It's me again. A few things have happened. Saturday 24th October was a wonderful Hayleyday. I drove to St Albans for Hayley's concert there, met her both before and after the show, although she didn't say much beforehand, as she was saving her voice for the show. I gave her a DVD of my videos from the Beaumanor concert. The concert was stunning as are all Hayley concerts that I have ever been to. And there are now videos of the whole concert on YouTube. I attempted to video two of the songs, the first, Hayley's version of Eva Cassidy's "I Know You by Heart" (which is very beautiful) I shot blind, with the screen of my camera switched off to avoid annoying the people around me. Towards the end of the song, Hayley's image gently sinks into the bottom of the screen.
The second attempt was Hayley's finale, "Wuthering Heights", the Kate Bush song. She performs it brilliantly, and this time I elected to keep the camera screen on, but shield it under my coat. But then the people in front of me (I was five rows back from the front) kept mooving about and blocking my camera's view.
The vidoes on YouTube were taken by my friend Drew, who was up above my head in the balcony. He had none of the problems that I did, but since he was off to one side for the most part only got side views of Hayley, with her guitarist and pianist behind, but no shots of the wonderful Raven string quartet. The quality is excellent. My own vids, despite the problems and technical imperfections, come across as more intimate, faithfully recording Hayley's facial expressions and eye movements, when you could see her at all! Try http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yzcnyozz2d and http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?woyzzyfiqnx
I'm told that Andy Moore, Hayley's guitarist, also has some videos which he may post on his website when he gets Hayley's permission (which I'm sure he will).
Yesterday I led the morning service at Christ church. It seemed to go down well, and I included a film based on St Paul'e letter to the Romans. I also included communion, which was a cop out intended to replace the eveing service, which was cancelled (leading two services in a day would have been too much).
Our minister, John Downing, is currently in India. He is blogging every day at present, so we know what he is doing. Isn't the Internet wonderful.
We acquired a new cat at the weeekend. She is a black cat, and I think she might now be called Squeaky, after the noise she makes. It is hardly a miaow!
Thursday 15th October
Since my last blog, we have spent a week away in Cornwall. This was in the motorhome at the Carnon Downs Caravan site near Truro. It is a very nice site, and we could get buses to Truro and Falmouth from right outside the gates. One day we visited St Mawes by boat from Falmouth, the opposite of a trip we made some years ago.
October is a nice time of year to go to Cornwall. It was only on the last day we discovered that we could have got our bus travel free, using bus passes. Sue even already has one. The dog, though, would have had to pay!!
We had a good time last weekend. We were away at Wells Next The Sea in the motorhome with the grandchildren, Sam and Jeessica. So that made five of us un a 2 berth van, Me and Sue, Sam and Jess, and Sally the dog. I think we will need to take a tent as well next year!
We were away for two nights only, but it was fun. the weather was fine, and we had a good wander round Wells, and the kids spent some time on the beach, swimming in "The run" which is a shipping channel. However, it is only waist deep at low tide, which it was. The danger is you get stranded on the far side, so there is a siren that sounds a little while before the tide comes in.
The Pinewoods Campt site, where we stayed, is close to the beach but about a mile from the town. But I managed to walk into town on Saturday Evening, buy fish anf chips from French's well known emporium, wrup it in a towel inside an insulated picnic bag, and half run half walk back to camp, which took me 13 minutes. The fisch and chips was still very hot, and was enjoyed by all.
When we got home, their parents could not beleive it when we told them how well behaved their kids were. Not fighting, no arguing, and they both enjoyed it. There are a few photos in the phos section of this site.
Then on Monday the new greenhouse arrived. I now have the interesting challenge of assembling this oversized Meccano set. Well, I always liked Meccano as a kid!
Well, that's it! this morning we had a 16 foot by 10 foot greenhouse in the garden. Now it is gone, sold to a fellow collector, and the site looks like a pile of rubble.
Next job is to order the replacement. This will be an 8 foot by 10 foot. I need top get it up fairly quickly, since my cactus and succulent collection is out in the garden and at the mercy of the elements at the moment. They need to be under cover and dried out before the winter comes.
