I think!

Our 'King and I' number got off to a great start. Almost. The original key was then applied with much improvement! We might need more men, but Ed was pleased with our progress, this is surely our magnum opus! Bound to top the aforementioned show stopper ...

'I love it when you call' is definitely in F! We stood for some lessons in pelvic movement! And smiling! But I kept bumping into Daisy and so I think my timing went out. Why is singing and moving together so difficult? I have a feeling that's why Legs And Co were invented....

See you next week DFS, love you long time (well over 5 years in fact). XXXX

17 October 2013

The one with the brand new warm up that lasted rather a long time and ended up in the jungle (breathe now).

In news, Downton abbey are looking rather full, but Blenheim Palace have booked us... Downton abbey might squeeze us in next summer, wait and see!

Keeping the dream alive might still need some arrows, but I used my finger in the interim. Hmmm. You really have to be there to know what I'm on about, don't you? What ever would 'Blog Reader' say?

'I love it when you call' causes us a few problems again when we tried to add in extra letters all of our own. We should have it all! We really do because we are the best choir in Dorset.

We had a listen to Babs singing that King And I number, following the words as we went along, and as the choir joined in all hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I promise it wasn't the thought of Yul Brenners shiny head .... All new to me! But I still just want to sing 'if I loved you' during this song! My bad ...

In the original key we were in the mood for dancing! The YouTube seemed to be sung by a 5 year old Michael Jackson. So key from B down 4. Phew. Then back up 2! The words will have an update.

We finished with a groovy kind of love, them went home to our night caps! Keep singing, and keep listening to our songs on you tube, paying attention to the bit you know you really don't know. Love you, Cat xxx

10 October 2013

The one with the photographer!

The photographer smiled with satisfaction after each shot, zooming here and there and swinging from the rafter to get that perfect composition. And then demonstrated how to navigate Youtube on the big screen in order to facilitate your homework! Thank you Jack. Please remember not to get too excited that you don't change the words! you know how much we are all addicted to staring at them!

We kicked off with uptown girl, key-original again, and some work on some harmonies. And the knows, noz and knooooowz! Ouch!

Ladies only for the start of a song I don't know from the king and I am very sorry for not knowing it. Some parts were very high even for the ladies! And sorry also for attempting to sing 'if I loved you' over the top, and it's performed in the original key. On YouTube look up the Barbra Streisand version (king and I medley)She sings both parts herself. 

We tackled the feeling number, no not the wine one! And it's in the key of F. Vava voom needed! Drop me a line if you like this fun song, 'cause I love it when you call!

Dropping down again (see last blog post - back down a key) we sang 'groovy kind of love' and thought of Jenny. Well I did. But please sing it from the boots everyone, as we need more volume, especially the last chorus! Julie's high harmony is lovely :-) Well done Julie and Ed on the duet, getting to be a habit ...

In other important news, DFS needs an admin and PR body, which could be me if i have a bit of training, and also know how to chat up the folk at The Echo, and at Wessex FM already ... Better offers apply through Ed or Jenny please! Love you, Cat XXXX

26 September 2013

Happy Birthday Dorset for Singing!

Ed greeted his lovely choir with ice creams on arrival... And then we sang to ourselves, most excellently, and Jack cut our very special cake!

Then in notices we talked about this years Christmas concert, already booked in the pavilion! And Ed tried to get sympathy for his man-cold! We will also be back at All Saints Church next May, and next week we may bring information on charities we wish to support this academic year. I wont be here, so I will pop some information up here for your consideration :-)

A choir meeting is long overdue, especially as there is talk of us performing at Downton Abbey! (During a school holiday, and cheers all round from choir at that idea!!)

We met some new songs and revisited some old ones! The first old fave was the freiheigh number, Keeping the dream alive, in the key of G. Ed would like us to get out heads round the three part harmonies. We had to improve our diction, and we also need some help with the ends of lines, as some of them go down and some of them go up!

A favourite of Jen's was next, 'groovy kind of love' in the key of C. Rapidly followed by the key of D, on account of Lesley! Mind bendingly good!

Then 'Uptown Girl', firstly in the original key, and with massive potential for harmony parts of course, and very quickly performed in the original key, and on our feet!

Do check out the DFS you tube channel, as demonstrated by Jack, for all potential songs - and to have a practice. Tonight's showcase ballad was to be 'Right here waiting for you' but not before we gave ourselves a big round of applause, and one for Jenny too! (In the original key!) See you soon, keep singing XXX

29 July 2013

The one with the free lunch ...

