Saturday 30th June - more on music exams

The other day I was chatting with a teaching colleague who was all of a fluster, becuase she was about to have a lesson observed by another teacher.

"You always look so confident", she said to me, despairingly.

Well, actually, no, I'm not that confident.

On Sundays, when I am sitting at the organ bench, my hands are poised over the first notes of the hymn, but shaking so much that it is going to be a miracle if my fingers land on the right keys. (And they usually do. Not always. But often enough).

During the week, I face classes of 20 - 40 children and attempt to deliver high quality music lessons. I am used to having my lessons hi-jacked, side-tracked, heckled, sabotaged, and diverted by the behaviour of the children, the demands of the school schedule, power cuts, equipment failure, and sometimes by my own lack of judgement, for example in choosing the wrong activity, or having done insufficient planning beforehand. (The lessons are usually good. Sometimes they are, let's say, "unsatisfactory". Sometimes they are brilliant, even if I say so myself.)

I am often observed informally, by my colleagues who teach alongside me, by the class teachers who may join in with enthusiasm, or sit critically on the sidelines, and sometimes observed formally, by my line managers or even Ofsted inspectors.

So, how is it that I appear to be so confident?

I started playing in the the local music festival at the age of 5; climbing up the steep stairs onto the stage, walking half a mile to the huge grand piano, facing acres of seating filled with thousands of faces, lisping out the name of my piece, "Speak up, little girl, say it again, I can't hear you" and then rattling through "Sailor's Dance" or "Toccatina" or whatever. (Okay, so it was the local community centre with maybe fifty children and parents sitting in about four rows of seats. Seemed like more.)

I started doing music exams at the age of about 8, right through to sixth form. I took my teaching diploma when I was in my thirties, after being made redundant from my job in the computer department. Even now, I do a music exam every couple of years in order to have first hand experience of how the exam is presented to my students. (The last was Grade 1 violin and I am very proud of getting a merit, although I still maintain that if I had been forty years younger it might have been more!)

This training has taught me that it is possible to function, and even excel, when inwardly I am jellified with terror. It has been invaluable preparation for job interviews, driving tests, and all the stressy events in a normal adult life.

Saturday 30th June - Music exams.....

There is a lot of debate as to whether testing and exams and all that kind of pressure is good or bad for children. I don't have a single, dogmatic point of view. Yes, exams are BAD becuase they put children under pressure. Yes, exams are GOOD becuase they teach children how to deal with pressure.

Yesterday I accompanied a host of young children taking music exams. It is fascinating work, and work it certainly is. I have been fortunate to have had several rehearsals with these children, so I had a rough idea of where the dodgy moments were likely to be, but once you are in the exam room, all bets are off, and you have to be ready for anything - everything.

There were two that stood out.

There was the the supremely confident young person (let's preserve anonimity here) who is (almost annoyingly) full of chat and riposte in "everyday" life and plays confidently and descisively in the practice room, and then visibly shrank in terms of apparent size, age, confidence an character. The young person played competently and accurately, but all the bounce and pzazz had been left behind in the corridor. For them, it was a sobering experience, but I'm sure they will have bounced back by now, and I am equally sure that they will receive their certificate in due course.

The other was a shy, diffident, almost silent young person, whose main communication in rehearsals had consisted of nods, quick smiles, anxious looks and occasionally a few whispered words. They shivered their way along the corridor, shifted from foot to foot while waiting to play. And then the magic began; they sparkeld, their eyes shone, they were hopping with excitement in between pieces, came back into the waiting room grinning from ear to ear, unable to speak from the joy of the experience.

Both children will have had an important experience. One has learned to "feel the fear, and do it anyway", and has discovered how to control their nerves and get through the ordeal. The other has also learned to "feel the fear and do it anyway", and discovered that they absolutely thrive on what appeared to be terrifying ordeal.

So, for many children, music exams are an important learning tool and preparation for "real life".

Sunday 24th June - Fantasy Project number 1

This isn't really fantasy project number one - really more like number 1001. But it is travelling more briskly through the highways and byways of creating plans, researching, comparing prices,
feasibility planning.

