Thursday Thirteen #24

Good morning - I started to feel better last night around 1opm and by bedtime was shattered. This morning I feel great.

So I'm trying to think of a positive TT for today.

13 Things that make me Smile

1. A sunny day (need to remember what these are like as we head into winter).

2. A day off.

3. Good trumpet playing - whether I'm doing it myself or listening to it.

4. Laughter.

5. Jokes from pupils (particularly one called Ryan).

6. Leaving the office early.

7. The bus turning up just after I reach the bus stop (reminder to self - LEAVE ON TIME OR YOU'LL BE LATE AGAIN).

8. The thought of getting rid of the music I hate (just saw an advert for a Cerys Matthews, Aled Jones duet... the prospect alone is enough to make me think 'if I only had 1 bullet').

9. Dancing shows.

10. Long walks combining hills, woods and water. Got to do one of these last week and LOVED it. Smiled a lot.

11. Good nights at Brownies.

12. Nice blog comments.

13. Speaking to friends.

If you want to leave a link in my Mr Linky box PLEASE leave a comment. It irritates me otherwise.... If I could work out how to do it I'd remove your links without comments, however I have not cracked it yet.

beurgh... not well today

Today I got up and went to Edinburgh to teach. I was hungry but didn't have time to get breakfast so had a naughty bag of hula hoop crisps on the road, with a petrol station cup of coffee (which is a bit grim generally). I felt a bit clammy but put it down to slightly damp hair.

I got there pretty early so did a bit of piano practise before my first pupil turned up. She came in just to say that she had forgotten her trumpet and as I have just had a tiny cold-sore I was not about to offer mine (no spare mouthpiece).

I went to get my second pupil early... to find that she was off ill today.

I then went to get my third pupil instead - and taught a lesson but came over with waves of nausea during the lesson (which I ignored as far as possible as I was teaching).

During the forth pupil's lesson I felt sick again - not massively but definitely not good. Fortunately this was the last one today so I could go home.

On the way to the car the feeling got worse. I had been feeling a bit sweaty too during teaching but hadn't really thought anything of it. On my journey home I had to stop for more petrol - and got cold sweats in the petrol station.

I have cancelled my evening plans today - as when I arrived home I nearly fell over with dizziness getting out of the car.

Now I'm sat watching telly still feeling weird. I feel hot but the hairs on my arms are standing up as if it's cold. I'm still dizzy/spaced out. And I am hungry again - which is not good as I'm not risking eating. Much as I hope that I'm just suffering from having such crap for breakfast I'm not entirely convinced. Might have a kip and see if that cures it.

First Aid

Tonight is Brownie night again.

This means I have jobs to do today. Fortunately I have a fab friend who is coming to teach my Brownie pack first aid tonight which gets me off the hook fairly successfully I hope!

I must: Buy bandages & bring squares of fabric with which to make slings.
Buy First Aid badges from the Guide Shop.

Think that's about it - how easy is that!!!

I also have some accounting to do so I'll get that done first.

Update: I have done all the stupid accounting and banking etc... only to e-mail Girlguiding SCOTLAND and find that they don't use the same forms as the rest of the UK now. So I have to do it again on the form they kindly e-mailed me. BAH.

Update a bit later still (nearly 10 o'clock): It went really well! We have a slightly reluctant Brownie - she's often really naughty - and she loved the night too even so far as to volunteer answers when we did the test bit at the end to give them their badges.

They got to bandage each other up and to stop bleeding, learnt to do CPR (although they were not really strong enough to push the breast bone down), learnt how to check for danger in an incident, to call for help etc and to keep someone calm.

It was great fun - and many thanks are due to my friend for her help!

I now have 2 weeks off Brownies - 1 week is school holiday week, the next week I have someone else covering the pack and my trainee guider is running the night. I am pretty sure she'll be fine!

Strictly Come Dancing 2007 : Girls Group : 06/10/2007

Sloth!

I have had such a lazy day! I had nothing to do today - having worked all weekend - and decided it would be my Sunday.

So I have blog-hopped, played a game or two, done a wee bit of housework, read a bit..... and then started work from 3.30 teaching a bit. I only have 3 pupils on a Monday though so that passed quite quickly and I could go back to slobbery.

Yawn... it's tiring.

I plan to have a big walk tomorrow to make up for it.

I haven't mentioned our cat for a while - so I ought to give a quick update. He is fine- but he is winking today after my boyfriend opened the front door and gave him a whack on the head. He is quite happy though. He has had some chicken as a treat (to say sorry!) and also lots of stroking. I'd post you a picture but in the spirit of the day I really can't be bothered!

sore neck!

