2008 Music Festival Sucess

It’s Sunday morning, wet and windy so the perfect time to blog. Eric has gone fishing off Arapuni dam but I can’t imagine he’ll stay long. He came home with a nice trout a few weeks ago and took a photo of it. At the same time he took this photo of me as several people were asking for photographic evidence of my weight loss. I reckon it must be pretty impossible to visualise me un-fat as my entire life I have sat between overweight/obese and even bordered on grossly obese early last year. So here is a ‘on-the-way-to-goal’ photo taken in work clothes and very unglamorous.

Such a contrast to Helens ‘princess-at-the-palace’ photo’s. She looked a million dollars, just look un-fat but you get the point.

The camera was actually out for this photo:

A few things of note in the Tanner household this last few weeks. As almost the whole world already knows but I have to record in these Tanner Family records, we had a very successful time in Wellington last weekend. As Harriette said recently to someone “As you’ve probably heard already, Mom’s been telling anyone who’ll listen” To put in context; Harriette and Alice belong to Waikato Schools Symphonic Band. I landed the job of managing it about 18 months ago. WSSB belongs to the NZ Concert Band Association and they hold a festival each year where bands perform for gold, silver or bronze awards. Last year we got them there in a haphazard fashion (regular readers will remember the drama of loosing our conductor at short noticeetc) and they got a silver award. We had some great stand-in conductors including the effervescent Simon Brew who I am sure will be evident on the global stage in years to come. Anyway, I digress. This year’s trip. We flew down on Thursday morning from Hamilton. We had 27 10-17year olds, 8 parents, 1 conductor and her 3 year old daughter, Ellie. Some parents came down Thursday evening, including Eric. Paul (treasurer) and I were at a mayoral reception when they arrived. There is a story attached to the dress I wore for that. On reviewing my, now rather extensive, wardrobe I decided that I needed, but did not have, a LBD (little black dress). No trips to Hamilton were planned between this decision and Wellington so I headed into Matamata with exactly what I wanted in my minds eye, but not very hopeful of finding it. I happened to park outside the Salle Army op shop (charity shop) and thought I’d have a quick look. Walked in and the 3rd item in on a rack labelled ‘newly arrived’ was the LBD I had in my head. I tried it on, emerged from the changing room to look in the mirror and the lady said “That looks like it was made for you” $10 (about GBP3)!!! What a bargin. I was thrilled. Clicky court shoes with a tiny heel (I never wear heels), sheer stockings (I don’t wear anything other than socks. She closest I ever get to glamour is Tesco’s 30 denier black tights in the winter) a few bits of jewellery and I felt great. And guess what. I got no photos!!!! And all to go out with a man I was not married to!!! Eric was there when we got back and it was only a short affair. The reception was small but very pleasant. We had intended popping in and making our exit as soon as possible but ended up almost being shown the door as the last to leave!! The food was excellent, very nouvelle cuisine, and the wine was plentiful. Back at the YHA we settled in to a evening of chat and relaxation, and plenty of wine as the headache I woke at 4am testified to. I was actually glad I did wake then. It gave me chance to rehydrate (3 glasses of water and 2 mugs of tea taken back to our room) and take some paracetamol. At least by 7am when I got up I was then able to function. I had absolutely no idea I had drunk so much but Eric assured me I did!!!

So, Friday. The problem we had in Wellington was, having flown down we were transportless down there. I had hired a bus for airport transfers and to get us to the festival venue but left the rest to walking. This was OK as the YHA hostel is very central and only 15 mins walk from the venues we needed to get to. OK unless you are carrying large instruments. Anyway. We got a shuttle to get us to a church where were doing a small public performance (as practice really). Youth Band were lending us their drums for this, or so we thought. They were also meant to be performing. Anyway, on our way there (another bus hire) I got a call to say they would not be coming. The message I got was that their conductor had decided they weren’t coming. We were then left with the problem of no percussion. Amanda (conductor) and the percussionists did a great job of improvising. Sam stamped his feet (reading music) to represent the tymps and Tim used a combination of his dinking practice drum plate and a chair to drum on, along with the tiny splash cymbal!!! Amanda asked the audience to imagine a full set of drums!! Added to this problem was another 30 mins to fill. Amanda then suggested to the audience that the ensemble and soloists might like to perform!

