sticky post

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech. More then 30 died at the US college massacre.

But it´s not only about them. Many bloggers have responded and asked about all the other victims of our world. All the people who die every day. What about them?

This day can be a symbol of support to all the victims of our world!

All you have to do is spread the word about it and post the graphic on your blog on 30th April 2007. No words and no comments. Just respect, reflect and empathy.

gooseberries

MY GOOSEBERRY BUSH HAS ITS FIRST GOOSEBERRIES! Completely out of season without my having spotted any flowers... It's like magic. I'm very excited!



The 108 has asked us to think about donating whatever we can afford. I thought therefore that I would give you the link to this project - you can decide if you're interested by yourselves.

Thursday Thirteen #16

Thursday 13 things I'm looking forward to.

1 Seeing my folks next weekend
2 Monteverdi Vespers in Aberdeen this weekend
3 My birthday bbq bash - annual event in Glasgow since 1999
4 Seeing my little sister's house when she finally gets it
5 Meeting my friend Jenni's new baby Maddie (born 24/4/07)
6 Spiderman 3
7 Getting a new cat
8 Finishing the paint job in the hall (started this before I started blogging I think!!)
9 Harvesting the vegetables and fruits from the garden
10 Some days off with my boyfriend - one of us is ALWAYS at work.
11 The week we have taken off together in June (going to Wales)
12 Watching a gig this Saturday night - Gruff Rhys, Euros Childs, Espers, Boom Bip.
13 Handing over the Brownie accounts which have been hanging over me for weeks - they're due right now.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

MyBlogLog

Has MyBlogLog destroyed the habitat of the lesser spotted lurker?

I used to enjoy a good lurk on a blog or two, particularly when I feel I don't have much to say on a topic, but enjoyed the read. I prefer to do this on the sly, and will leave a comment to say hello if I want the author to know I've read their blog.

Since joining My Blog Log, my photo follows me around. I no longer have the ability to lurk anonymously in the background.

I notice this because there was a new face on my snapshots in the sidebar this evening, and the first thing I did was to hop straight over to see who it was. It was a blog in French, which I don't understand (wish I did!), probably from a browser maybe using 'next blog'? Either way, the reader moved on without leaving a comment but was unable to move on without leaving a mark.

I'm not sure that I like it. What do you think?

Interview Me!

Before I start this - could I send you over to duncan's blog again please? A few months ago I told you that he was making boobs... it's taken him a while (typical boy student) but he has finally done it. I'll leave it to him to tell you the story but suffice to say that he has clearly NOT followed the recipe & instructions I sent him to the letter!


Interview Me!
I was mean, and asked Angelika to interview me. I've seen this on a few blogs but wondered what someone who doesn't know me might ask. Happily she accepted the challenge *thanks Angelika*.

1. In what ways are you typically female?
I have all the required body parts... I like make-up and I LOVE shoes.



2. What's your favorite piece to play on your trumpet?
Probably the one you heard (& that I have on my profile) - Genius of England. The end is beautiful and we've worked on it since this recording so it is better now - has some really really quiet bits with lots more building crescendos etc. Hard to do but sound good. I like to play most things though - playing trumpet is loads of fun!



3. Since wine seems to be a recurring theme in your visual DNA, what's your favorite wine & why?
Favourite wine... this is hard as I'm a bit of a guzzler and am not too discerning. There's a Wolf Blass one that I really like... I think it's this one! Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2002





4. What is your favorite joke?
Why did the Mexican push his wife off a cliff? (listen to the first second or two of this clip for the punchline)






5. Do you like Haggis?
Yes I like haggis - a lot. I also like vegetarian haggis... which surprised me. So sheep guts or no, it's all good.



If you want to continue, here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Thinking Blogger

Sanni nominated me for my first ever blog-type award meme! It is most exciting and made my day. It also came as a bit of a surprise as I don't post much that's deep, meaningful or thought-provoking. It's quite a clever idea from the thinking blog as it'll whack up the technorati rank with all these links back to him/her, but I'll play for now.

I know this has been doing the rounds for a while, so some of these bloggers will have been nominated already. I suppose in this case it's up to them whether they play again, or just take the praise and accept that they've done their linking already.

1. Annelisa - Words That Flow

Annelisa sees the world in so much more beautiful and colourful a way than I could ever imagine.

2. Bond's Big Leather Couch

The couch is a great place to sit and have a read - it's full of such a variety of posts that there is bound to be something that will appeal to you.