Here's a clue;

I'm not sure that it will ever come to anything. Most of my projects just fizzle (seen any additions to the knitting project recently? no? QED).

Travelling hopefully is often very much better than arriving at reality.

But next year I will have very much less work than I have now, and I could do with finding something fun, energising and preferably remunerative to fill the empty hours.

Or I could just stay at home get on with gardening, housework, DIY. That's a really horrible thought.

Sunday 24th June - Why I teach piano

Why do I teach piano?

It is not for the joy of hearing beautiful music every evening, although I was moved to tears by the beauty of one girl's performance of her exam piece this week - and that is a rare event.

I am more likely to be exercising the most severe self-control as the child seated next to me blithely announces that they haven't practised what we spent all the lesson working on, and now they can't remember how to do it. Which means repeating last week's lesson before we can move on. Grrrr.

What has made me supremely happy this week is one young pupil at the end of a fairly trying lesson. She managed, finally, to play the phrase we had been working on, with the correct notes, fingering and rhythm, instead of what she had fecklessly allowed herself to learn.

She turned, gave me a beaming smile and said, "I made my brain force my fingers to get it right."

Halleluia.

I gave her a complete sheet of stickers, and wrote what she had said in her notebook.

That's what I call Progress.

Sunday 24th June - accommodating the cats

At night, both cats, the upstairs cat and the downstairs cat, are shut in the kitchen. We have a slight problem at the moment; the upstairs cat has taken to sleeping on the breadboard because the downstairs cat won't let it have the vegetable rack.


They used to have bunk-beds in the vegetable rack, which worked quite well, apart from fights over who got to sleep in the top bunk.


Then one night, the whole arrangement collapsed, literally, and  neither cat was prepared to sleep in the bottom bunk.

We have taken steps to ensure that breadboard is no longer available as a place of comfort and repose. Besides, she has a perfectly good washing-up-bowl to sleep in.

Saturday 23rd June - So unreliable

Actually, I mean my posting, on this blog, is so unreliable at the moment.

That's because at this stage of the school term, everything goes haywire.

To start with, there are the end-of-term concerts in the school Wider Opportunities programmes (we try and put on some kind of concert/celebration/open lesson every term to share what the children have learnt with parents and the rest of the school).

When it is the Summer Term, there is the added hassle of sorting out the checking of all the Wider Opportunities instruments before they are returned to the Music Services; this year I will be checking, cleaning, reporting and maybe doing minor repairs on
60 treble recorders, 20 Lyons C clarinets, 30 Bflat clarinets, 60 keyboards, and 100 djembes.

 












If you allow maybe 5 minutes and 22 seconds for each instrument (ABRSM precision) that comes to an extra I-can't-be-bothered-to-work-out-exactly-how-many hours and minutes and seconds.

We also have to try and liaise with the schools where we will be teaching the Wider Opportunities programmes next year to try and get all the arrangements in place before the end of term.

Then there are the music exams, which entail extra lessons for those uneager beavers who still haven't learnt that awkward bit at the top of page two, or can't face dealing with F major broken cords.

I also get extra work as an accompanist for instrumental exams, which means scheduling rehearsals, and rearranging my normal timetable in order to get to the exam centre; the timings are absurdly precise; 11:17 until 12:19, for example, but they really do try and keep to the timetable. The people who run the trains could do worse than study the administration and logistic skills of the ABRSM Music Exams systems.

Anyway, all the above means that I become unreliable. Normal service will possibly be resumed after 20th July;   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQkU6fHP0fM

Saturday 23rd Saturday - New Year's Resolution (the chocolate one)

I made two New Year's Resolutions this year; indeed, making them was an entirely New Resolution for me, as up until now I have never bothered. I don't see the point of setting myself up to fail.

The first resolution was to take a bag of stuff to the charity shop every month. I've taken about four or five so far this year. I carefully didn't specify the size of the bag, or the weight/volume/quantity of the contents. If it comes to it, I can always take an extra bag or two some months to make it up. Actually, I have already resorted to that slight rubato to the tempo of the donations.

The second resolution was to have chocolate most weeks (which was why I couldn't give up chocolate for Lent).

That resolution has gone very well, but today there is no chocolate left and I haven't had anything chocolatey since yesterday evening.