As well as our 30 min band performance we had entered 3 solos and an ensemble for the festival. The ensemble was a modified clarinet quartet consisting of Harriette, Alice and 2 Matamata College school friends, Bec’s and Jacqueline. Alice played bass clarinet and Harriette did something with the music to suit her tenor sax. They did an arrangement of ‘Puttin On The Ritz’. The solos were Brenda (only 10 years old) on flute, Ania (a friend of Alice’s and a very advanced flutist) and Alice on clarinet. I must admit that I thought Alice had a piece that was rather to advanced for her level of play Eine Kliene Musik by Hayden. Anyway they guys then played their pieces, which was the first time the rest of the band had heard them. Luckily Paul King, the girls itinerent teacher and technical advisor to the Youth Band was in the audience so was on hand to tune them.

So, this performance completed we moved across the road to the NZ Air Force band rooms for the solo and ensembles festival performance. Alice and the ensemble was recorded and can be found on this website. The recordings are not good and Alice has had to be squashed to fit the page. She’s not fat really!! But you’ll get the idea.
www.youtube.com/user/schoolsband. I was very proud of them all. This all completed we then went back to the hostel for free time. The younger kids were organised to go to Te Papa/shopping etc with parental supervision and the older ones given rules for hitting the shops (taking cellphones/buddying etc). We organised a shuttle to collect instruments from the church and I ended up on Cuba Street shopping. Not sure where Eric was at this time! I ventured into a little secondhand bookshop and had a great find. Many years ago I went out with a guy called Peter for several years. He was a great fan of fantasy fiction and bought me the complete works of Tolkien at one point. It was totally lost on my and somewhere along the line these books and I parted ways (much to Harriettes chagrin!). Peter was a huge fan of Mervin Peake’s Gormanghast trilogy and I have been trying to find these books for Harriette for years now. My enquiries are usually greeted with blank faces. I have at some point found the 3rd book. At this shop the guy said, “You’re in luck. I normally have one or two of them in but at the moment I have the whole set” I was delighted.

The evening consisted of an early tea and an early night as our competition perfomance was at 9.30am, which meant being at the venue for 8.30am for practice and tuning. That meant breakfast from 6.30am. Eric and I had a terrible night. Got to be at a reasonable time but the rest of the hostel had other ideas. The noise went on til late then we were woken at 4am by drunk German girls. At 4.30am I hurtled out the room to yell at 3 Arab boys talking very y by the lifts. I must have looked such a sight with hair all over the place and hanging onto PJ’s that were far too large for me and I had pulled on in a temper/hurry and that I could not tie up properly as I was so angry. I don’t think I got back to sleep properly so started Saturday exhausted!

Breakfast and loading the group up went OK. About 5 of the Youth Band members also play with us but of course they were billeted with their band so just appeared intermittently. Setting up the stage was a bit of the challenge as the tymphs were the wrong side of the stage. The are pretty big and the stage manager did his best to persuade us we could manage with them where they were. I dug my heels in though. One big worry had been what to do with Ellie when Amanda was conducting. Her usual position is at Moms feet waving her own baton around with ear defenders on (she always complains the band play to loudly!). This obviously wasn’t going to be appropriate and Ellie hates me (I am usually the one dragging her away from her mom to her protestations) so who would be the best parent to manage her. Well Eric was handed this job. She seemed to have taken to him. He has this effect on 3-5 year girls. (Witness Sophie at my god-daughter’s christening and Steffie in SA). She was as good as gold with him and sat quietly on his lap though the performance of our group and the one before. The band performed fanstastically and were so much better than the one before!! Not that I am biased of course. We than had to wait until the evening to get the adjudicators report and results. We watched a few other bands and then Youth Band perform at mid-day. They are NZ’s leading symphonic band and are pretty big numbers-wise so sounded great. We then headed back, Eric and I, Paul, Karen and our children + Bec’s dwaddled on the way back going for a coffee in Cuba Street and then splitting up to do some shopping. Eric and I went back to the bookshop where I bought Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘When We Were Orphans’ which I am currently reading and thoroughly enjoying.

In the evening we organised an early tea and a bus to get them to Wellington High School for the awards ceremony. The NZ Central Airforce Band were the guest performers for the evening. Sounds really boring I know but they were great fun. The ensembles and solos were awarded first in alphabetical order, which made us second to last. They got to us and said “Waikato Schools Symphonic Band” and looked at the award, then put it to one side. He then moved on the Youth Band!!!! He then said “That concludes the solos and ensembles awards” Panic hit our guys and I had to go around reassuring them that it would be sorted. I had been told earlier in the day that the adjudicator had “Been very pleased with the ensemble” so I knew they would be getting something. More music was played (with my heart in my mouth) and then they said there were a few more awards to make, our 4 and one other. To this day I don’t know why that happened.