Last night was a good night. Another wonderful night of music, with a bit of dancing and a lot of torrential rain thrown in. But even that could not spoil an enjoyable performance.
This was The Opera Show at the Kilworth House theatre. We have memories of the last time we were there in July 2008 to see Hayley Westenra, and of the over-zealous security people that banned photography and made it difficult for Hayley to meet her fans afterwards (she did manage it though, on the verge at the side of the road outside the venue, but that is another story). But this is a beautiful location for an open air concert on a fine summer evening.
But this was not a fine summer evening, as the remnant of Hurricane Danny made its presence felt with continuous torrential rain and a fair bit of wind..
But at least the auditorium is covered by a sail like canvas cover, that keeps the worst of it at bay. And the theatre itself is modern and well run.
And so to The Opera Show. To be honest, I didn't quite know what to expect. In the end it was original and different. There were four singers, proper opera singers who didn't use microphones despite being outdoors, an eight piece band (including an all girl string quartet, these are getting popular) and six dancers. They performed a series of well-known operatic arias and other pieces, usually as you had never seen or heard them before.
The show opened with a look at early opera, the Baroque period. But they slung in the odd bit of Mozart too. The set and choreography were fascinating. Most of the time you didn't know whether to look at the singers or the dancers. All four singers, a Baritone, a Tenor and two Sopranos, were excellent.
This was followed by the first of two intervals, during which the set was rebuilt into an unusual arrangement which appeared to be a 1940s house with a recording studio upstairs and a family living downstairs. Titled "The age of Recording". The music was from the Romantic Period. Said family had a wind-up gramophone, and whenever they played it someone in the recording studio sang. There was a wonderful point where the gramophone needle stuck in the middle of Verdi's La Donna E Mobile, that was a clever bit of singing on behalf of the tenor.
Then the second interval (the set was rebuilt again) and this was a futuristic looking one, again on two levels.
Act 3 was where the imagination really got going. Starting off with the Moody Blues song Nights in White Satin, sung in Italian, we were then treated to Mozart's aria "The Queen of the Night" from the magic flute, sung with a heavy rock backing by one of the sopranos dressed in black leather and prancing around like Tina Turner. The instruments were all amplified, but her voice was not. Fantastic!
And then a rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the violin, reminiscent of Vanessa Mae's version, interspersed with some amazing tap dancing. In this section was also a fine rendition of Dvorak's "Song to the Moon", Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and finally of course "Nessum Dorma".
We think there was supposed to be a finale. it didn't happen. The company appeared on the stage to take their bows (I nearly wrote "boos") and then something seemed not to be right. Whether it was the sound system or the lighting I'm not sure, but it all went dark and quiet and they all sneaked off stage. Oh well, it was the first night. I suppose they will sort it out for future performances.
All in all though, this is a fabulous show, one I think even those who are not keen on opera would enjoy. It is playing at Kilworth until 13th September, already sold out, then next year going on a world tour. I hope it does well.
By the way there are now some of my videos of the Beaumanor Hall concert on YouTube.
and here
Enjoy
Well, quite a lot has happened in the last few weeks. To start with there was our holidays. The first week of July was spent at the caravan site at Three Cliffs Bay in the Gower. This site is said to have the finest view of any camp site in Wales. Well it is spectacular. I will make some photos available in the Photos section of this website.
We came home on Friday 10th, since we had tickets for "Music for a Summer Evening" at Beaumanor Hall, a charity concert in aid of the Royal British Legion, featuring the Heart of England Orchestra, The Royal British legion Pipe Band, and -- wait for it, Hayley Westenra. There is no way on Earth I could have missed hearing my favourite singer of all time, a true international superstar, performing only eight miles from my home.
So we came home the day before. We arrived at the venue around 4pm for a 7pm start. We had our picnic, and two of my wife's work colleagues, Sooty and Jude. And we had a picnic. As usual, I found my friends from Hayley Westenra International close to the stage.