I have been working today & have cricked my neck. Nothing much more to tell you about that other than it's sore. On Saturdays I teach in the mornings, and tutor at a junior band in the afternoon.

Teaching was quite a lot of fun. The kids are all doing good (particularly the ones who have managed to get the music they were meant to get) and I can see definite improvement.

At band though I had less fun. The first part is taken up by sectional rehearsals. This means that we split off into instruments(: 1st cornets, 2nd & 3rd cornets, horns, baritones & euphoniums, tubas, trombones, percussion) and work through the pieces for 45 minutes by ourselves before coming back into the main band to play together.

I had a couple of new kids in the section (I do 2nd & 3rd cornets) and so thought we'd go over the easiest piece first and I'd just let them get used to how it works. I didn't criticise any mistakes from them OR mention any time they were in the wrong place. I DID pick up mistakes from the kids who had been there 3 weeks and who I had said the same things to 3 weeks running. But I did NOT shout at ANYONE. I pointed out mistakes to the kids who had been there a while who all responded with giggles - we have fun at band.

Can you guess what's coming? Sure enough - one of the new kids started to snivel. It started as a snivel so I said 'don't worry - just follow along and play what you can. We've been practising this for 3 weeks so you aren't expected to be able to do everything straight away'.

We carried on rehearsing - I was ignoring the sniffles... until they turned into full blown crying with big sighs sniffs and shuddering.

I checked she was ok -I think she was just a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience so I took her out, found the conductor and asked her to sit with him to calm down a bit HOPING that he would let her know she'd get lots of help from me in the full band rehearsal. I'm sure he was overjoyed by this - but I couldn't really see what else I was meant to do, with another 8 kids in the room who were finding the crying fascinating.

We carried on with our sectional MUCH more successfully as the other kids didn't keep looking around to see whether she was still crying, then went to the full band rehearsal.

Fortunately the kid had calmed down by now, and I sat with her pointing at the music as we played, tanking out the 3rd cornet part to cover up any mistakes so she would feel ok about it.

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I'm just naturally not a sympathetic person. I can cope with stuff like kids crying for a while, but after too long I just want to tell them to get a grip. Which obviously I can't do.

I like kids. I teach and volunteer at a Brownie pack, but my tolerance is only SO good and the things that tip me over the edge are:

Moaning or whining without doing anything to help yourself. Particularly if it descends into snivelling.
Playing stupid tunes on the piano at my Brownie pack when they've been told NOT TO TOUCH IT!

I'm sure there are load more. I'll store this post up and add to the list as I think of them.

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All of the above leads me to the firm conclusion that kids aren't for me. I'll teach them, and do fun things on a Tuesday night for an hour or so. I'll go and see kids belonging to friends and find them cute. But I really don't want one of my own - couldn't be doing with it 24/7.

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Thursday Thirteen #21

I'm very much losing count of the number of these I have done. DEFINITELY over 20 now.

Anyway - I have been busy for a couple of weeks with work, but also because my boyfriend's sister and her fella have visited us, and afterwards we have been to stay with two of our friends who were renting a cottage not far from here.

And that has been fantastic - It has fitted around my work. My boyfriend has had time off.

Here are 13 pictures from our trip to a cottage near Inveraray yesterday.

the cottage

the banks of Loch Fyne

friends

plantlife.... my boyfriend's a botanist.

studying a mushroom...

blogging

hi - sorry I haven't been here much. I have been pretty busy working and sleeping and visiting blogs for a quick catch-up and working and sleeping.

I will have time again next week. Honest.

P.S. Wales were knocked out of the Rugby World Cup yesterday. I am sad.

P.P.S. (and this will sound weird)... I read a blog post about toilet etiquette the other day but can't remember whose blog it was. Does anyone know?

congratulations!

Congratulations to my wee brother who has just got himself a REAL writing job starting in the Big Smoke next week!

Wales 72 - 18 Japan

final score.

Wales v Japan!

Come on Wales!! (we're doing ok at the moment)

There's a player on at the moment who shares my name. My real name when shortened is a boy's name in Wales. I'm (he's) doing pretty bloody well.

Thursday Thirteen #22

Thirteen things we did at Brownies on Tuesday to prepare for Talk Like A Pirate day.