(Alice is still sitting on the bed regaling the Batman movie to us (it’s going on and on and I’m not listening!!) She has just had Eric in stitches saying that Batman got ravaged by a dog. I think she meant savaged!!!)

Anyway, the ensemble got Gold (we sreamed!) Alice and Ania got silver and Brenda got bronze. When it came to the bands award I went and got Ellie from Amanda (she was sparko) so Amanda could go and collect our award. When they announced Gold I leapt up and screamed. Dear Ellie stayed fast asleep!! The scream that came from Youth Band dwarfed even ours. They were rapt for us. We were on cloud 9 for the rest of the weekend, week I would say. I deliberately did not arrange a bus back, firstly it was a downhill walk and secondly they needed the cool off period. Luckily it was a lovely warm evening, considering it is mid-winter!

Back at the hostel we bought ice cream from the supermarket over the road (open until midnight luckily) and the ensemble performed in the dining room, to the delight of the other residents. It was a great evening.

Sunday we had a very late breakfast and organised groups to go to Te Papa (the national museum) before packing everyone off to the airport. Back at Hamilton we entered the arrivals lounge to applause and flowers for Amanda and I! I was so touched.

I so wanted to get to bed early on Sunday but was determined to get emails off to all the 11 school principals so was up until 11.30pm doing that! I find that school kids here get lots of recognition for sporting achievements but not a lot for music. I wanted to be sure that the news got to the schools in a timely manner.

The following few days I contacted local papers etc to advertise the bands success so am hoping for some coverage this coming week and maybe some new recruits.

Phew!!!

The other thing I have to mention is Freckles new calf. He arrived under rather difficult circumstances. So difficult we had to get the vet out. Eric fed out on Wednesday morning and found Freckles had 2 feet sticking out. She did not seem to be making any progress so came up to get me to hold her while he examined her. He could not find the head at all and thought the calf might be dead. We called Vikki, the vet who, after a bit of a struggle delivered this little feller. We are calling him Victor after Vikki. Mom and baby are both fine.

A Frosty Sunday Morning in August

It’s freezing!!!! Literally. We have had an incredibly mild, but wet winter. In fact last week storms battered the place. Mom and Daddy’s area was particularly badly hit though not them personally (except a tree down). The papers are full of aerial photos of the flooding around parts of the Waikato river. However, the temperatures have rarely been in single figures and only a few days ago I said I thought we had seen the end of frosts for this year. We’d had 3. I was wrong!

The music of Einaudi fills the house this weekend. I recently discovered him and bought a 4 box CD from Amazon. It arrived on Friday. The girls love it and so I burnt them copies. I have several Classic FM compilations and on looking up particular tracks whose music I was enjoying without knowing who the composer was (one being the theme from ‘In My Father’s Den’ – a fabulous film – with great music) I discovered that several of them were Einaudi’s. Googled him and fell in love. No, not with him those he’s not bad looking (Italian though!), with his wonderfully relaxing music. Based around the piano it is sometimes very simple. So much so that I find myself trying to identify how the music is structured and what other instruments are involved. This does take away the relaxing component though. I listened to it trying to go to sleep one night and found I couldn’t as I was not just ‘listening’ I was really listening!

Schools band is taking up a lot of my time at the moment. We fly to Wellington next Thursday to participate in the NZ Concert Band Association National Festival. Not to be mixed up with brass bands or big bands (both of which I hate!) these guys are playing some great music, and really well. Music from; Pirates of the Caribbean, Chicago and the like. The band had about 14 members when Harriette joined and I took over as manager. We now have 37!! I’m really chuffed with that. I am also on a bit of a recruiting drive at the moment as the Festival is the end of our year and after that we start all over again working towards next year. A good time to get newbies, particularly as some members may move up to the Youth Band. I am really pleased that Eric is joining us in Wellington. We three do so much ‘band’ stuff without Eric that it is nice to have him with us for this. We fly down on Thursday morning and get them settled into the Youth Hostel. Thursday evening Paul (treasurer) and I attend a mayoral reception. Amanda, our conductor fly’s in later with Eric and 4 others. Friday is a lunchtime concert then Harriette and Alice’s ensemble (with friends Jac’s and Bec’s). Saturday the band performs for the competition proper at 9.30am, which is good in that they don’t have too long to be nervous but the audience I would imagine will be smaller than it will be later in the day. Later they have our 3 solo’s (including Alice) interspersed with Youth band’s solo participants. Youth Band are very supportive of us with some of their members helping out weekly at our practices. Some of them also perform with us. Saturday evening is the awards ceremony and Sunday is a chill out day, some shopping and probably a trip to Te Papa (the national museum 2 mins from the hostel) then an afternoon flight home. I think I should have booked Monday as a day off to recover!! Wish us luck.