I decided to make some of these flapjacks, which I think are the very first post in this blog. I wasn't really concentrating, which is why I realised too late that you weren't supposed to put everything in the saucepan in one go, but luckily it is a forgiving recipe. At the last moment, I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder, which turned out to be a very good idea.

I've taken a photograph of the chocolate flapjacks, but I clearly lack the skill of professional food stylists. I can assure you that in real life they don't look at all like dog biscuits.

That reminds me; I remember, years and years ago, scores of years ago, when we (my brother and I) were children, we used to take dog biscuits with us when we went off to play on The Common. I think they were called "shapes". They tasted alright, apart from the black ones, which I think were supposed to contain carbon to improve digestion. The dog didn't care for the black ones either.

Sunday 17th June - The cap does't fit very well at the moment

The big problem with being a Sunday School leader is when you are teaching the children about living a good, Christian life - praying, reading the bible, following Christ, including Him in your life - knowing full well that one is rubbish at doing these things yourself. Leading by the book, and not by example.

Option 1 - resign from being a Sunday School leader

Option 2 - make a proper effort to try and do what you know to be right - praying, reading the Bible, folllowing Christ, including Him in your life

Option 3 -  do nothing; just carry on and ignore the issue.

I'll try Option 2. Seems like a really good idea to me.

Sunday 17th June - Short Sweet Sermons; Scrambled Sunday School

I guess it was a sweet sermon -  don't know, I was teaching my Junior Church (age 6 - 8 yr) group their lesson as fast as I could.

Our church is in the last few weeks of an inter-regnum; that's the no-man's land (or no-woman's land; the previous vicars have all been male but the next one could have been a woman, except we know he's going to be a man. Actually, he is already a man, he's been a man all his life. Oh dear. This is all needlessly complicated) where was I? no-man's land between one vicar leaving and the next one moving in.

This means that we have been treated to a series of "Visiting Vicars"; Team clergy, NSMs (or whatever they are called these days) and various retired vicars who are happy to get stuck in from time to time. They all have very different ideas about sermons; we had got used to 35 minute detailed and comprehensive expositions of the latest sermon series, supported by manifold quotations from the Bible and a myriad of Powerpoint slides from the previous incumbent. Now each Sunday sermon is a new experience. And usually short.

We Sunday School leaders had been warned that today's sermon had been a succinct 7 minutes at the first service, so our lesson time would be shorter than expected. The sidesman would come and warn us once the sermon was underway and then the countdown would start; the 7 minute sermon plus the intercessions plus two songs (they often, but not always sing them a couple of times through as described here).

I had thought I would do the whited sepulchres, bit, but thought that the more tender hearted might succumb to nightmares. So instead I chose the bit from Matthew that goes

²⁵ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

It all started well, and I successfully coped with various diversions about tithing and human anatomy and washing before meals. I did the "dirty water in a china pitcher" demonstration of being clean on the outside and dirty on the inside, all at brisk pace to try and get the point across. I was just about to start on the craft activity based on the pictures of the human body which I had already handed out, when the sidesman (woman, actually. Or female. What do we call people nowadays? Anyway, I mean someone conventionally dressed in a frock and sandals) appeared, and I knew I was working against the clock.

Then she reappeared - the Visiting Vicar had dispensed with the songs and Sunday School was Over.

I lined the children up, made sure that they all had their handouts and chivvied them back into church. 

Wonder what the parents thought I had been teaching them today?

*Some of the organs.The pictures go from head to waist.

Satuday 16th June - catastrophe!

So we came back from the annual trip to the vet (Leo's second visit this year after she had had that close encounter with a spaniel) and the cats were vaccinated, and this time they were micro chipped as well because there was a special offer on - just £8.99 each which seemed good value.

The cats had been very reluctant to get into the cat box; Leo was shoved in first, then, with lots of hissing and spitting and growling (the cats made quite a bit of noise too) McCavity was compelled to join her sister. When we reached the vet, the cat box appeared to be empty - both cats now pressed as tightly as possible to the back of the box.

All went reasonably well - no-one got bitten or scratched, and the vet did what he had to do without untoward incidents.

