Whisky and Coke: Another Seed Sown

Another seed has been planted in my garden of friends :) I believe I found her via Ladyhawk's blog but I might be wrong. This lovely lady, almost the same age as me, is yet another fantastic artist! She paints, and creates art that is truly beautiful. I visited one of her blogs, and it is a contribution site for people who have pictures of sunrises from different part of the world. Ladyhawk has contributed one of her amazing pictures, so, I thought I would enter one of mine in the amateur category ;)

I introduce to you Tanya <<< href="http://tanyaruka.blogspot.com/">her Artists Space or A New Day.

Her seed is now sown in my Garden Of Friends (gee I'm getting good at this link stuff!!), and I promise to nourish it and feed it with love, hugs, and comments as I do with all of my friends :)

Don't miss the UK Tanya....the weather here right now sucks big time! Last week it was a pleasant 17degrees going down to 7 or 8 at night. This week it's 8 degrees in the day going down to -4 at night! Heating on, thermals on, wooly slipper socks on, and I even managed to slip my foot into hubby's jogging bottoms pocket tonight while we were sitting on the sofa to keep at least one of my feet warm. Good job he told me he was going to get up, otherwise I may have been dragged off the sofa and accross the floor in a very unlady like fashion!

We had a bit of a shock (to say the least) visitor today. I was sat reading the paper, and hubby was working at my side, both sat on the sofa in the conservatory. All of a sudden we hear a kerfuffle (sp) outside, and the next thing we know a blackbird flies in, swoops round and flies back out again. Once we were over the initial recognition of what had happened hubby noticed what it had "done" during it's frightened fly by.

Let's just say that it's "deposits" were, on hubby's laptop screen, his socks, his jogging bottoms, his tee shirt, all over the conservatory tiled floor inclusing the kitchen windowsill, the door into the kitchen.....literally everywhere! It must have been so frightened.

I expected hubby to go mad....but he calmly asked me to get him a wet j cloth, he cleaned up the mess. I passed him clean clothes, he got changed putting the dirty things straight in the washing machine, sat down and started work again.

If it had been a normal Thursday, as in him not working at home, it would have been round about the time that Mum and Dad had just left, after Mum had helped me clean the house! I would have been sat in my clean conservatory on my own! Needless to say I would probably have made a hole in the polycarb roof!!

Last night (Wednesday) I went to see the barbershop choir rehearsal again, they have a competition in a week or so, and are hoping to get a medal. The sound is amazing, and the ladies are lovely. As some of you know I have a love of singing that goes right back to my early childhood. I attended stage school, and left when I decided I didn't want to become a diva like all of the other kids there, attended high school, and completed a diploma in theatre skills, then sang with a band for a year or so.

Anyway, I decided to have an audition, mainly to see what a professional singing tutor thought about my voice. My voice was cold, as in no warm up prior to the audition. We did some scales to check my range. Some pitch matches, where she hit a random key on the piano and I had to sing the note back, and I sang my rendition of Yesterday by The Beatles unnacomapanied as my solo song.

The results were, and please remember I don't do sympathy or praise very well. AND, I repeat AND I am not bragging.

Pitch perfect.
The widest range she has come accross in a long time, only two ranges off Julie Andrews.
Capable of singing lead, baritone, bass and most of soprano.
Natural Vibralto. (This I was worried about, as during the rehearsals vibralto is banned!) Vibralto is the natural "wobble" in someone's voice when they sing. Think Whitney houston singing I WIll LAways Love You in her video and picture how much she moves her lower jaw! That is over pronounced and sometimes forced vibralto. Not to say I dont admire her singing.
BUT She did say I had the training, and ability to turn on and off my vibralto when required, meaning I could use it when singing in a quartet, or solo, and control it when singing with the group or chorus.

We came out of the audition room and back into the croud of about 40 women. She called over the leader of the leads and told her, quite loudly, what my capabilities were. One woman listened in. I have to point out I went last week with my Mum, and told my Mum straight away I didn't like this woman, and I hadn't and still haven't spoken to her. The woman concerned listend in, looked at me, glared, stuck her nose in the air and walked off! Hmmmmm methinks that stuck up nose was maybe pushed a little out of joint?

I was given a tape to learn, and after the competition, come back and learn with three other singers, and the sheet music to accompany it. Sheet music to me is EGBDF (every good boy deserves food) and FACE, they are the notes....and I can read some of the lengths required. I cant really read music, but I can learn it by listening.

SO I have about three weeks to learn this song, practice it, and then perform it in front of the musical director and hopefully, get accepted into the babrbershop choir.

Do I really want to do this? Does my voice really want to be that disciplined, do I want to "act" out songs using dramatic faces? Not sure.....you'll have to leave that one with me.

Sis In Law......please dont tell Ma In Law as it's the same choir her old next door neighbour G goes to!!! I want to make this decision myself, not be influenced by anyone else apart from my instincts.

Would I be taking on too much. Returning to work, Avon, and writing and researching my book? AM I whittering on too much here? Answers on a postcard to.....PO Box WHISKY!

I guess I'm just letting out my thoughts. But I have to say, I enjoy sitting here, whether it's late at night like now, or in the afternoons, and sharing my days with you. I just hope you dont mind me rambling on and on and on.

Christmas present list for other people so far only has one persons items on it. My Mum's. SO any family that read this....plkease let me know what the children want for Christmas......but remember "No buying for adults, only children. And if you are unfortunate enough not to have any children yet......no presents for you!". But...we're working on it.....practising. TMI!!! I meant buying christmas presents d'oh!

Why Oh why do I hold grudges for so long. Maybe it's only ones that really tug on the heartstrings. Maybe some people should put themselves in our shoes for a while and think about what they say. Rant Over!

One final but Important note before I go.

A special friend deserves a special........

You are the one in pink, me of course in purple, and little miss crystal is the other.......

But just to reiterate it

You know who you are, and you know you deserve it. The news nearly brought tears to my eyes....that's why I had to have a cigarette so I didn't blub!

I dont remember seing you that happy in a long time. Like I said, after all you went through.......no one deserves it more than......