We have added to our arsenal of instruments. Harriette bought herself a guitar/case/teach yourself CD and book package with birthday money and we bought Alice a wooden, professional clarinet. I’m now wondering if we can fit a baby grand into the house! (Only joking Eric. Well maybe…….)

With a heavy frost you know it’s going to be a sunny day. I am sitting here in bed looking out onto a gorgeous frosty morning (Eric even put a beanie on to go and feed out) knowing I should get up and go and do something productive. Later.

Our drive is in a desperate state of disrepair. The potholes are huge, particularly on the steep sloped bit. We have a contractor booked. He said he’d start in July time, weather permitting. It didn’t. Then it was going to be when the schools went back but the storms have meant they are busy with the repairs that bought in. It is going to be a huge job with all the trees coming out. We have been splitting wood at the rate of knots from the huge Mexican pine that was at the top of the drive and a few other trees Eric has dropped. We will have enough wood to see us through the next decade when these guys have finished. I can see a lot of weekends spent with a log splitter over the coming months. I am sooooo looking forward to getting it done though. I am quite depressed at the state of the garden at the moment. We are having a retaining wall put in opposite the north aspect (our sunny side don’t forget) of the house and until it is done there is no point working on anything in the garden. Consequently it’s the pits. Muddy and messy. Roll on spring.

We are also planning (still!) the extension and up-grading the bathrooms. Eric is still drawing up plans. I am getting a bit fed up with all the talk and little action. I can see me moaning at some time in the future when it all seems to be happening at once and I can’t get cars up the drive for contractors, or do anything in the house for dirt from the work on bedroom extensions or bathroom renovations! It will be sooo good when it is all done though.

Another big thing in my life at the moment is my weight loss. All my life I have been fat. The only thing that has varied is the degree, greater over recent years. The only brief respite from this was when I was very sick in the mid-90’s. I now confess that I was sitting in a large 18/20 dress size 18 months ago. 2 weeks ago I went into a department store when they were having their end of season sale. I reckoned I must be a 14 now (a life’s dream had been to fit comfortably into a 14) and gathered up an armful of skirts and trousers and headed to the changing room. They were all too big (bar one pencil skirt). I ended up in 12’s and a size 10 pair of trousers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never have I ever even dreamed of getting into size 10. I was on cloud 9 for a week. I still have 8kg’s to go but have lost about 30. I am so proud of myself and relishing in the fantastic comments I am getting from people, particularly those who haven’t seen me for awhile. It’s also nice to see how pleased Eric, Harriette and Alice are with me. Harriette hugs me and says things like ”You’re so skinny now”. Skinny being a relative term, I’m not skinny, I’m just not fat! How have I done it? Weight Watchers. I have tried, and failed with WW’s before. This time I kept 2 thought in my head. 1) I can’t beat the system (I used to tell myself that I could cheat and still loose weight – I couldn’t) and 2) If I don’t go to WW’s how much will I weigh this time next year? If I do, how much will I weigh this time next year? I am not the perfect WW’s client. My weight fluctuates hugely and I have big weight gains interspersed with gains and plateaus. But… here I am, nearing my goal, feeling great and buying size 12 clothes! I can run almost all, of my 3.5km route now. I do still walk for 2 mins twice during it but I’m working on that.

As I’m typing there is a programme on the radio about Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). It takes me back to those miserable days when I suffered so badly with ulcerative colitis. I spent over a decade uncontrolled and on huge doses of steroids with the disease totally dominating my life. It culminated in me being acutely ill and requiring a total colectomy (removal of the large bowel) as an emergency when both the girls were babies. It was a miserable time for us all and I cannot be more grateful for being able to put all that behind me, and coming through it without a permanent ileostomy. I still have occasional problems (those bouts of severe abdo pain I was suffering last year until I got to grips of what causes them) and going anywhere were there is no access to a loo (eg into the bush/ on a long car journey etc) still takes a bit of forethought, but, I am well, do not live in the loo now or suffer almost continuous gripping pains. Thank God for modern medicine.

It’s no good. The sunshine and outdoor chores are calling. I must go.