Good things and wobbles

Well this week has been quite interesting - nothing too major though.

On Thursday we had our Wider Ops concert in Lonview and Melanie was coming to observe me for the OU course that i'm supposed to be doing - but not doing a very good job of :-( (purely due to lack of motivation)

Anyway i was leading the samba and we had a short rehearsal beforehand - including the only chance they got to rehearse actually coming into the hall while playing :-o Melanie said she was only staying for the rehearsal cos she had to do something else and she had a very brief chat with me afterwards and sounded very positive :-) I've got to arrange to meet her for a proper de-brief.

Anyway we did the concert - there was mine and Jeni's samba class, 4 of Sue's recorder classes and my flutes and clarinet all performing. I was really impressed with the flutes actually cos they hadn't had a proper rehearsal - last time i'd seen them we thought the concert was going to be next week and then it was brought forward so they did really well on that basis alone. I love samba and afterwards Jeni commented, saying i kept them playing for ages - oops LOL.

On Friday the weather was really nice and when i got to the last school where i'm team-teaching with Jeni again she was already there sitting on the grass so i joined her - with my picnic blanket :-) I think we had about 25 minutes by the time i got there and it was really nice just to sit and chill in a really relaxed atmosphere :-)

When we went in we had another samba concert - this time is was Jeni leading it. That went very well too - again we had to rehearse how the children were coming into the hall and as it was a nice day we had them processing in from outside the hall :-)

Yesterday we had our concert at the cathedral, we were playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony - the choral ( the one with ode to joy at the end :-) ). Obviously we had a rehearsal in the afternoon and wouldn't you know yesterday was the first week for a long time that i was actually finishing work at 1.30 ( for a 2pm rehearsal). For ages i've been finishing at 1pm cos i actually haven't got a 1pm pupil at the moment but yesterday Emily was off so i was covering some of her lessons. I was a bit late for the rehearsal but not too bad - they were still only about halfway down the first page LOL.

After the rehearsal Angela was going home to collect her parents but Sue and i decided to stay in town and Sue's daughter was meeting us later for tea.We had about 50 minutes to kill before Jo was meeting us so we went on a mini lambanana hunt ;-D I actually remembered my camera so we got quite a few pictures :-)

I did a bit of a daft thing when we went for tea - i got very heavy food instead of something light and then regretted it later cos it makes taking deep breaths for playing the flute quite difficult. Last night i was also wearing a new outfit - pretty sparkly top and a new black crinkle skirt with beads on - Emma in a skirt :-o LOL I got quite a few comments on my clothes last night and it was really nice. I was going to wear the top for the last concert but i felt too self-conscious cos the top has only got straps, no sleeves and that was only 3 days after the operation and i had a large dressing on that was really obvious :-( The dressings i'm using now are much smaller and more discreet :-)

This morning on the way to Sefton Park i photographed another couple of Lambananas which are en-route but i haven't uploaded and from yesterday or today to the computer yet.

Well this morning i've been and done my 7 miles run - and didn't feel too bad after it :-o :-) Though i didn't see my running / riding friends :-(

After that was IAM. Hmm. While i was on my way i was convinced i was quitting - i've lost all interest and the group seems to be dying. There was a meeting arranged for after this morning's Mass Guidance so i decided i might as well stay for the meeting and see how it goes.

The meeting happened, with the regional co-ordinator and a couple of people from a neighbouring group to give us some help and advice. I'd already told John (senior observer) how i was feeling about the whole thing - very depressed and fed up etc and John himself and Steve both said they felt the same way. The meeting took a very similar format to previous meetings we've had - lots of talk by one specific bloke who never seems to be there on a sunday morning and lots of words but not much action.

They seem to be moving away from Mass Guidance and definitely moving towards 1:1 observing which i have said all along i have NO interest in. I could feel myself getting quite upset and depressed during the meeting, all this talk about 1:1 and having fixed-length courses and changing the whole setup of our group. I knoew i was on the verge of tears, all through the meeting i was sitting with my legs crossed or with my knees up by my chest and a couple of times i actually put my head on my knees.

As we were leaving the meeting Peter made a light-hearted comment about how happy i looked (not!) and unfortunately that opened the floodgates :-( I'd deliberately not said anything during the meeting cos i could feel how edgy i was but then that was it and i was in tears :'( At first i had Steve asking what was wrong and i couldn't really work out exactly why i was upset. We were standing on the steps and i was trying to be inconspicuous - fat chance of that!! I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders but didn't know who it was, i was just feeling very upset and rather embarrassed. As i was turned round and embraced i discovered it was Shirley - i should've guessed really cos it didn't feel like a bloke and she was the only other female there apart from the Pauline the regional co-ordinator and it's not likely she'd be trying to comfort someone she's only met once or twice before. Anyway, because the floodgates really had been well and truly opened then and i was pretty upset i was herded off to the toilets away from the gaze of many eyes :-$

We spent a while in there with Shirley trying to get me to work out what was upsetting me so much and her telling me some stories of bad patches in her life. I was just beginning to calm down and Peter called through, i didn't catch exactly what he said but Shirley went out and spoke to him for very short while before coming back in to me. Shirley was asking me did i have any other particular stresses in my life at the moment or had anything changed with my routine lately, i mentioned the operation and the fact i haven't been able to swim for 8 weeks now and she said she can understand how i must be feeling cos she goes swimming a lot and hates having to miss it. We'd been speaking about swimming and stuff for a while when Steve called through to see was everything ok, by that point i was reasonably calm so we went out and both Steve and John had waited to see was i ok - aww that is really sweet and i had an idea they might do that actually, they really are nice. We then spent another age in chatting the car park until we started drifting away. Shirley and John left at about the same time and then Steve and stayed for another while longer - ranting and lamenting about the general demise of the group in recent times. We're both of the opinion we'll see how it goes and if things don't improve we're walking away.