So I gave in to the masses and downloaded it today, it is so much fun! What struck me, and what continues to strike me is that England is still so green, you click on a city in England and whereas the center of the city maybe concentrated with homes and businesses and stuff around it there are nothing but green fields. Even around London. England really is still a "green and pleasant land". If you look at my original home town "Holme" (I was born in the hospital in Lancaster but Holme was my original home) you will see that it is still a tiny village surrounded by fields. It is wonderful.

There are moments, when all the stars align, and everything that is supposed to happen, suddenly happens. When the entire world seems to turn on a single axis, and when everything that is supposed to be is. Such was Saturday night. There are perfect days in ones life, and then there are days that are beyond perfect, where they become a legend, a moment in time that simply goes beyond every other day in ones life, when they go beyond movie script, where they go beyond everything you could have ever written in your life because they were better than that.



Such was Saturday. Saturday was the day that the West Columbus Viking Jazz Band was to open for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Virginia Arts Festival. The logistics of making that happen was, as you can imagine a nightmare. Not least the fact that I got horribly lost and whereas I was supposed to arrive at the motel at 4:30 to catch the bus I actually arrived at 4:29..... but we will not go into that because it is really not important, what is important is what follows. We arrived in Virginia Beach in more than enough time to get to the Cavalier Beach Club (the venue) but unfortunately the traffic in Virginia Beach was, not to put too fine a point on it, a nightmare. A swift change of plan made us park behind the pizza parlor where we were going to eat later and a swift walk later (the difference between a swift walk and a run is a debate that will go on to the next week) we arrived at the Cavalier Club and began to set up. The people were absolutely outstanding, although I believe they were expecting a High School Jazz Band, which of course we are, but you know we are not like your normal High School Jazz Band, we are, well hmmmmmmm we are just good. We set up and warmed up, after the first warm up piece the technical director for the entire Virginia Arts Festival said "can you start playing now?" My husband of course told him that we had been told we could only play for 20 minutes so we had only brought 20 minutes worth of music, he said "well can't you play some songs twice?" So the band went on as soon as they could, and began to play. The audience, who were bored waiting for the main act suddenly woke up, this band was good!

As an aside here is the band, posing for a shot before the show.... are they not an incredibly good looking gang or what?



I noticed, as I was watching that the band had another audience, this time a very special audience. The members of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were watching and listening, the band noticed too, yet they didn't choke, they didn't panic, they played the best set they have ever played in their lives.



At one point while the band were screaming on the trumpets one of the band members stuck his head out the door and tried to figure out who was playin those notes. I will never forget, for as long as I live, the band's performance of "sing sing sing" that night, it was, absolutely brilliant, they were perfect, each and every member of the band put their entire heart and soul into it and they were brilliant, nope they were better than brilliant, they were damn perfect and I would defy anyone, anywhere to play "sing sing sing" better than the Viking Jazz Band did that night. If anyone can fathom how hard these kids work to make this happen then I can imagine that they can fathom how much hard work it is. You want kids to excel in school? then use the Viking Jazz Band as an example of kids who will work hard, outside of school hours, hours and hours of rehearsal to make this happen, don't tell me music is not important in schools.

At that point it was time to tear down and get ready to watch the show.



At the end of the gig the band members were gracious enough to spend time with us, and not only that they told my husband that he had "a damn fine band" that they were "awesome" and that they were "no way a high school band" Here is Casey (our piano player) with their piano player



Here is Corey our drummer with their drummer....



There are moments in time, when all the stars come together, and all the lines are aligned, and we can say that this was supposed to be, and this was supposed to be, the stars aligned and in the end, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were impressed with our tiny little high school band and agreed to photos....... "you guys are awesome" there is a quote that will be remembered by every single member of the jazz band for the rest of their lives.... "you guys are awesome"



The stars are aligned, the heavens are in order, everything is right at this moment. This is the greatest moment in the world. Our kids know that they are the best, the absolute best. And there is nothing in the world more special than that.

It is going to be a long night, so forgive me, all I ask is that you follow along in the lives of some exceptional young people and follow along with out lives and perhaps reflect that this is the way things need to be. Thursday evening was the final concert for the concert band and the jazz band. For various reasons I couldn't leave work until 5pm so I broke every speed limit in five counties to get down there and managed to see the most important parts of the show. After the concert band had played several pieces the band called a halt and B.K. invited Mr. Nick up to the podium. In a very eloquent speech B.K. recited the gifts that previous senior classes had given Mr. Nick, a chair, tickets to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and then explained their reasoning to their gift. A silver handled baton, with a carbon fibre shaft, perfectly balanced, engraved with 2007 lest he forget who gave it to him. He asked that Mr. Nick conduct the final piece for the 2006/2007 concert band with the baton.