It's when we got home and opened the door of the cat box that everything went drastically wrong. The cats had clearly completely swapped brains while crammed into the cat box. The downstairs cat bolted up the stairs, and then paused, horror-struck, while the upstairs cat rushed into the sitting room. Then  the upstairs cat hurtled back into the hall and tried to run upstairs, only to find the downstairs cat frozen in a panic on the top step. Neither cat could work out what to do next....

Luckily Best Beloved and I were on hand to assist the downstairs cat and the upstairs cat to their separate destinations. They crept past each other, intent on avoiding eye contact while trying to watch eachother's every move.

It took most of the rest of the day for them to recover from the ordeal.

Hopefully that's it, at least until it's Time for the Cattery....

Saturday 16th June - The cats with no brains

We have two cats; supposedly sisters, probably nine years old. The short haired one is "the upstairs cat", also known as "fraidy-cat", and properly called "Leo"; the long haired, fluffy one is "the downstairs cat", also known as "the blob" and properly called "McCavity". We didn't realise they were female when we named them.

The first pair of kittens we acquired, back in 1978,  were called Laurel and Hardy, brother and sister. The mother cat was about a quarter Siamese, so although Laurel and Hardy were black and white,like penguins, they had a lot of Siamese characteristics, especially The Voice. Laurel was the bright one, Hardy the dim one, and he only lived for a couple of years, having failed to look both ways before crossing the road.

The second pair of kittens, born in 1985, were Silver and Tigger, beautiful Burmillas, cheap, because they were breeder's rejects. They were the wrong colour; they were supposed to be palest, palest grey, but Silver was too grey and Tigger was tawny. They were also very clever and would come for walks with us across the fields outside. This was a little problematical as they hated dogs and would attack them on sight, whatever size or breed. They entertained us for sixteen years, and even now, ten years afterwards, are still sorely missed.

The current cats are very different. For a start there is no love lost between them (Laurel and Hardy, and then Silver and Tigger, would curl up together in a furry heap, but Leo and McCavity can only just cope with being in the same room). And then they are very, very, dim. At the ripe old age of 9 they have finally learnt to have conversations with people. Leo will come and tell you if she has had an adventure somewhere, and McCavity can squeak as well as purr if you stroke her ears just right.

The children maintain that Leo and McCavity share three brain cells between them. Sometimes one cat has all the brain cells at the same time, which provides a comprehensive explanation of what the other cat is doing, or not doing, and why.

Sunday 10th June - Invisibility - everyone can be a genius

I am indebted to victhevicar's latests post for this; http://victhevicar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/king-has-no-clothes.html about the current exhibition at the Hayward Gallery http://haywardgallery.southbankcentre.co.uk/2012/06/08/the-unseen-andy/

which has been reviewed here;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/18/hayward-gallery-invisible-show

It appears that the exhibits include a piece of paper that the artists has stared at, a film shot with an empty camera, a plinth that someone once stood on. Can you buy your ticket with money that you used to have?

The trouble with what I think of as "concept art" (bear in mind I am not a trained Art Historian so am probably using all the wrong jargon) is that while the concept is interesting, and discussion of the concept can be interesting, the actuality is not.

It gives me hope, though, that I can join in the local Art Trail, starting next weekend as an artist, rather than as a spectator. http://www.openhouseart.co.uk/art-trail/horsham-open-studios It will be very easy for me to knock up some invisible artworks; in the hall, I will have "The wall where the mirror used to be".

Here is a preview;








Can't see anything? Great!

The sitting room is an ideal place for an installation, made entirely of air, entitled "Watching the Jubilee on Television". A couple of dents in the cushions of the settee and chairs should do that. If I can clear the dining room table in time (tricky one, that)
http://a-letter-from-home.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sunday-27th-may-not-again.html

 

 I will have another installation consisting of the empty wooden table surface - ironically titled "Hive of Activity". The kitchen can be left as it is, titled "Place of Devastation - a concatenation of themes and associated consequences of superstore, local market and back garden sources affect the way in which food is acquired, prepared and consumed, and the resultant debris, and the ways in which packaging and other wastes are sorted and disposed of according to the nature of the substances and the provision of receptacles for each" - or some such stuff and codswallop.

