I'm nearly home!

Friday 17 April

Last night in Europe! I’ve spent the past couple of days in Sheffield, England, visiting my friend Kirsty (we’re joint Godmothers to Benji – but unfortunately neither of us are Fairy Godmothers – how cool would that be, bibbidi bobbidi boo and all that?).

Sheffield’s a nice area, bigger than I thought, and Kirsty lives right on the edge of town, about 5 minutes drive from some of the most spectacular scenery I didn’t see. That’s right. Didn’t see. It was foggy the whole time I was there and could barely see out her window! However, that didn’t stop us from going out for a walk – Pride and Prejudice country, which was very exciting. In fact, one of the stately homes in the area was used as Pemberly in the new Keira Knightly version of P&P, and we think some of the rocks were used in the (way better) 1995 version with Colin Firth. You know, the bit where Lizzie goes walking with her aunt and uncle when they’re on holiday (see photos).

I didn’t get to meet Mr Darcy, which was a bit of a shame, but maybe next time!!!

The other cool thing about my time in Sheffield is that I got to join a choir for a night! Kirsty sings in the Abbeydale Singers, an a capella choir who have won various awards and toured to places like Hungary. She had phoned the musical director earlier in the day to see if it was alright for me to come and watch the rehearsal.

I could only hear her end of the conversation, which went something like:

K: I have a friend from New Zealand staying. Would it be okay if she came and watched tonight’s rehearsal? She’s as music teacher.
(listens)
K: Oh no, she’d probably just want to sit and watch.
(listens)
K: (to me) You’re an alto right?
J: (suspiciously) Yeah…
K: Yes, she’s an alto.
(listens)
K: Okay, great. And you’ll have a folder of music for her?
(listens)
K: Cool, we’ll see you tonight.

So I ended up singing with an English madrigal choir. Sorry, sight-singing with an English madrigal choir!! It was heaps of fun, even if they did end up mocking my NZ accent after! And bizarrely, the husband of one of the women in the choir is also from Dunedin, and Dunedin being Dunedin, we established that I’m going to be teaching her niece at Balmacewen this year!

I’m in London now, staying at my friend Brett’s place. Then my plane leaves for home at 9pm Saturday night! I think I’m all packed…may have to pay a little excess luggage.

Can’t wait to get back and see you all again and play some music. I’m getting desperate. I’ve never been away from my flute for this long before and I’ve been going through a bit of flute-withdrawal. And just think of all that sheet music I’ve accumulated these past 4 months and haven’t been able to play!

This probably won’t be my last post here, I’ve got a bunch of other photos I’m going to torture you with and who knows what’s going to happen on the plane on the way home? Knowing me, I’ll end up singing next to a troop of Mongolian throat-singers and end up performing with them or something!!

Thank you for reading this and thanks for all the emails, facebook messages and texts you've sent while I've been away. They've kept me sane!!

See you soon.

Belfast

Ireland

Tuesday 14 April

This time next week I’ll be sleeping in my own bed. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have just under a week left of my trip and I’m definitely looking forward to coming home. Sometimes it seems the past four months have gone amazingly quickly and other times it seems like I’ve felt every single day, every single hour, every single minute…

I’ve spent the last week in Ireland – 5 days in Dublin and 3 in Belfast. I spent a couple of days wandering round Dublin, getting my bearings, going on walking tours etc. One day I went on a bus trip to Wicklow, with a bus driver who looked like Father Ted, swore like Father Jack and sang like…Elvis.

He kept singing throughout the trip: various Irish songs that were about the areas we were visiting, other songs that were appropriate to the conditions (e.g. “Singin’ in the Rain”); and other completely random songs (e.g. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” or his Elvis impersonations…). He had a reasonable enough singing voice, but unfortunately he didn’t know all the words to any of the songs he was singing (da da da crazy little thing called love…”)

Then, on the return journey he wanted to have a Eurovision sing-a-long. He started off with an Irish song, then he chose Spain. So the Spanish people on the bus had to sing a song. Then they got to choose a country. Good idea, but unfortunately, no-one else wanted to sing… So he sang songs from all the countries.

It was a long journey…

Then yesterday in Belfast I went on a day trip to the Giant’s Causeway on the north-west coast of Northern Ireland. And had an interesting bus driver there…

Only this time, he was more like a strict school teacher. We weren’t allowed to talk on the trip so he could do his commentary, and asked if we were sitting by someone who kept on talking, we should go up and tell him so he could have a word with them. We had to stay in the same seats all day, and those who had changed, he made them stand up and switch back to their original seats. He kept getting angry at people who were late back to the bus. We ended getting back to Belfast an hour later than planned and all the way back he kept saying “I’ve never been this late before” or “I’ve never had such a stressful trip as this.” I thought we were all going to get a detention or a letter sent home to our parents.

I think I preferred Father Ted.

Anyway…I did like Ireland, both parts – the Republic and the North – and I’d like a chance to explore a bit more of the country some other time.

I’m writing this on the ferry from Belfast to Stran…something-or-other and then I’ll catch a bus to Manchester where I’ll stay for a night, to Sheffield for a couple of days, London for a night then I’ll be spending the next 24 hours in the sky…

See you soon!

Oh – there were some music shops in Ireland…

Dublin

Rome I

Monday 06 April

Originally I had planned a funny blog about Italy, but in light of recent events, all I’m going to offer is pictures.

Rome II

Rome III

Florence

Naples

Italy Earthquake

Just a quick message to you all to say that I was in Rome when the earthquake hit last night at about 3am. I felt it, but am fine. I flew out if Rome today and am in Dublin.

I'll do a proper update in the next day or so with photos etc.

J