Author: dave

school for all. jane has been doing lots of extra cover lessons and teaching football this week

esther had her big band after school and kezia had youth

jane has gone to book club

both girls were at the cathedral today for an orchestra competition. both thought their respective orchestra’s didn’t do great so we’ll see how they get on.  esther is back there on thursday and friday with her trombone for her big band and concert band.

one of the auckland schools did a performance of John Cage’s 4:33 which is pretty brave for an orchestral competition!

jane had parents’ evening tonight

pearl went out for a day trip and ran off at one point to a stranger who turned out to be our friend Belinda who looked after pearl at christmas.  Pearl was very excited to see her apparently – luckily Belinda recognised it was Pearl (probably by her distinctive happy ‘bounce’ she does)!

everyone was back at school/work today and i went out for a walk at lunchtime

i woke esther up at 5.40 this morning only for me to realise at 6.30am that she wasn’t going to school early and i’d woken her for no reason.  oops.

kezia came back from wellington at lunchtime so we went to cornwall park on the way to the airport

the daffodils are out and they’ve closed one of the roads for nicer walking

we met kezia at the airport and she told us all about her adventures on the way back home

this evening jane is out with her church chums and kezia is going to bed early!

pictures of us all today!

this morning i was up early learning how to do flash photography and how to work my new birthday flashes

i had a feeling i was going to have to be the expert at an event this afternoon, but more on that later

jane went to the gym this morning then the two of us drove over to Piha for lunch and a walk

we arrived in piha just before kezia was due to stage with her choir

and luckily there was a Spark free wifi hot spot we could use, so we propped my phone up on the car mantel piece and listened to kez perform

it was amazing to watch her in wellington while we were sitting in a car in piha

but perhaps what was even more amazing was that we got a parking spot right next to the hotspot so the signal was strong enough!

kezia’s choir did great especially considering they are the school’s second choir as the premier choir (which esther is in) didn’t enter this year!

they got a silver medal which is very good!

they also sang at the gala concert this evening but i missed that as i was picking up esther from the cinema

after watching kezia, jane and i had lunch in this lovely cafe

and then we walked up to kite kite falls which we thought would look rather fulsome given the amount of rain we’ve had.

unfortunately it was so full that we couldn’t get round the bottom.   you usually have to step in the water a little bit, but today it was a raging torrent that might have swept us down the river (usually a stream)!

 

there were some people swimming in the water of course!

this evening i’ve been out with some photo chums experimenting with flash photography.  as expected it was all a bit chaotic and people didn’t know how to work their flashes.  luckily i’d done my home work so could explain what to do.   unfortunately that meant i had to be the model too

while i was out esther went to see Mission Impossible while jane did loads of excellent housework while watching kezia’s gala concert live stream.

kezia had her first performance in the singing competition down in wellington today.  jane, esther and i watched it on the live stream from our respective locations.  kezia was on the front row so featured prominently

here’s some rubbish photos i took of her on my work computer screen

i was asked to take some pictures of colleagues at work

 

 

and then this evening we had the church quiz where we did rubbishly.

Kezia’s choir is Cantare.  the boy’s school choir is called Voicemale.

They are in a competition and the competition is being streamed live over the internet.  I’m not sure if it’ll work from the UK.  have a go.

If you are in the UK, your best chance is to watch the gala concert on Saturday morning 7.30am to 11.30am UK time.  I’m fairly sure Kezia will be in that at some point.

If you want to watch the heats, Cantare is singing at around 1pm (2am UK time) on Friday and 12:40pm (1.40am UK time) on Saturday!

The Big Sing 2015 – Live Stream :: NZ Choral Federation

Watch The Big Sing National Finale LIVE here on our website. The stream will become available shortly before the start of each session.For session details,…

WWW2.NZCF.ORG.NZ

another chilly clear morning.  nice morning to go for a sightseeing flight i imagine.  it’s warmed up this evening and we’re due for some warmer but damper days ahead i think

what we’ve heard of kezia is positive, so that’s good.  they do their performances tomorrow and saturday morning.  i’ll do a separate post on that in case you are awake when they are performing

jane had her usual busy day at work followed by a long parents evening

esther had a long day at school followed by tennis (bus wouldn’t let her on so i had to drive her there then go home to let pearl out then go back to pick esther up).  we then watched the Matrix for good daughter/dad bonding

i spoke to the chap who runs a music website about shooting some concerts and i’ve been given two to do over the next couple of weeks so that will be fun.  The bands are Ghost Wave and A Place To Bury Strangers in case you are interested.  here’s a short video of the latter band when i saw them a year or two back.  hope i live to tell the tale!

i had a day of meetings in various locations, with the last one being 10 minutes from home so that was convenient.  unfortunately i missed the grand opening of the security house at work this morning which is a shame as they’d asked me to be the photographer if i’d been around

esther had something musical before school but nothing musical after

jane had school and preparations

i had camera club this evening

sounds like kezia is having fun in wellington.

kezia went to wellington today with her choir so that was exciting

esther had music before and after school and i picked her up at 6pm to go to a trombone concert

it was sponsored by a funeral company

it was by auckland’s premier 9 piece trombone octet

and it was very good

jane had school and lots of preparation.  i worked from home which was good.