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?