3. The Crone's Corner

The Crusty Crone combines glimpses of her life with her artwork and snapshots of the nature around her. I love this blog.

4. Turnbaby

Turnbaby makes me think and most often makes me laugh. Which has reminded me that I need to go and have a read myself so I'll speed this up a bit!

5. An Island Life

Sounds like her life is so much fun! Pictures, exotic tales about places I can only dream of seeing... worth a visit!

If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

On a totally different track: PITCHY!

I'm worried that the UK are going to pick this word up.

Bond says he uses it to mean that the key was not held throughout the song.

The 108 says it means out of tune.

I have heard Paula Abdul use it to mean out of tune but usually where the notes have been strained.

So generally it means out of tune - but it could be out of tune for quite a variety of reasons.

Because of this I hope that we do not pick this word up as it would be more helpful to the musicians to be told exactly what is wrong, as there could be different reasons for the above:
Out of tune - because they haven't listened properly to the track or what's going on AROUND them (singers can be quite bad for this - no offense meant).

Out of tune - because they have not supported the high note with enough air.

I'm sure there are lots more possible reasons.

I'm not a singer but I know that this could also apply to a trumpet player in much the same way. I would rather know specifics, to know how to rectify the problem.

Rehearsals for Diversimode went well yesterday. We have one more rehearsal before our concerts in Summer. After that I headed to Glasgow Uni student union to watch the big band gig. They did pretty well and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Especially as beer was £1.60 a pint.

Today I'm quite successfully avoiding practising or doing the Brownie accounts but as I have to go to work tonight (rehearsal) I will have to get started soon.

Finished!

Show week is over... and I've had time to take down my TT videos so my blog loads faster again.
If you want to listen to any of these songs they are ALL available on You Tube.

Thanks Sanni for the Thinking Blogger award - I'll update this with the picture and five blogs tomorrow if that's ok?

Hope everyone's well - have a great weekend! I have rehearsals for gigs coming up tomorrow and Monday but should get a chance to blog properly soon I hope.

Update: Watching American Idol... Can any Americans tell me exactly what 'pitchy' means? They use it a lot on this programme. I have been watching it with a singer colleague and she doesn't know either.

Thursday Thirteen #15

Thirteen songs that make me smile 1 - Did you know... I love Bowie!? David Bowie: Let's Dance 2 - I'm playing lead tpt in Copacabana this week - but found this version on MrFab's blog which made me laugh a LOT - link: http://pointless-drivel.com/?p=1019 Barry Manilow: Copacabana 3 - Supergrass: St Petersburg 4 - Madness: Our House 5 - Bee Gees: Staying Alive 6 - Avalanches: Frontier Psychiatrist 7 -Kid Carpet: Your Love 8 - Kid Carpet: Carrier Bag 9 - Super Furry Animals: Rings Around the World 10 - Take That: Patience 11 - Rufus Wainwright - or anyone else: Halleluja 12 - Divine Comedy: Sweden 13 -Jamiroquai: Space Cowboy Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Amy from http://amychristopher.blogspot.com/ is holding a scavenger hunt competition. I'll give it a go if I can... will see how much time it takes.

Anyway: details are below.

What: The Christopher Family 1st Blogging Scavenger Hunt
When: Beginning May 1st
Why? Uhm, I thought I would do something fun

Prizes: There may be more but here are a few
Any DVD or CD mentioned anywhere on this blog or on hubby's blog (yes they will be new!!)
Chik Fil A products (to be determined soon)
Free Book (it will be new and you get to pick from a list)
A cool family game. I will try to post a picture. Its pretty cool.
Family Devotional
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta onesie or toddler outfit
Gift Certificate to Winkflash for prints
cool travel mug
and more!!!

Here are the rules!

1.Starting May 1st, I will post 3 questions each day on this blog for you to find or answer. The answers can either be found on this blog or you will have to find them on another blog. The answers can not come from your blog. You may post these questions on your blog in hopes that other bloggers can help you out. This will go on for 21 days. I will not post questions on Sundays.
This is not meant to be a stressful contest, but rather fun. I will give you hints or a clue and you need to search a blog that contains that info. There will most likely more than 1 answer for a lot of the questions.

2.Everyone gets a point for answering the questions each day. The first 5 people to answer will get 2 points. You can answer directly on my blog unless otherwise specified. IF there are questions with only 1 answer, you will email me so that others wont get your answer!!! Don't forget this is great advertisement for your blog as well!