So I ended up in the second row. One of my friends had arrived early enough to catch Hayley's sound check, and learned that she would be leaving early, since she had a plane to catch to Taiwan the following day.
But nonetheless, with no restrictions on photography I managed to video pretty much the entire performance by Hayley. As always she was stunning. There was even a flypast by a Spitfire and a Hurricane. The second half of the concert includes a "last night of the Proms" with Hayley leading the singing of Rule Britannia, Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, and I vow to thee my Country, dedicated to the eight British soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan in the previous week. This was very moving. At the start of Land of Hope and Glory, my wife Sue ran forward to present Hayley with a union Jack, which at least she was able to wave and feel she was doing something, since during this performance her microphone appears to have been switched off.
It rained quite hard during the second half, but there was no way anyone was moving to find shelter. This was Hayley performing after all! And there id no finer singer on the planet, it my opinion.
The videos will be made available on the video section of this site. The show finished with the 1812 Overture and a spectacular firework display. And Hayley was on her way to what is probably her greatest triumph, in Kaoshong, Taiwan's second city.
The next day it was away for the second week of our holiday. We were off in our motor caravan to a Caravan Club site near Richmond, North Yorkshire. Richmond is in Swaledale, and the Swale is the fastest flowing river in England. It is a lovely place, and the Yorkshire Dales is a part of England that we had previously neglected. There are many fine waterfalls in Swaledale, and neighbouring Wensleydale. The Creamery near Hawes in Wensleydale is well worth visiting. I never knew that there were so many varieties of Wensleydale cheese.
On the Friday of that week it rained all day. in fact we had about 30 hours continuous rain. After it was over, we drove to Richmond to see the river and waterfall. We could see the tidemark where the river had risen part way up the grass areas surrounding it (there is a photo).
Church this morning. Sue had worked the previous night. She works night shifts at a local Christian care home for the elderly, Wyggestons Hospital, which was founded in the early 16th century! So I left her in bed. As I might have guessed, our minister who was leading the service preached about St Peter, in particular Acts Ch 4, Peter's address to the Sanhedrin, a passage that I too have preached on recently, so it was interesting to hear someone else do it! One of our lady members had a significant birthday, and since she had been part of the choir for "Rock", sang us one of the songs. Lovely. Another uplifting service.
Today, got up early for a Saturday, since I needed to drive up to Preston to pick up our Motorhome. It has been up there for a month, having repairs carried out under the warranty. the worst of which was the melting of the plastic drain pipe under the sink by heat from the oven. The solution was to re-route the pipework.
I took Michael with me in the 407, to drive the van back. It is about a 2 hour journey each way. However, there are still problems. They are supposed to have fitted a flyscreen and a hydraulic ram to hold the door in position when open, in place of the inadequate plastic clip which had already broken and been replaced once. The problem is that once the flyscreen is in place. there is nowhere to screw the ram to!!
On our way home last night, we heard on the news that the singer Michael Jackson had been taken to hospital and that it was reported that he "wasn't breathing". This morning we heard that he was dead. I was saddened by this, and said a prayer for his family. He has young children, who must be devastated. And I always felt sorry for MJ himself, always controversial, and never had the chance to live any sort of normal life. Even though I was never a huge fan, he was undoubtedly a great artist who was loved by many. I suppose dance music and certainly disco music was never my thing. But I am saddened nonetheless.
Tonight is a good place to start. Sue and I, and several other members of Christ Church went to our local De Montfort Hall to see a performance of the new Roger Jones musical "Rock - The Story of Simon Peter". There were 8 members of Christ Church in the (I estimate) 300 strong choir, including our minister and two of my fellow elders. The hall, was packed.
The conductor was Roger Jones himself, and most of the performers were fairly local, even the soloists who were excellent. Many, like Roger Jones, came from Birmingham.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and also very spiritually uplifiting. The sort of evening that reminds me that God loves us, and that music is His gift. The show has many original and memorable tunes, in some cases the settings for well known hymns like "Rock of Ages" and "Just as I am, without one Plea". Wonderful.