(in the order of the evening)

1. Practised Pirate Speak (with this to continue all night)

2. Made Eye Patches

3. Made a Jolly Roger flag each (red paper, black skull and crossbones)

4. Stuck the flags around the hall to make our 'pirate ship' really scary.

5. Asked them to sit quietly (ha ha ha... as if they've EVER managed that. And when they're all excited about getting to pretend to be pirates and make stuff then there really was NO chance) to get instructions for the TREASURE HUNT.

6. Started the treasure hunt. Instructions had been to tick off each picture as they found it and to sit on the floor as soon as they had found them all. I had stuck a picture under a table so knew that they would have a bit of trouble and I should be able to tell if they were cheating. Unfortunately they didn't TICK the pictures off on their sheet, but ripped the pictures off the wall as they found them. So as soon as one person found a picture, the hunt was made impossible for any of the others. I stopped the treasure hunt.

7. I explained that I had to stop the quiz because they hadn't listened to me as they had been shouting out. I explained that nobody could win - so there would be no treasure.

8. We played chinese whispers with Pirate phrases to try to calm them down a bit.

9. It seemed to work. So we gave Port/Starboard a go. This is a great game.

10. We sat down and learnt the song off the US Pirate day website.

11. We stood up to sing another song about pirates that some of them knew already and is great as it has actions including jumping, swaying, rubbing your tum and miming rum drinking... mmm... rum. It goes: When I was 1, my life begun, the day I went to sea, I jumped aboard a pirate ship and the captain said to me, we're going this way that way forwards and backwards over the Irish Sea, a bottle of Rum to fill my tum and that's the life for me! and so on up to 10.

12. They sat back down and I gave them some pieces of eight (chocolate coins) and a gold-wrapped sweet each.

13. Parents collected them. Phew!

International Talk Like A Pirate Day19 September

(scroll down for pirate stuff WITH words!)

Pirate Videos... with words

USA WEBSITE
UK WEBSITE

Manic Monday - Crisp

LINK - blog was getting too slow with all the pirate pics

This is Haken Hardenberger... MANY years ago but already an amazing player with the purest sound and crispest articulation that a trumpeter could dream of.

I have had a masterclass from him - which I don't remember at all but I'm told didn't react well to... I think he criticised me (which was fair enough as I was playing a piece that a friend had dared me to play but didn't really know that well) and I presume I didn't like it... but I can't remember what he said at all.

Social Whirl

Well in Glasgow it seems that everyone is going out all of a sudden.

The summer lull (of holidays and lack of cash) is over and all my friends are shaking off their reverie.

And I'm loving it! As it goes - the lack of cash for me is not QUITE over, but school's back and gig money is starting to come in, so it's easing.

Next weekend is my Dad's 60th birthday party. We're having a day at the races. I've never been but my boyfriend is quite excited and is dying to have a flutter on the gee gee's (first time I've ever used that phrase!!).

Blackberries are ready, and the apple tree in the garden below mine has started to throw down some fruit over the fence for us too.

All in all it's quite nice at this time of year.

Visiting

My blog-hopping was interrupted last night by some friends inviting me round for some drinks.

I remember coming home, eating, watching some telly and checking my e-mail. I imagined that I was in bed fairly quickly.

My boyfriend just rang - he was at work early this morning and was ringing in case I had overslept. He said 'how are you feeling?'.

Now this phrase immediately sets off alarm bells in my head. Why is he asking that? Did I say something really stupid? Did I do something really embarassing? Or is he just asking because I was evidently too drunk having gone out without eating any breakfast, much lunch or any dinner?

It seems it was the latter although he also says I was online for AGES and he left me to it, putting himself to bed long before I'd finished... which I don't remember quite the same way.

So it'll be a day of long juice drinks and paracetamol. Woo hoo.

Thursday Thirteen #21

Thirteen first places I visited when I got my broadband back!!!

1. hotmail
2. facebook
3. akelamalu
4. blue country magic
5. burekaboy
6. coco
7. gattina
8. island life
9. maryam
10. queenie
11. bond
12. Turnbaby
13. Annelisa

After e-mail checking I pretty much went through my blogroll from the top (and it's alphabetically sorted) visiting all the blogs I have had trouble with since I lost broadband. These are mainly ones with video, music, photos or radio content that I haven't been able to see.

This is not the whole list of places I visited by any means.

wooo hoooo!

I have broadband!!!!!!!!! so i'm coming to visit x

Wales v Canada!

Today is the rugby world cup round 1 (group stage) Wales v Canada match.



COME ON WALES!!!!



I love rugby... I love the Welsh team.



As to the Canadians - I note that there are a few mullets and quite a lot of long hair. Why is this? Is it fashionable in Canada?

result

42 - 17 to Wales of course!