3.The posts will not always be made at the same time to allow everyone to get the extra point

How will prizes be given?
a) the highest number of points
b) I will choose random active participants. To be an active participant, you need to post at least 3 days a week or a total of 9 for the 3 weeks.
c)the person who refers the most active participants will get something special
d)someone who only gets 1 point every single day will win a prize

If you would like to participate, let me know via this post or email. If you would like a reminder about the scavenger hunt, email me at amyschristopher@comcast.net

I will be listing everyone who tells me they want to participate and some of the questions will come from your blogs so this list is going to be very helpful. Michael helped me come up with questions tonight so I am expecting this to be great fun!


Please post this or find a way to let your friends know! Also, let me know if you have anything fun or interesting on your blog we may use.

Writers....

I know that many of the bloggers I visit regularly are talented authors.

My wee brother is also a writer - and has just set up a website showing some of his work. Whilst it will blast my anonymity out of the water, I bring you:

www.duncanheaney.co.uk

Cairngorms

This weekend we had a trip to the Cairngorm mountains near Aberdeen for a friend's wedding.

We went out on Friday for my friend's birthday. It was good fun, and as the designated driver for Saturday morning my boyfriend was supposed to stay relatively sober. I had to take him home after he started to doze off in the bar.... the weekend wasn't starting well!

We left Sat morning at 9ish - and were hoping to meet an old university friend of my boyfriend's before the wedding for a drink. It takes about 2.5 hours to travel to Braemar, and at one point through the hills I seriously thought I was going to have to get out of the car and walk, as we dropped gear, and dropped gear and still slowed down to a crawl up a particularly steep slope. We made it in the end though!

When we arrived we tried to check into the Youth Hostel, but it was not open. Instead they had left a sign saying it reopened at 5pm. As the bus was due to collect all guests from a square in the village at 1pm to take us to Mar Lodge, a beautiful Victorian house and hunting lodge on a country estate, I rang them at about 5pm to ask when the hostel closed, as we were at the wedding and hadn't been able to check in. The lady said not to worry as the doors were open all night.

The wedding was perfect! Location was stunning, wedding was lovely with some funny moments (such as asking the bride if she would take the groom to be her 'lawfully wedded wife!), food was great, speeches were funny, band were fab and most folk danced all night in the oddly decorated slightly gruesome lodge! (photo below of ceiling!)

The bus picked us all up to go back to the village at midnight, and we then walked back to the Youth Hostel. The door was indeed open, but there was nobody up. We had no key to the rooms, or any information left for what dorm we were to stay in. My boyfriend had an explore and found a dorm that was open. It was a bit smelly but at least had beds and blankets. We crashed there - then got up early as I had a rehearsal in Glasgow at 11 on Sunday. There was still nobody about in the hostel, so there was nowhere to pay.... so free accommodation.

We stopped in Glasgow at 10am for breakfast at my favourite restaurant. It does Sunday brunch which is always fantastic.

I then had the rehearsal - which was mercifully short. Then had an hour or so to stoke up on caffeine before starting a run of Copacabana at 2pm. The band call was fine, and they had a dress rehearsal for the show at 8pm which made for a REALLY long day. There's only so much that coffee and diet coke can do (even when you add tablet into the mix... anyone who hasn't tried tablet should - it's sugar, more sugar, condensed milk, and sugar, melted together and then set into little delicious squares of pure instant energy).

Today I got up at..........12pm.... after a long but rewarding weekend!

Thursday Thirteen # 14

Thirteen fittest UK TV celebs... 1. Myleene Klass 2. Rufus Sewell 3. Charlotte Church 4. Richard Armitage 5. Emilia Fox 6. James McAvoy 7. Denise Van Outen 8. Tom Chambers 9. Holly Willoughby 10. John Simm 11. Billie Piper 12. Rob James Collier 13. Patsy Kensit So I go for dark hair...... and since this was a joint effort this week it seems my boyfriend goes for boobs....? !

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thursday Thirteen

Every single week it gets to Thursday morning and I then realise it's a Thursday... which means Thursday Thirteen.

I like this meme, but on a Thurs morning when I'm already 9 mins late (therefore have missed the bus) I like it a little less.

This week I'm hoping to get some snaps up as I like to look at pics on other blogs..... so yet again I'm gonna have to postpone this for the evening (after panic practise - underprepared for gigs coming up & not enough days left!).

Anyway - should be spending this 9 minutes walking in the cold Scottish morning air, so I'll be off now.

The Aftermath

Well I'm tired. Hope you all had a great Easter - I did!

My sis arrived on Saturday afternoon. We chatted over some wine, then went out for dinner, then on to a bar before heading home.