I'm not sure about upstairs. Maybe I'll let them up to the bathroom and lavatory, equip them with a wallpaper scraper and invite them to make their own individual contribution to the gradual erosion of the old wallpaper, a process that has been on-going for nearly a decade.

I wonder if we can get away this idea in schools? How easy it would be. The Inspector calls, and we show him boxes and boxes of invisible evidence of the children's efforts at the "The Rs" - Literacy, Numeracy and Mark-Making. The emptier the box, the blanker the paper, the greater progress of the children. When they can finally produce a completely unmarked, pristine workbook for every subject at the end of the year, we will know that we have achieved the top level possible.

I think I will choose John Cage's 4'33'' as the own choice set piece for my music candidates next year. It's a no brainer, however you look at it.

Sunday 10th June - kernels, boots and fish kettles

I always thought kernels were the rewards for wrestling with nut-crackers at Christmas, and boots were for made for walking.

Sometimes I can understand boggy-b, and sometimes it seems as though we come from different worlds.

http://boggyb.livejournal.com/313229.html





As far as I know, boggy-b doesn't own a fish-kettle, doesn't know what they look like, and wouldn't know how to use one anyway. I can help with that;








and here is another one;



http://www.fishkettle.co.uk/



Friday 8th June - The Lawnmower - chapter 3

A real-time post - the events as they are happening.

It's still broken. You never got to hear chapter 2, nor see the photos, because one can't blog about EVERYTHING. There has to be a stop point, some when, usually around bedtime. (Last night it was when it became clear that Someone was going to have to cook something for supper NOW. Right Now.)

The lawnmower started sounding sick last Summer, if one wanted to be brutally honest. In fact, last Autumn might have been a good time to sort things out, but it went into the lawn-mower-sized space in the garage and stayed there. Out of sight, out of mind. Life moves on. Harvest. Christmas. New Year. Cold January. Miserable February. Easter.

Aaargh! Summer! Grass growing and mowing! Chapter 1 of the saga is here; worth pursuing only for the sound clip of the horrible noise it was making - the mower's website obligingly has recordings of sick lawnmowers.    http://www.briggsandstratton.com/support/frequently-asked-questions/Why%20is%20my%20new%20engine%20hunting%20and%20surging/

Chapter 2 happened after the first box of bits was delivered from the mower website; a diaphragm, I believe - I know several places where you might find a diaphragm (one is constantly trying to use it properly when singing, and the ones on our ancient Mission loudspeakers are perishing) but I hadn't realised that lawnmowers also had them. Son and father "enjoyed" some bonding time in the sun over the Jubilee weekend, and the result was that half the back lawn got mowed before the next bit broke.

Chapter 3 began with sound of someone drilling out pop-rivets in the kitchen; beleive you me this is a noise from hell, causing exquisite distress to anyone who had been enjoying a quiet morning in the sitting room. This was followed some time later by a short burst of mowing, thanks to the fitment of a new carburettor. The activity was short lived; the mower wants more attention (it is very needy, making up for all the years of neglect, I suppose.)

I am half hoping that mowing might be over for the season. Our front "lawn" looks really pretty to my eyes; buttercups and "granny-pop-out-of-bed" (plantains) and coltsfoot and clover and tall, wavy grasses and vetches and things I don't know the name of. It is quite a contrast to our neighbours' patch; they are keen gardeners and are out there mowing and clipping and edging and weeding and deadheading at every opportunity.


I'm glad I took the photo of the meadow before I started typing. After the first three swathes of grass were reduced to stubble, the mower temporarily packed up, but its going again now. Don't know whether to be glad or sorry. Reckon the neighbours will pleased, though.



Postscript; In spite of all the lawnmower's desperate attempts to avoid the work, it has been coerced into starting enough times to start the job (leaking o-ring - at least that's only pence, not punds, but requires a major disassembly). It won in the end; I'm sure it deliberately hurled itself at a lump of something or other buried in the long grass at the bottom of the garden - clunk! thunk! and that's that. Husband has appeared, hot and cross and needing a cup of tea. Lawnmower wrangling is not his favourite activity.

