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.
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