Singing it's a wonderful Christmas

Nearly a hundred years ago, my grandparents met when singing in their church choir. I never heard my grandmother, Mary (said Marie) singing because she died before I was born. But her sister. Bess, taught her daughter, my aunt, to sing Irish folk songs, remembering all the verses. Her brother, Charles, was once approached to train as a tenor in the States because his voice was so good. My parents enjoyed music, my father in an amateur operatic society, and at home my mother playing the piano and the family singing, but I didn't know this history of singing in the family, until decades later. Like my grandparents I joined a chapel choir accompanying on guitar. I discovered how much fun singing is, and sang for my own pleasure throughout my twenties and thirties. Sadness and pain in my mid-forties stopped me singing.

Next Stage Choir: It's a wonderful Christmas

Some years ago, on a short acting school week (blogged at Itch scratched)  I rediscovered the joy of singing, and singing with others. I looked for singing lessons locally and tried a couple of choirs, but nothing worked until in February 2018 a new local community choir, Next Stage Choir started in our town. And loved its ambiance.
I love singing. I like the enthusiastic people I sing with. I enjoy the female friendship (not so many women in my work or tae kwon do), and the projects we have done and lined up to do. Our latest project has been to produce an album of Christmas songs. Here's a photo of the CD when it was released at midnight at the start of December.
We sound good. You'll enjoy listening and perhaps sing along when you download it (Amazon, Spotify, iTunes). If you want a CD, let me know and I'll get you one.
I wish I could share this news with my family - my mother who played the piano, my aunt who sang Irish tunes, and those grandparents who passed me the passion for singing when they married nearly a hundred years ago.

Another father's day

 Another year, another father's day, another birthday

Gliding field at La Motte du Caire, end of the day

Not
http://www.cvvmc.com/index.php/en/webcams

Father's day

Yesterday was Father's day, the first year I've had no father.  I am not complaining though because some, like my children, lost their father before they hit double figures. I knew mine for decades.
He taught me to swim, taking me to Southport baths when I was tiny.

Father-of-the-bride

He advised me in my teens, "if you can't be good, be careful". He joked, with reference to our gliding, in his father-of-bride speech , "may all your thermals be little ones".
He proudly held up my gown hood when I achieved my OU degree in my thirties.
He enjoyed playing with our children in the following decades, taking them swimming at Richmond baths.

Achieved my first degree

As my mother's sight faded, my dad came into my life more and more, still supporting my life, as he helped our mother. His relationship with and attitude to Mum was the model I wanted for the men I chose as my husbands, my children's father and their step father. I'm lucky I had a good father, a father I knew, a father who loved me. I'm lucky I had him so long.
I wish my children could have had the same experiences.

Up, not about

My father is out of hospital after several weeks.  He and my mother are together to celebrate their 65 wedding anniversary.    But their spirits are not up.  Mum is happier now that Dad is with her, but he's bed bound, not only can't get up and out of bed but can hardly turn himself in the bed.  His only comfort is listening to audio books.  Mum was eating with other people in the care home till he came out, and now her only company is him.
As aged Aunty E keeps saying "it's old age and dry rot!" And Mum and Dad feel rotten.
Nevertheless, their loyal younger friends in the parish gathered today for their anniversary mass, signed a card for them, iced a cake and sent sweet smelling jasmine.  Mum and Dad must have done something special to have so many people care.

a Good Day

June 17th
Both my children today are having good days. Although neither has spoken to me, I've heard from them electronically. One texted that she's:

"Off to Bordeaux! :))"

which means she's got good end of second year university exam results. The other has Facebooked:

"Done"

which means he has taken his last university exam this morning and is relieved.

It's beautiful weather.

And a Good Day.

Growing old

My mother's loosing her sight. So's my father. She's got the dry type of macular degeneration. They can't do anything for it. My father needs a magnifying glass to read the computer, or any official papers - none of which are ever written big enough.

His sister remarked sadly how he always used to have a book in his hands.

My mother can't see the smudges on her own clothes, but depends on someone else to warn her. If someone comes up to her in the street to say hello she doesn't know from looking at them who it is, so she's asked people to say their name, but they forget she can't see. I forget.

My mother now can't comment on what I'm wearing, whether I look business-like or smart. I miss that. We forget she can't see us, so my father nods when she asks a question, or says things like, "I'm just putting this here" and she can't see what this is or where here is.

I mustn't come into the room silently because she may not hear me, either because she doesn't hear too well now, or because she's listening to tapes. My father has discovered BBC podcasts and is going to download some to burn to a CD for her to listen to on her mp3 player. You need a good friend like that when your facilities fail you and you get dependent on others.

Oxford Gliding Club barbecue evening

We went to the Oxford Gliding Club barbecue evening yesterday - all of us, husband, son, daughter and our two Austrian visitors.

My first barbecue there was August, 1976. They really are a friendly club, welcoming us, though I haven't visited for some years. Several people came and chatted, some remembering me and some even recognising son & daughter as their father's children. They told son and daughter tales of their father, about the decca navigation system he made, and a speed gun avoidance device that confused the doppler effect of the police radar gun. It read 140mph when he was doing 40.

The food was delicious and heaps of it for mere pounds: salmon, pork crackling, salads galore followed by three varieties of pudding. I thought the Austrian girls were falling asleep, but they woke up enough to charge their way through the crowds for at least three helpings of strawberries, then went back to play on the swings.

There were bottles of bubbles on the tables for us to play with.

One of the pilots was a flame juggler - if I'd known there'd be such entertainment I'd have taken my Flip video. Then someone produced those noisy twirly balloons that fly into the sky and around with a screech, like they are live animals. We had fun with those.

I was having such a good time that my children had to drag me away so that they could get to bed.

Old age

My father skyped me. My octogenarian parents are computer savvy. They were using word processors in the nineteen eighties and have been using email for years. They like using Skype, and my mother bought me a video camera so she could see me when she skypes.

But Dad said that his eyesight has got very much worse, very quickly over the last few weeks, and now he can't read a newspaper. When he eventually got his camera working on Skype, I could see him peering over it with his magnifying glass. I hope there are lots of web sites with big print that says, 'press here for automatic text reading.'

And he's grown a beard! Last time he had a beard was in the 1970s, though he had a red moustache in the 1950s. He looks good with his grey beard.