Selected members of choir only and their significant others went off one blustery day for a free lunch, on Portland, with cameras in our faces too! Some folk went into the restaurant and pretended to chose from cooked food, while the elite went outdoors for a cream tea ...

The views were nice, from the roof garden, and the plates looked like they were going to blow off too ...

Ed found the cups and plates strangely disturbing as you can see ...

We felt sorry for the 'dead cat' who was doing all the hard work and ....

so we gave it some eyes!

And dear jenny laughed and laughed with delight!

The hot scones followed the posh sandwiches, and were washed down with lashings of ginger beer, sorry, tea ...

And the pots of jam and honey we didn't use went home in our hand bags of course!

It was wonderful darlings, do come again!

Term Dates for DFS!

Hello me dears, here are all the term dates for this our 6th accedemic uear togeter! for when we meet on the 26th we will be 5 wonderful years old! I guess we will all start getting wobbly teeth.... so on Thursdays from1845 until 2000hrs, we will meet on the following days to practice doing what we do well-

Sept. 26th
Oct. 3rd, 10th 17th, 24th...
Half Term
Nov. 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
Dec 5th

Jan. 16th, 23rd, 30th
Feb. 6th, 13th
Half Term
Feb 27th
Mar 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th
Apr 3rd

Apr 24th
May 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd
Half Term
Jun 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th
Jul 3rd

Add those to your lovely smart phone, now! Concerts to be confirmed and subject to change if we feel the venue is beneath us ...

13 July 2013

The last post...

It is with great sorrow that I blog the last blog, detailing the honest exploits of Dorset For Singing, aged 5 years! The blog began in the January of 2009 when choir had been going for one term, and only had one blog post to boot! So I offered my dubious wordy services, and these days I am not even moderated!

This blog post is about a hot windy day in the rose garden, where songs were dropped, timings were changed (organisers fault) and handbags were applied to the music stand as stand-in sand bags! (Weather fault)... Sophie even weighed her folder down with a lump of cake.

I am going to miss sharing our adventures with you until halfway through September! The summer holidays looms large and long. I suppose I should finish putting that new zip into Mrs Ed's waterproof trousers before the rains come...

This delightful panorama I shall leave you with, another iPhone greatness featuring disjointed ropes and children with missing parts. Some things just can't be improved upon ....

Have fun, and keep singing, I will always love you xxxx

4 July 2013

The one in the common room!

It was very hot in the common room, so Jack fetched out a wobbly fan and my kids sang into it for that crazy Doppler effect! But it was still hot, and very little warm up needed, as Ed did not have a key board. just that wheely-boogie- box speaker and a smarty-pants phone that goes on and plays the next song all by itself, for that seamless concert pleasuring .... 

So due to the fan blowing warm air about, we all sang our songs looking like babes from 80's pop videos. Even the men! and we had a good go at all the problem areas, as this is our last practice before the rose garden, on the 13 July. Because next week is party time, so get thinking what karaoke number you will do! around the mouthful of Jenny's lovely buffet ... I will be back to blog all the best fun from the old music room, of course ...

And in September when we finally reconvene, its party time, 5 wonderful years have passed since we met in that music room to learn out first songs together. i joined three weeks in, and them began to blog in the new year, how long have you been a DFS babe? See you Thursday, BIG LOVE, Cat xxx

29 June 2013

The one in the rectory garden...

When Linda dragged back the audience....

She wrote in our facebook group, "Well done choir again at our latest gig! Thanks Ed and Harry for the musical assistance, we all had a great time and looking forward to The Rose Garden do in July.

"I managed to stop some people leaving before we sang and made them `go and sit down or you`ll miss a treat`! I don`t know if they`ll get over being forced `fed`! I think they liked it !! See you all Thursday XXX"

Just sharing the love, here!

27 June 2013

The one with the dishcloth shirt....

The keyboard was shoved right into the naughty corner, underneath the screen, so no playing with that tonight. Little jack-corner was tucked away behind a pulled-out mixing desk, spaghetti-wires everywhere!

Get your words printed from the worldly-wide-web for Saturday's concert. The following songs are blogged in running order, as performed, and for your convenience! 

Dancing queen was fun when the incomplete words swept off the screen. Jenny might well be in the dog house for only sending part of the words, but she did better than Ed who brought only an empty memory stick! Still, his strip tease made up for it!!!!

