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

Friday 10 may 2013

The All Saints Church Concert

Well it just goes to show that holding back on the last practice night can be the very best thing for a professional choir such as ours to do, as we utterly sang our hearts out and blew the roof off that solidly built church! And the lovely men all sang in time with each other!

I'm still working on getting you a nice piece of video to watch as I am sure like me you see all those cameras dotted about to grab our tuneful loveliness for posterity! The cat will surely pounce upon it and share soon! 

See you later for another fun practice together! Well done, especially our soloists, I wonder how much, apart from the roof, we raised? Love you, The Cat xxx

9 may 2013

The one with the leggy concern! And the one were Ed had to get his coat ... Sweet cheeks!

In notices, and they can be edited if I am wrong, but we have two one o'clock concerts coming up, one is the

Rectory garden party in Sutton points, 29 June, and the other at St Edmunds on the 13 July. Be there or be at home drinking champagne!

The concert will run in there parts tomorrow as otherwise our good selves will have to stand for an hour solid and that just won't do at all! And we did some of our practice standing but a lot of it sitting so as not to wear ourselves out ahead of time. I'd like to say we sung very badly with timings all over the place so that we wouldn't peak too soon, bit of course we didn't. Don't mention the men.

The draft running order is - 

Dancing queen

Oh what a beautiful morning

If I loved you (replacing the carpenters number)

Make you feel my love

I will follow him

Run to me

Love can build a bridge

The longest time

All about you

Do you hear the people sing?

The kittens enjoyed being our audience, and taking Sophie home in our car. Now remember your last minute you-tubing, and I will see you tomorrow at 6! Cat xxx

The one with the Hacked Website ...

No access for the powers that be to alter the DFS website at the moment, so big apologies from The Team working hard to get it sorted ....

Meanwhile hop over here - http://www.youtube.com/feed/UC6xm5sU85fGo9v9zhCd01lQ and click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmxJ7OzhCTY&list=PL9OJ1n1TguVlLybn92jRyZsnLi3Rh71pD to practice your songs for Friday night!

Love you, The Cat xxxxx PS wasn't me what broke the website. I haven't reversed into anything for ages ....

2nd May 2013

The one with the complications!

Mostly related to the dates of our tour de Normandie and not Ed's fault at all! But after putting it to DFS, we WILL be sticking to our original plan of Sunday to Wednesday, and quite possibly camping in a swamp for the first night! After our warm up, Cat's littlest kitten Mary had the best birthday serenade ever, as she was born 5 years ago today! When our choir started little Mary was 5 months ... Sigh!

Then it was time to go through our repertoire, for our concert on 10th may. When we got to 'dancing queen' all eyes became riveted to the screen. So the words were removed, and so apparently were much of the verses! Oddly enough I received this text during choir - ''Kai and her school are singing at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow and she told me that her singing coach told them that if they forget their words, they should sing "rhubarb", as it will still look ok. Have you heard of this and if so, have you ever done it?? X'' and I think it Would be rather splendid if Abba choruses were turned to rhubarb...

The men are doing a lovely job with their solo parts, and Ed has chosen to play live to 'o what a beautiful morning' so he can follow the singers, and we don't have to try and follow a difficult backing track.

American accents needed for our carpenters number, ain't gonna sound good all British-like! Then back to neat, clipped excited-but-held-back vocals for what my kid's call 'the angry men song'.

Don't forget, we have a new hand signal to convey the term BOUNCY when Ed is conducting. To become familiar with it, try to use it at least once in all your conversations this week. Love you loads! Cat xxx