Thursday 7th June - Patience - (rest of title deleted)

Actually, I have run out of patience. I have had about three goes at creating a blog post, and what with interruptions and general dissatisfaction with what I was going to post and how it was going to be posted, I am giving up. So I am leaving the rest of this page blank.

No I am not - I have googled brainyquotes

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/patience.html

and here are (the printable parts of) my responses to what I found;

"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust." Gertrude Jekyll


No it doesn't. Gardening makes me cross and tired. Like housework. You work away and then a day later it as if you never bothered. But leave it too long and the consequences are overwhelming.

"Abused patience turns to fury."
Thomas Fuller

Got it in one. I'm feeling just a bit - just a teensy, weensy, little, bit - furious at the moment.

Hang on a minute here!

There are eight pages of quotations on Patience. 8!  EIGHT! This is the very last one at the end of page eight:

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul. Francis Bacon

Point taken. I think I'll try and calm down a bit. 

Wednesday 6th June - Rhythm! Pulse! Count! Use your brains!

I'll be blaring about this in www.themusicjungle.co.uk in due course. It's just that I have spent a tough hour learning some piano accompaniments and I need to stop for a rant.

It's exam season. The music exams are scheduled for middle of June through to the first week of July, which means any time soon, and I have been asked to accompany various instrumental candidates.

I will have one, maybe two run-throughs with the various candidates before their exam (apart from one enterprising junior school which pays for their candidates to have up to four weekly rehearsals where we practise playing together, and also go through the aural test requirements. They don't know how lucky they are to have all this extra time!)

In the past I have accompanied students at fairly early grades who play pieces entirely devoid of any attempt to use any other note value than crotchets; like singing

TwinkleTwinklelittlestarhowIwonderwhatyouarelikeadiamondintheskyupabovetheworldsohighTwinkletwinkleslittlestarhowIwonderwhatyouare

all in one go, leaving out the "gaps after "star", "are", "sky" and "high". It sounds silly enough with good old Twinkle - it's a total disaster if you are playing something by Gershwin. I shall never forget the stunned look on the examiner's face a couple of years ago at the end of of candidate's rendition of "I got rhythm" all in crotchets;

I-got-rhy-thm-I-got-mu-sic-I-got-my-man-Who-could-ask-for-an-y-thing-more

So now, two weeks before the exams, I am faced with a young person who has ducked the issues of pulse, note value, syncopation, and triplets. I'm sure the instrumental teacher has gone over this in detail, over and over again. I know the student is clever enough, talented enough, experienced enough, to be able to deal with the complex rhythms. It's just that they haven't knuckled down to the detailed, hard, brain-aching work of getting to grips with the music. Which, at their grade, they should have.

I am frankly terrified - my own piano part has enough going on to keep me busy - and I have no chance, at the moment, of staying together with the student unless they get their act together and learn the rhythm. In two weeks. The big challenge is to get the student to a place where they can face up to the mountain they have to climb, provide them with a way of climbing it, and all without panicking them into a state of total funk.

(Time for some primal screaming and a cup of tea before I go back to the piano)

Wednesday 6th June - Apples, potatoes, and my mother

My mother was told that if you keep an apple in with your potatoes, it stops them from putting out all those irritating hairy rootlets.

She tried it, and it works!

So, for once, I did as I was told, and put an apple in with my potatoes. It works! My potatoes live in a black fabric bag in the vacuum cleaner cupboard in the kitchen - not a hugely convenient home, but the best I can do. Last week, we bought a plastic bag of potatoes and threw them in, still sealed up in their bag, on top of the half dozen leftover spuds and The Apple. Yesterday, I went to get some potatoes, and found that the fresh ones, still in the plastic bag, are now all ready for planting out, whereas the old ones are still round and sound and, more importantly, bald. That apple had been there for about a month or so, and was wrinkled, but not rotten.

I have cooked the older potatoes, put the newer ones out on the windowsill in empty egg boxes to await planting, and retired the apple to the compost bin.

