Gathering momentum

With each passing day it's getting closer to The Move, and that's to be expected. What I didn't expect was the way that, with each passing day, time starts barrelling forwards with more and more speed. Suddenly, July is here and with it the daunting phrase: "One more month".

Interestingly, the emotions which have been ballooning around along the terror spectrum are starting to focus more on excitement. I mean, I'll admit that I did have a cry when trying to buy kitchen appliances the other day but we'll just ignore that. It's also starting to feel like things are coming together. Almost every day we're out doing something.  Time is running away and I'm starting to feel ready. I've even bought a bed now, and a sofa bed so people can come visit.

The other thing on the horizon is my final planned UK gig which is, of course, Reckless Love. I'm going to be so upset when they next tour England and I'm not going to be here but I'll ignore that for now! Really looking forward to the concert, which is this Friday, and to meeting up with Kim too. Reckless Love always put on a good show and, with it being a one off festival warm up, I'm thinking it's going to be a bit special!

Naturally, preparing for a gig,
in my mind anyway, means painting

Oh, and as you may have noticed, I've had a go at using my instagram account. I still don't understand the thing but it's easier than going through the whole memory card rigmarole when I want to upload a basic image. We'll see!

A lot of stuff mushed together in one post

So, I'm getting really good at writing about what I did about a week after I actually did it. So, this post starts off talking about Shakespeare's birthday celebrations, goes on to talk about my singing, and ends up with me talking about painting stuff for the Castlefest scrapbook. Feel free to skip to bits you're interested in ;-)

All photos are my own...more photos of the Shakespeare birthday celebration can be found on my facebook page and if you are in any and want me to send the file, contact me :-)

 

Shakespeare

Anyway, on Saturday I went into Stratford-upon-avon, the birth place of Shakespeare, to lurk during the events that were put on surrounding his birthday. Although I didn't get that many decent photos due to sheer bad luck (even when I was at the front, having been there since 7a.m. people who were part of the parade stood in front of me!) I had a lovely time.

The main part of the celebration took the form of a procession including primary school children, various special guests from the community, and indeed the world, and a giant horse drawn birthday cake.

Within this part of the celebration there were various smaller moments. Flags from countries and supporting organisations were unfurled to fanfare. An actor 'Shakespeare'  presented a quill to the Head Boy of King Edward VI Grammar School (believed to be the school Shakespeare attended). The quill was then taken through the streets and, I believe given to the funerary monument. Balloons were released in Shakespeare's colours.

The parade continued, developing into the colourful 'People's Pageant' which was lead by the 20ft, slightly creepy, puppet of Godiva. Local societies, bands, and dancers all took part.

There were also various activities, attractions, and events on all day.Which I can't possibly go into in full but leads me nicely onto....

 

 

Singing

As part of the celebrations, the Royal Shakespeare Company put on various workshops surrounding performing arts. There were stage combat workshops, voice workshops, and a singing workshop which I forced myself to go to.

Okay, I nearly ran away before it started because when you're waiting in a marquee to face one of your oldest and deepest set fears with a group of strangers that's pretty heavy stuff. Somehow I managed not to run. As the workshop began people introduced themselves and said if they had singing experience. It seemed to me that everyone had been a member of a choir, was a member of a choir, adored singing, and/or performed frequently. When it came to me to say that "Hello, I'm Bethany and I'm in the process of getting over a phobia of singing and you may well find me cowering in the corner later." I did just that. No use pretending otherwise... I was shaking like mad anyway! After that, it seemed that a few more people were less 'professional' and a few more people said that they weren't sure if they had a good voice or that they sang in the shower which was nice. I guess. Okay, I was completely petrified.

Warm ups were filmed by a television camera which was kind of funny and then we moved onto the singing part. Do you know something? I managed it. Did I enjoy it? Not exactly. That said, from time to time I could hear my voice and think... yeah, that actually sounds good.