Oh what a beautiful morning was all In it's own time. Not ours. At all! It was lovely hummed through though! We got it eventually. Phew!

Dancing in the street went AWOL but then burst gallantly out of the school speakers, scaring away any remaining little brown mav'ricks! Moo. 

Rose had to lose the yobs, and with a bit of gentleness and tummy support, they left the building. That's a relief because we don't want any rugby-versions of our songs appearing, from the football shouts!

Flash dance with groovy backing was given an equally groovy run through. 

Tonight needs good strong t-sounds at ends especially. Don't forget this on Saturday. No Oklahoma accents here, no sir!

If I loved you was nearly perfect!

Finale was our 'angry men', you can thank my kittens for that title! Night night, god bless, and remember I love you. See you Saturday! Xxxx

20 June 2013

The one with the keys ....

Dancing in the streets is in F but it has rather too many words in it. Ron and Mrs Ron needed to know who would do parts  and Ed had the smart idea of dancing. Oh dear. There was a problem with the Philadelphia and so we slipped in Laughing Cow...

Dancing queen falls into the original key, and we are staying with the cheese tonight. This was good because everyone knew where the words fitted. 

Tonight is in G for starters! Ed said, Oooooh for rather a long time, admired the balance in the volumes. Then went on to improve our diction. Nice!

Do you hear the people sing we know the key of very well. So we stood and sang out loud! But we were a bit short of anger and passion and must all name fists. I tried it. It made me frown though. Sorry Ed! And I got nail marks in my palm...

Flash Dance might sound like toilet duck but it isn't. And Ed didn't say anything about a key. He went through the backing vocals for us. 

If I loved you - A-flat-minor! A different kind of passion in this one. The second time we had to be violins. No not squeaky, badly played violins. 

Oh what a beautiful morning! Standard key good for the men to stay off in. All together!

Rosé Is a-plus-4. Probably means its better than red, then! After our first run through, we worked on some harmonies until Ed wept at the very beauty of the thing ...Really DFS, we have come such a long way in our 5 years ... 5 years! Which reminds me, party time soon but what shall we do? KAREOKE? FOOD? LES MIS? 11 July is out last session, it will soon come around so jump on the forum and leave your ideas!

Love you, Cat XXXX

13 June 2013

The one with the new warm up .... The good, the better, and the best! And the opportunity to get three of your 5-a-day with mangos, bananas, kiwis!

We revisited the old friend of rosé, which was nice, and we did so well it was added instantly to our repertoire. Ed struggled a bit completely playing the right bit at the wrong time, but after two fails, Michael put him right and all was well again in the world!

Dodgy moment as Ed almost went into interpretive dance when we tackled the theme from flash dance, which we have had a shot at before of course! The ending was hard enough to grasp with it the buffering issue! Oh how we love YouTube! And speaking of YouTube, i have hung onto this blog post as i wish to share the video Ed made on his phone at the end, when we stood to perform two songs, but he hasn't yet put down his kebab, and i am still waiting to share ... It is rather nice to have a fun, multimedia blog after all!

What this space, and see you Thursday!

6 June 2013

The one with Ed's poem....

Which (apart from reminders of our concerts and a vote for a weekday coffee meetings) formed the best part of our notices this week! See bellow to enjoy it all over again! And again! And the fact that I've recorded it and slotted it into a nice video should just about make up for the fact that this weeks blog is low on words! i must have over blogged myself last week, following our trip!

A new song for us, Dancing In The Street! And then a really new song, Titanium, or ***anium according to an app on me smarty-phone! It was so new that its even in 'the charts' which makes me feel very old indeed!

I who have nothing ...ready to perform after just one session! Man we are getting good - we should go away more often, perhaps? Well, more than once every five years that is ... Keep singing, get your you tubes out!
Cat xxxx

29 May 2013

The one with the Australian passport!

Here is our lovely driver Diane, all ready to take us as far as Fleet services where we would change driver!

But first the Coach needed refueling. I never appreciated before just how much diesel one of these babies can guzzle. Diane had to use her purse as a wedge as the clip was broken. It takes a little time to pump that much fuel into these tanks!

How much? Even the whole of DFS, together with Ed, didn't drink this much on the whole time away! Glad I wasn't picking my nose in that reflection, there!

With the sun shining, DFS and Diane headed for Calais, and some shopping time, with a quick comfort stop on the way so that we wouldn't miss our ferry! 