So, Useful Top Tip; keep an apple in with your potaotes,

Tuesday 5th June - semantics and services

So why is it called a church "service"? Why is it not a "gathering", "convocation", "get-together", "meeting", "convocation (Latin 'calling together', translating the Greek ecclesia;  a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose", or some similar word implying people all arriving in the same place for a common purpose?

It sounds like a yet another way of concealing what happens in church from people who are "not in the know" - or, to use a despicable and ugly and patronising and hateful (in my view) word, people who are "un-churched".

How else do we use the word "service"?

Boiler service, car service. Um. Not so good. Something that must be done at regular intervals, usually at great inconvenience, which is inordinately expensive, and has potentially horrible consequences if you ignore it.

Performing a service to, or for each other - "Service to the community" - yes, that's a positive notion.
So who are we giving the service to, and why? To each other? Do we just turn up on Sundays to make the vicar feel wanted and give the musicians (band, organist, choir, guitarist, whoever) a chance to play? It is a huge amount of work to keep the show on the road every Sunday. The columns on our rota (prepared as a loving service by a loyal and committed lady every three months, covering an entire sheet of A3 in miniscule print) include prayer ministry, flower arranging, sacristan, four columns for children's work each needing a leader and a helper, two transport columns, readers, intercessors, two columns for music leaders, song-pro, PA, and administrators (of communion wine, not paperwork). Someone else collates the weekly "Pew News" sheets and the service information, produces the masters and photocopies and folds enough for the congregations, and inserts the appropriate liturgy pages. Both wardens tend to be on duty from 8:30am (half an hour before the first services) until 1pm (an hour after the second service ends). I know, because I was a warden myself. "Sunday Lunch" was sandwiches, except on rare occasions, for about 12 years, as I was the music leader for ten years before I became warden, playing on most Sunday mornings (although we only had one service on Sundays then).      

Thinking about it, calling it a church service actually a close description of what it is.

But what is it all about? When I was wardening, and in the years before when I was leading the music, it was all too easy to get so bogged down in everything, that the real point of it all was lost.

Well, here is it. This is what it is all about.... http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A38-42&version=NIV

Luke 10:38-42

New International Version (NIV)

At the Home of Martha and Mary

³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Aha, the church service is the time when we come together and God looks after us! Unfortunately, it takes a massive amount of Martha-ing around before we get around to the Mary-ing sitting and listening bit, by which time we've usually lost the plot and become very grumpy over everything that needs to be done.

So, tell me again, because I'm still confused. What is the service for? Who is it for? Is it a "service" at all? 

Sunday 3rd June - Let's eat cake

well, drop scones, actually, as we have run out of bread.

You will need

half a pound of flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 ounces of butter all dumped into a big mixing bowl. Also a heavy, preferably non-stick frying pan, fish slice, and Internet-enabled mobile phone. Oh, and a grill pan with trivet for them to cool on.

It's a good job my scales are bilingual; the first part of my education was all wrestling with different number bases;
pounds shillings and pence (20 shillings to the pound, 12 pence to the shilling)
stones, pounds and ounces (14 pounds to the stone, 16 ounces to the pound)
gallons, pints and ounces (20 ounces to the pint, 2 pints to the quart, 4 quarts - at least that makes sense - to the gallon). The abbreviations didn't make much sense either; oz for ounce (fluid or weight), L for pound and d for penny (money), lb for pound (weight). Somewhere in that lot are rods, poles, perches, furlongs, miles, feet, yards, inches...  Today's children have it easy with all their kilogrammes and kilometres and everything in tens.

Anyway, "rub in" (that's techno speak for coat your fingers and the butter in the flour, squishing the butter slightly to increase its surface area, which you coat with flour and squish again, over and over, raising it out of the flour for the "squish" bit and dropping it back in for the "coat" bit, until the butter has become zillions of tiny bits of butter all coated in flour, and the bowl looks as if it is full of fine bread crumbs) and stir in enough milk to make something the thickness of custard. About a mugful. Probably in the region of 200ml, whatever that is in pints and ounces.

Now, let that rest while you heat the pan on a medium hot setting, and wipe a smear of butter over the surface. Switch on the mobile phone and find either http://johnthelutheran.tumblr.com/ or http://revdkathy.tumblr.com/, as these sites will help you to stay focused on the cooking of the scones, without getting distracted by reading a book or watching television.

sorry, no picture of the scones as we have eaten them all.