It was only a couple of days later when I was talking to Aleks on skype that she joked that to earn money for my move to the Netherlands I should become an overnight sensation singing 'Let it go' on youtube. Well, something possessed me to record the first part of the song on my camera despite not really knowing it. It took me about five minutes to be able to press play and listen through the introduction and then when I heard myself sing I actually cried. I'd heard recordings of myself singing before and had found it painful to listen... I sounded awful. This wasn't awful. It was actually, dare I say it, kinda good. My own brain's been warping my own perception for so long, and I've known that, but my goodness... this was strange. I didn't send the file to her and I'm still not comfortable singing in front of anyone but it will happen. If these few months of attempting to overcome my fears have led to this then give me a few years and we'll see what happens.

Scrapbooking

So, other than having moments of self realisation, I've mainly been painting cover pages for this year's Castlefest scrapbook. As I'll be moving country straight after the festival this year, I know I won't have time to scrapbook for quite a while after it. I therefore decided it would be wise to get as much done in advance as possible. In practice, I hope to have the 'cover pages' for each of the bands, the main front page of the scrapbook, and odds and ends like the schedule all filled in beforehand. That leaves photo printing and mounting as the main thing to be done afterwards and I can't do anything about that! I'll at least have made a start and, for all I usually do quite a lot of painting around the photos, that's optional so I should be able to fit it in around whatever schedule I have. The other bonus in getting this all done in advance: I don't have to get scraps of paper signed and then cut them out and stick in... I can get the cover pages signed directly, if I want an autograph from the members of a certain band.

I'm also doing something a bit different with this book, I'm timing every bit of work I do on it. Actually, I didn't time the first page I painted or the finding and buying of papers but other than that. People have quite often asked me to make them a book if we've been to the same event and I've had to say no because it's too time intensive (and expensive but I try not to think about that!). Anyway, so far, I have painted seven cover pages and it's taken me just shy of 21 hours. So, that's why I say no ;-)

Art, music, life

The title pretty much sums up what's going on pretty now. By day I'm being a noisy pest playing various instruments and by night I'm attacking things with paint.

Art

Art wise, I'm mainly working on scrapbooks in various forms right now. I've actually not finished my Castlefest book yet. In my defence it does take a while to design/paint 100 pages of stuff. I have, however, started a new book for general life and that is actually pretty much up to date. I know. A miracle! I'm thinking about posting photos of my scrapbook pages onto tumblr as well as on facebook from now on. We'll see what happens. I know a few people want to see certain pages and it's hard to work out where to share them.

I'm getting a real itch to paint a portrait again. You may well know that the last ill fated attempt didn't work out so well. I guess painting a picture of a couple is always going to be risky and the pair I was painting happened to get a divorce in the short time between the sketch and first bit of paint being put down and the rest of it going on! Whoops. Although I was painting for my own enjoyment I hadn't the heart to go on and finish such a lovey-dovey painting. I'm not sure exactly who or what I want to paint though, and I'm not practised in portrait work either, so it might not happen. We'll see how I feel!

Music

As for music, did I tell you how much I am in love with my new whistle? He quickly gained a gender, which is as far as I tend to go with musical instruments, but Nené seems pretty sure he should have a name too. She suggested Felix and then Máté (the latter having a rude explanation) but I don't think either of those are quite right. Okay, the latter is just wrong! 

Lack of name aside I've been enjoying playing so much. I feel that I'm progressing in my playing very quickly, much quicker than I expected, and after just two weeks I'm a bit overwhelmed by the progress that's been made. I'm not great, not at all, and speed is something I need to work on greatly but things are going so well. 

Of course, the other major musical adventure for me is my singing. I had a lesson yesterday, the first in two weeks due to illness, and it was probably the best lesson I've ever had. I managed to sing a song through in a relaxed way and, do you know what, after doing that I managed to tell my teacher, honestly, that I thought it sounded good. I'm far from being a confident singer but that's such an improvement. In three months I have sung in front of someone for the first time in years, sung in front of an audience (albeit unintentionally), and finally I have managed to have a moment where I can admit that I enjoyed my own voice. I'm far from being a good singer, and far from getting over my phobia, but, step by step, I'm going in the right direction.