Lots of delights were to be found in Carrefour. From kitsch souvenirs to something for tea on the coach. I ate some of these before rejoining the coach, ready to pass through customs. If I had fed some to Linda, we might have got away sooner perhaps ...

Which brings us to the passport in question, as one of our choir members was actually born down under. Her new Australian passport was lacking anything that said she could reside in the UK, or even visit there, and neither did she have a drivers licence or the old passport. Officials started talking sternly to her. The driver stayed in customs with Linda, and Ed acted as a go between.

Meanwhile, back on the coach, we all made the decision to wait for our friend, at the risk of missing our ferry, and a dear friend of mine (I was busy texting) and I, prayed that common sense would prevail, so we could be on our way. Time ticked by and we did miss our ferry. Diane and Ed made important calls to tour operators, and we we told that there would be space on the next boat. I had to turn my phone off to save enough battery to let folks at home know when we would be back, following the change ... so no more photos were taken!

After threatening Linda with deportation to get their message across, common sense prevailed and they released her to her loving DFS family! We all cheered! The DFDS ferry we managed to catch, was bigger and much smarter than the one we went over in, and I only felt a lighter shade of pale-green this time! And there were no vocal football fans either. So it all turned our very nice again indeed!

And for our next Trip? Watch this space! See you after half term Singsters! Cat XXX

28 May 2013

The one where we lost Fulvia... Or rather, Fulvia lost herself! The day dawned wetly and we all enjoyed a nice social breakfast, and made our own sandwiches on a table laden with fillings!

The Coach full of singers headed out to a wonderful place indeed ... Probably Eds favorite bit of the trip! Who cares if its raining when you are going to find out all about Calvados!

And so we had a tour of the place were they do wonderful things to apples, bar the bit they give freely to local pigs to make them taste nice! Ed and Cat listened attentively to the tour guide and did not mess about one little bit ...

Look at these lovely big barrels for brewing lovely apple related things! Jack, now known as Scrumpy Jack, was game enough to climb inside a barrel, as the cleaners do when they pressure-wash these 100 year old french oak casks ... I do hope they wear clean socks ...

After our tour, we got to taste many of the products, and enjoy some shopping time. After that DFS got the nearest they ever have to a flash mob, when, suitably lubed by the wonderful drink, we sang 'I'm a Believer' in the new distillery, for our sweet tour guide!

This is the inside of Notre Dame in the town of Bayeux, pretty impressive. We headed to Bayeux after our cider tour. My room mates and I crept into the crypt, and the picture got lots of silly comments on Facebook of course!

Bayeux was beautiful, but not all of us could get in to see the Tapestry because they helpfully kept closing the doors (when they got too full i think!). And that's just an excuse to stop for a Crepe!

Coffees and treats were very welcome for tired singers, which is when Jigsaw-Jenny realised we had lost Fulvia, so i called Fulvia's phone, and she confessed she was lost! I directed her from the cathedral to our cafe and all was well in the world again!

Our evening concert came round soon enough, at a lovely campsite, with a captive audience in the bar there.We sang our socks off, well i did take my shoes off, and enjoyed free drinks afterwords. There should be a few recordings floating around, taken from the balcony, where the acoustics were especially lovely! 

Then back to Gateaux du Baffy for our dinner, and we had to sit at completely different tables so as to not become stale and set in our ways! 

Did you spot the Melons on the wall? 

27 May 2013

The one with the melons!

Sometimes freedom has a price and today we spent time considering the great price paid by some, for the freedom that we enjoy today... First off to the Juno Beach Centre where we considered the efforts of many in the second world war, particularly the Canadians in this case.

I loved the social history on display at the centre, and we had a tour, before our concert, in the sunshine out doors!

I managed to find a spot with a phone signal right here, with a good view all round, and called home for an update on the chickens and pet rats! The building itself boasts awesome views from the roof, and it was difficult to imagine adrenaline charged beach landings on such a fine day and in such a stunning place as this. But consider it, we did ...

After our concert (and thanks to those fun children for dancing), DFS hit the local town, with their chewy packed lunches and some money for drinks in the cafe. The place looked like Weymouth, we though,  but with class!

Our next port of call was the American Memorial, a place charged with the memories and emotions of the very great sacrifice of those recorded here.

There was several parts to the outdoor remembrances, and also a visitors centre, with again, a lot of objects that really brought home how life was in those times. 

Time for the panrorama option again, but even that could not convey the sheer numbers of neat, white marble crosses. There were a few Jewish stars there too. Click on the photo to see it full width.