Sunday - I had a gig at 9am in Edinburgh so had quite an early start (up at 6!). After I got home it was already quite late, so we stayed in and made a roast for Easter Sunday dinner.

Monday we went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum - very cultured, eh!? Then my little sister drove home. She hit traffic jams twice, but managed to get home in about 5 hours so it wasn't as bad as it could have been!

Anyway - was lots of fun. Hope she comes again soon!

A Royal Visit

Today is another BEAUTIFULLY sunny day here. I'll be off out to plant a clematis (last thing I can do before my seedlings are ready) shortly.

I then have to tidy the house as my wee sister arrives for a visit today! HOORAY!

I like her.

She normally refuses to visit if I have gigs... which happens quite a lot... but it seems that my playing at 9am on a Sunday morning will not have much impact on her trip so she's happy to come. She's started working in the music industry so perhaps that has helped her to become a bit more understanding of the 'gotta take the work when I get it' aspects.

Since Thursday I've not done much really. Went to work at the garden centre for my boyfriend yesterday morning. Then came home and tried to do some tidying and practise but didn't get much constructive done as I was so tired.

Anway... cleaning to do!

Thursday Thirteen #14

To keep to a green-fingered theme:


Thirteen of our (me and the fella... as a botanist he's invited to participate) favourite plants...


1 laburnum


2 eucalyptus


3 daffodil


4 bluebell


5 forsythia


6 camellia


7 hellebores


8 aquilegia (columbine)


9 primrose


10 ajuga (bugle)


11 clematis


12 fritillaria


13 convolvulus




Pls see wikepedia for more info on all the above

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants


Thursday Thirteen Participants

1. Marcia 2. Susan Helene Gottfried

3. Miss Positive 4. Barb

5. CountryDew

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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industrious

OK so I've been on the internet a few times but we have also today:


Mown and strimmed the back lawn. Border is still a work in progress but I have spotted lots of raspberry canes and flowers starting to poke through the soil.


Started to paint the shed..... but ran out of paint after 1 side. Not unhappy really as I don't like the green anyway. Wondering whether I could get away with making the shed two-tone...? It'll all go the patchy green colour when it's dried, so I could just paint over it. At least one side's weatherproof again.


Dug over the veg plot and planted potatoes & a new rosemary bush (old one died mysteriously overnight - turned brown really suddenly).

Cornett

This is it.... A McCann boxwood cornett - with mouthpieces that I prob won't be able to use as they look a bit frightening.

Tracks if you want to know what one sounds like. This is done on a resin one - hopefully the wooden cornett will sound a wee bit softer.

Simon the King

Sauny the Scot

Impatient

couldn't wait so paid the extra $50 to get it now... Woo Hoo!

nail-bitingly nervous

This is ridiculous!! I have been after an instrument for a while. Having contacted the makers I was informed that there would be at least a 6 month delay before I could get one.....

Then I spotted one on e-bay. Not gonna tell you any more in case anyone beats me to it.... But I've e-mailed the seller for a bit more info.

And I'm SO excited! Really excited that I might be able to get one soon - and hopefully before the gig I have booked after Easter.

I'm gonna have to badger the seller.. or perhaps put a bid in anyway but he said to check if it was an overseas purchase before bidding.

AAAAAAAGH want to know right now.

Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day for us here - I want to plant my potatoes (which I've been chitting for a while) so we need to dig over the garden. Could also do with mowing. Then I want to get a cat. But we also planned to go to the cinema. And of course I need to practise!

The Perils Of Alcohol

I went into the office today - doing some overtime in school holidays. Some people might just take some time off. No idea why I can't do this but last week I had three days off in a row. When I say three days off I really mean three days without the office, teaching or gigs, but obviously practise must happen in these days, and the huge assortment of admin (such as account keeping) that I rarely have time to do must still take place. I hated it. I worked, and did all the things I had to do, but felt lazy all the same... no logic.

I was a bit apprehensive, as Friday night had been a work night out, and I had drunk enough to forget exactly what happened after I got home. I was worried that I may have made a fool of myself.

Relief came quickly, as I soon discovered that everyone else who was still there when I left at 11pm(ish) was also drunk. And they don't seem to know just how bad I was.

Phew!

The moral of the story of course must be not to go out on an empty stomach for 6 hours mixing beer with wine with cocktails.

I'm sure there are several folk who disapprove... in fact some may even actively oppose such idiocy. Please see the following blog for more information about drinking and the perils thereof.

http://www.hangoverremedyblog.com/