'Cello is still being played but we have some issues with tuning pegs going on. I think she may well need to have a quick trip to a luthier because we have some major slipping that I can't seem to fix. She also needs some new strings as I can actually see the A and D strings fraying. I think I've been neglecting her a bit recently, especially when one considers the abuse she suffered at the hands of my father. She got her own back on me by stabbing my foot. After this many years you think I'd remember to wear shoes when playing, wouldn't you?

Life

Things aren't really going to plan and this is not how I saw my gap-year panning out, for various reasons that I don't want to share randomly on the internet. However, I am actually really happy. I'm doing the things I love and I will be continuing to do these things next year, and more. I can't wait for next year's European adventure, even though it looks like I'm going to have to travel alone which wasn't my plan either, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Too much life, not enough time!

Well, things seem to be progressing at an extraordinary rate right now and it feels like I have simply too much to do in the time I have. That said, when asked, I also don't have any real plans for the next year so I'm not quite sure how that's working out!

First thing to mention is that I have internet once more. I must admit that I grew to like the freedom that lack of internet gave me as I tended to be a bit of a workaholic as the computer doubles as my office more often than not. That also meant, of course, that I was always talking to friends online which isn't a bad thing. However, the reactions of a couple of these people regarding my absence was interesting and, lets just say, I don't think we'll be talking much any more. It's interesting how some people seem to view it as though it's your duty to speak to them every day and if you can't then it's a personal insult. Anyway, the point is that I am back around and am contactable.

Oh, talking of contacting me and me contacting friends, I have now found a post office within walking distance. Of course, it being a bank holiday I can't actually post the (very late) letters that I have to send but they can get on their way pretty soon.

Another recent development is that I have now booked singing lessons (cringe). I mentioned in a previous post that, despite loving singing, I have quite the little phobia of it so this is a really big thing for me. I've not yet taken the first lesson but will do so quite soon. It's exciting and something I really want to do even if it is going to push me quite a lot as a person. That said, I managed to sing a couple of lines on stage for my exam piece so I am definitely making progress already.

Other than that, life is very much based around working with the house refurbishments, music, and art.

My photos finally came through of the festival so I am a very busy person painting and sticking to fill my 100 page scrap-book. Of course, despite being expensive and time consuming, I feel that this hobby is completely worthwhile!

Over 200 photos, several 'bits' collected from the trip, a lot of paint, and
a daunting amount of work to do.... My idea of fun!

I am also painting a lot and crafting a bit too. Hopefully I'll manage to have a stall at a couple of fairs next year and I'm toying with the idea of an Etsy shop. I'm also doing very limited commission work again which I must admit always scares me because if someone buys something that's finished then they like it. If they buy something that's not real yet and then it's not good enough it would be really embarrassing. Can't say that's ever happened but I'd die if it did! 

So, in short, I'm busy as anything yet am doing nothing at all really!

"You need to write a list"

If I had a pound for every time my mother said this to me then I would be a very rich woman.

During exam revision mother would constantly say that I needed to write a list of the things I still needed to revise. The fact that I had made a revision timetable back in January was beside the point. It wasn't in list form.

So you can guess my horror when today I suggested that I needed to write a list. I think I'm turning into my mother who, darling as she is, does have a minor list obsession.

The problem is, I am good enough at procrastinating on my own and I don't need the help of lists. Heck I am procrastinating writing the list by writing this blog about writing the list. On the plus side, since I am a nomad at the moment, I can probably classify the list as necessary for me to be able to get things organised in time for The Festival at the end of the month.

Of course, me being me, packing is the least of my worries. I'm busy thinking about embroidery and scrap-booking and the like. My red and purple bunting is finished now and I just have the same length of green and cream bunting to do. The flag is nearly finished and I just need to sew on one bead because it fell off and finish embroidering about an inch.

As for the scrap-book, I need to make some paper to take with me because I am not taking the scrap-book itself for all the tea in China. Actually, I adore tea so that might be an incentive... 

The long and short of this post being that I am not going to be online much at the moment as I have a tonne to do. Of course, that could mean that I'll be online all the time because we've already ascertained that I'm a major procrastinator!

Oh, and I'm meant to be learning Dtuch. Yeah.