While this photo of bear is also sweet, getting down to this level really brought something home to me, and I spent sometime a little overwhelmed, still laying on the grass ... I felt very small, and very thankful.

At the viewpoint over looking the beach is a tactile map of the landings, and we were very proud to see this:-

Young Jack wrote only 'Freedom' in the visitors book. Then we loaded up the coach and headed for Hotel number two, Le Gateaux de Baffy, spending some quality time on the terrace before, and after dinner.

Three course meals and wine, what a luxury, esp if you drink red, and sit on a table of white wine lovers! 

And the melons? I almost forgot! They were displayed in the dining room, were thanks to Cezanne, someone clearly had their hands full, and someone seemed to have melon envy. 'Please can i put my melons in your melon, my dear?' Something to do on a hot day perhaps?

26 May 2013

The one where we spent a very long time doing traveling!

The day dawned for us to embark on our tour... The coach was not the right one and Caroline was missing. The loo wasn't even working so I'm not going to tell you what I did in a bush next to Wey Valley School! So we went the wrong way up the road and met Caroline at the end of her road and scooped her on board! Our working coach and our driver Dianne would be meeting up with us on route ...

I was going to bring a cuddly Man-Doll on the tour but i ended up bringing a sweet little bear. To find out who's special bear it was, read THIS! Bear was very Excited to be having a holiday after troubled times recently! The coach ate up the road between Weymouth and Dover and the sun shone, but no one sang any cheesey songs just yet! Perhaps something to do with the 4 am start to the day!

Here is our ferry, with a name not unlike out own choir acronym! It was full of football fans who smoked in all the wrong places and could have done with a few singing lessons from Ed to be honest.

Aboard the Ferry, the Cat felt very green despite several doses of evilly strong travel-sickness pills, but she did manage to work out how to use the panorama setting on her trusty iPhone! Lets hope she doesn't over use it! Ed complained that the white cliffs were not very white but nothing was done about it and no one sang like Vera Lynn ...

The Cat doesn't usually turn up in front of the camera, but here is one of Cat and Bear taken by the lovely Linda whilst promenading on the deck. It was a lovely smooth crossing by all accounts, and the sun shone and shone. Not like back home in Dorset!

A very long time on the coach had to be spent before we arrived at Hotel Crocus. The wrong Hotel Crocus! So a quick treck back to the other side of town to the right Hotel Crocus, a very nice dinner and some early baths for tired bodies!

23 May 2013

The one where we had to do it 10 times!

Because there's nothing like a bum note problem to potentially make an entire foreign country cringe! Hopefully we have it all nailed now. I've been doing it successfully in the shower!

Standing for buttercup, and wiggling our bottoms for a few others, we worked through quite a lot, with Ed out from behind his keyboard to conduct, banishing a lot of those ssssssssssings! He was lovely and cuddly as usual and very complementary! I felt really loved-up and affirmed and only slightly nervous when the mic apeared for building that bridge!

Our posh voices were showing during let the river run. It's asking not arse-king! Remember, either you are northern or American, like Carly Simon, but just do a nice flat vowel!

During a break we all discovered an interesting fact from someone we don't know very well. The lovely young lady next to me spent last weekend dressed as a gnome! I asked why but that would have been a second fact, and I didn't cheat!

I am currently packing my bag for normandy, and wish I had a handy packing list like the brownies! I won't ask Ed for help as he will only give me a list of ingredients to make his favourite kebabs.... See you Sunday at 5am!!!!

16 may 2013

The one were we prepare for France! 

We met our new boogie box tonight, I will  be sure to get some pictures of Ed wheeling that one off the ferry in France! I managed to Bluetooth my smarty-pants phone to it and play two recordings from Fridays concert to make the choir smile!

Ed gave us feedback from same, summed up as 'that's what it's all about,' and told us that it had the most magic moments of any of our concerts so far! And everybody said, 'aww!' We also raised £150 for our charity!

Then we settled to a good sing through of all our songs that we will perform over in Normandy, a fine bunch they are too, rather the cream of Dorset For Singing! Ed has now put our complete itinery including both of our concerts on our website and on our Facebook page. I'm getting exited now!

At the end of our rather heated practice, I played some more of Fridays recordings, and a few people asked me if they could have them on a CD. Best way might be to pass me a disc with your name on it clearly, but save that until we have all had our nice break in France!

See you Thursday, Big Love, Cat xxx