Using a tablespoon, make three separate puddles of scone liquid in the pan, and cook until you see bubbles forming in the surface and the edges seem to have become slightly firm. (about three or four pages on the tumblr site). Flip them over with the fish slice; the cooked surface should be golden brown. Leave them for about another three pages, and then transfer them to the grill pan to cool. Continue in this way until all the mixture is used up. 

This will make about 20 pancakes - good with cheese, or jam, or ice cream and maple syrup, or just butter. I used to make double quantity of flour/sugar/butter mix, and just use as much as I wanted, leaving the rest in the fridge. I don't know how long it will keep for in the crumb state - I had always used it up by the end of the week.

Sunday 2nd June - All kinds of tea (and coffee)

When the weather is really hot, what I like is proper cold tea to drink. In a Sunday magazine, probably twenty years ago, I read that the best way to make cold tea is to place a spoonful of fine tea (darjeeling? jasmine? Earl Grey?) in a small jug of cold water and leave overnight in the fridge. I do the cheat's version; bung a tea bag into a recycled smoothie or fruit juice bottle. Currently Clipper Tea's White Tea. Then I can fish the teabag out (it floats conveniently near the surface) and put it in with my packed lunch. The bottle. The teabag goes in the compost bin. With any luck a chill pack will have kept it (the bottle of cold tea of course - the teabag went in the compost, remember? Do pay attention, please!), and my sandwiches, cool until lunchtime, or whenever I get a chance to drink it.

Today I have indulged in a series of tea (and coffee) occasions.

It started well; coffee and croissants were on a tray ready for me once I was out of the bath, clothed, and in what passes for my right mind.

Later in the morning we went to the Santa Fe coffee shop, which is upstairs in our Waterstones bookshop, as a reward for getting up early to do the shopping. It's the first day of half term and all my decision-making ability had been used up in the supermarket, so I was unable to supply coherent answers to complicated questions such as "which coffee would you like?" (choice of 4) and "what size cup?" (choice of 3). In the end I managed to whimper "the strongest one" and make a cup shape with my hands to indicate the size. The waitress looked resigned and sorted it out for me.

Somewhere around 3pm we finally remembered that we hadn't had lunch. That delayed our arrival at the Jubilee street party until 4pm. I guess there was tea and cake on offer, but we just had an ice cream each, chatted to the one adult (a neighbour) and the three school children (I teach at the school round the corner) that I recognised, and then went on to friends down the road....

where we sat in the garden and had proper tea and home-made cakes and Jubilee shortbread from a commemorative tin. By this time it was warm and sunny; the Best kind of Bank Holiday weather. (The cake was coffee with coffee icing and walnuts on top. I had two pieces.)

It wasn't really a cold tea sort of day, apart from an hour or so around 4pm, which is proper tea-in-a-teapot-time.

It is now time to start thinking about supper (7pm). I think I need another cup of tea to help me decide what to cook.

The Perfect Pocket Handkerchief

the double-point fold

the balloon fold

If you have time to stuff mushrooms (remember "Superwoman" by Shirley Conran), then you have time to create the perfect pocket handkerchief. I assume this is for show; and you keep your paper tissues in another pocket for real use?

I don't really like to think of the handkerchief being carefully refolded and put back after use.....


http://www.atailoredsuit.com/mens-pocket-squares-folding.html

Saturday 1st June - Rescue - combined skills save the day

The strange and rather spooky rustling noise in the staff room turned out to be a bird in the chimney. The combined expertise and skills of the staff were required to effect a rescue.
Between us we located the step ladder, found a screwdriver to unscrew the ventilator grille, fetched a pond-dipping net from the infant resources cupboard and set to work.

The plan went like clockwork. Once the grille was removed, the bird shot into the net like a small feathery missile. We covered the open end of the net with a handy cake-tin lid, and carefully took it outside in order to release it into a suitable shrubby bush.

The bird had other plans. As soon as the lid was removed it flew off, up, up and away.

picture from wikipedia

Back to work everyone. Nothing to see here. All finished.