The Moment I Said It
I spent a good portion of today annoyed. I’ve been annoyed by lots of different things, some important, some not important. Non of these things really matter, not in the long run any way. They just seem important at the time.
I’ve said it time and time again and will probably continue to do so, but I love how listening to music can change your mood. There’s nothing else like it as far as I’m concerned…you put on an album you love and it can lift all types of doom and gloom and makes things seem so much better in just a few short minutes.
Right now, and for the last few minutes I’ve been listening to the instrumental version of Imogen Heap’s ‘Speak For Yourself’ album – I’m fortunate to have this as it’s not really widely available. It’s a truly beautiful album…and whilst a BIG part of the album is Immi’s wonderful voice, it’s also an amazing piece of music without her voice. So many intricacies that you just don’t notice on the normal version because of the layers of vocals that hide things. ‘Just For Now’ is a masterpiece, and the strings and orchestral parts throughout the album are nothing short of stunning. I’ve known this for a long time, but Immi is a genius. She’s also one of the kindest people I know to.
Today I received an email via her website from dance tutor – one of the tutor’s young students has recently been killed in a car crash – the student was apparently a big fan of Imogen’s and performed several dance routines to her songs. The tutor emailed us asking if there was any way she could get hold of an instrumental version of the song ‘The Moment I Said It’….apparently this song was a favourite of the student, and her family had asked that a video of the student’s solo be played at the recital to honour her, with the instrumental version of the song as the music.
Now, Imogen has had a bit of a rough ride in the past few days, but despite all of what she’s had going on personally, she still responded very quickly and asked me to send the track. Whilst this may not seem like a big deal, it’s just another little example of what a special and caring kind of person Immi is. Someone I’m glad to call a friend. Bless you Immi x
You know you’re the wrong side of 25 when…
- You are rather pleased with yourself having bought new garden furniture.
- You are dismayed when you discover that removing dock leaf plants from lawns can be very hard.
- You enjoy ‘pottering’ in the garden, instead of going to the pub for the afternoon.
- You get excited when you find gardening tools on sale.
- You find yourself thinking “We must go to the garden centre to pick up a few things”.
Steph and I are definitely now the wrong side of 25, but we like it!
[tags]Gardening[/tags]
Normal service is resumed.
We’re back from HESFES and I survived the week camping. In fact, I quite enjoyed it!
I don’t holiday very often (the last one was 4 years ago), instead I tend to go to festivals, or spend my money going to dozens of gigs throughout the year, but whenever I do go on holiday I always realise how much I need a holiday and how refreshing a break can be.
We spent the majority of Friday travelling, it took us around 5 and a half hours to get to Mersea Island including a food/toilet stop, and several severe traffic jams. We arrived around 7pm and quickly assembled ‘Camp Clarke’ – our section consisted of 3 tents, a gazebo, 2 cars, and a trailer worth of camping gear. We also had two other families we knew camped either side of us, so we had a nice little mini-community set up, which was great for borrowing milk!
The week was spent dodging rainstorms, soaking up the sun, going to the beach, cooking on gas stoves, drinking overpriced coffee, eating vegan cake (it was delicious!), staying up late, getting up early, watching Jordan partake in activities in the Marquees, seeing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in a solar powered cinema, then listening to someone from Friends Of The Earth talk about climate change, getting muddy, getting clean, getting muddy again, going to the beach some more, and generally sitting around chatting to people about all kinds of wonderful things; some of which we knew about, and some we didn’t.
I’m still not convinced that camping is my holiday of choice (unlike Steph, who announced she wants to live in a tent!), but it wasn’t as bad as I had expected – the weather was bearable despite gale force ’sea breezes’ and quite a lot of rain…I think if you gave me a tent somewhere warm and dry (the south of France maybe?) I’d be happy to camp more often. ‘EUROHESFES’ anyone?
All in all it was very relaxing and both Steph, Jordan and I had a great time. Wild horses couldn’t keep Steph & Jordan away from HESFES 2008, so I’ll be there too!
You can see just a few of the 100s of photos Steph and I took here.
[tags]HESFES 2007,HESFES,Home Education,Camping,Holiday,Mersea Island,Colchester,Essex[/tags]
R.I.P. Steve Irwin
There’s not really much I can say, I’m gutted. Sure he was controversial at times and some people disagreed with his methods. But I loved him….I thought he was great, what he did was great and what he stood for was great. His enthusiasm and ever-lasting smile made me smile whenever I spotted him on TV, and I’d always stop what I was doing and watch him for a few minutes. The world needs more Steve Irwins.
R.I.P. Crazy Steve.
[tags]Steve Irwin, Irwin Steve, Crocodile Hunter, Crocodiles, Australia Zoo, Stingray, RIP, Discovery, Animal Planet, Conservationist[/tags]
Adult Sports Day!
I have decided to try and stage an adult sports day for my friends this summer! I was inspired to do this after attending sports day at the school of my girlfriend’s son a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten what fun sports day at primary school used to be and lots of memories came flooding back to me, including one where my best friend and I were disqualified from the three-legged race, despite our best efforts to keep our legs together after the rag tied to our legs fell off! (I don’t think I ever got over that one.)
The plan is to arrange a day when everyone that is game can make it and the weather is nice. We’ll go to a local park, take some beers and a picnic and the games will commence!
I’m yet to convince everyone about this idea, but I’m sure with some gentle persuasion and the lure of food and drink I can get enough people to make it worth while. So far I have come up with the following events:
- Three-legged Race
- Pickled Egg & Spoon Race (in honour of Dicko’s love of pickled eggs)
- Sleeping Bag Race (replacing the sack race)
- Wheelbarrow Race
- Beanbag Throwing
- Piggyback Race
- Tug Of War
I’m currently trying to come up with a couple more events that are easy to put on, can include people of all sporting abilities and don’t involve taking lots of equipment. All suggestions are welcome, so comment and let me know yours!
The date and location are yet to be confirmed, but get in touch if you’re interested! We will of course be filming the event as well!
Watch this space.