So he did and the piece was one of my favorites Julie Giroux's "Crown of Thorns" which if you have ever heard it will understand why it is one of my favorite pieces. For a link to the piece please go to juliegiroux.com

And here is a shot of my husband conducting the band playing it.



The concert band were, not to put too fine a point on it, brilliant, they really excelled themselves. After the concert band show it was time for the Jazz Band to take the stage. The trumpet section looked really good lit in purple.



and "Georgia" was beautifully mellow



Then we get to "stairway to heaven" my husband's wonderful arrangement for Jazz Band. Kyle just really excelled on this one.



And then we came to "Sing Sing Sing" with Cory's drum solo, to say he was smoking (literally was an understatement), his performance was absolutely brilliant, and the crowd agreed.



After that it was the awards part of the show, which of course was fun, and as the seniors stood on the stage, as a group for the last time, I shed a quiet tear to see them go. Donald Nealy the President of the Bandboosters said "and we are graduating too" which is true, but the fact is that my husband and I never graduate, there is always another class of students coming up from the middle school.

The seniors



Here is the baton which was presented to my husband, I am curious as to who came up with the idea, I don't know of course but if I would have to guess I would say B.K or Kyle, I am sure that someone will eventually let me know that "no Ms. Dawn it was my idea" whatever, it was a brilliant idea.



And if that was not enough the senior class parents bought him a new tuxedo, tails, tie, shirt, shoes, vest you name it. What a wonderful gift.

I hate graduation, I really do, and yet I love it, I know that the kids are going to do what they want to do, but I hate to lose them. My heart will be heavy when I go down to the school for a game or whatever and I will not see Corey, or Kyle, or B.K., or Stephen, or Caroline, or Megan, or Sarah, or Bradley (mmmm maybe I won't miss Bradley after all, only kidding) (and before anyone gets upset I am just pulling names off the top of my head here, no insult intended if I have missed anyone). I will miss them, I will miss them terribly.

And yet they are always there, cause there is always the "wall of shame" all of my husband's students have posted a photo of themselves on the wall to his toilet, now don't ask me what that means, but there it is, as the wall gets filled up someone will remove a photo and replace it with theirs, so there is always a new crop of photos on the "wall of fame (shame)"

My darling Alpha (who has a long and tortuous story which can be read on this blog) gave birth to a child once, or several children if truth be told, however, as it turns out the only one who is left is Cadbury, named by my niece Amy, Cadbury is a pretty tabby, with a parental bond to her mother that is beyond belief. Cadbury is attached to her mother the way a leech is attached to its host. Usually when a cat grows up it sort of grows away from its mother and becomes independent. Not so Cadbury. She had remained attached to her mother to the extent that she still kneads and still attempts to suckle on occasion despite the fact that she is now, at least, six years of age. Alpha does not seem to mind this at all, in fact Alpha loves the fact that Cadbury needs her. I will often see Cadbury nestled into her mother's chest, kneading away for all she is worth and just enjoying the fact that her Mom is, well you know, her Mom. Alpha's Mom, Lari is the complete opposite, Lari is the Queen Bitch of the Universe and would much rather smack the treacle out of Alpha than speak to her, so we have the juxtaposition, Alpha who loves her baby and Cadbury who loves her Moma, and Lari who hates her child. Very strange.

Of course no one promised me one, except myself that is, and I have been creating beds and planting roses more and more in recent years. (When you have a little more money you can afford to spend a little more money on "dead" plants at Lowes, including roses.) Over the years I have bought the odd rose here and there at Lowes but one particular year they were selling off Flower Carpet roses in the dead plant section for I think $1.00 a piece (as opposed to $14.99). I bought four, a red, a pink, a coral and a white. As will always be the case with me I had ABSOLUTELY nowhere to put them, so as was my want, I put them in my planters at the front temporarily while I figured out what to do with them. When one weekend I went to plant delights for their open house and decided that I didn't need to eat that week and spent my grocery budget on plants I returned with these beautiful plants with absolutely nowhere to put them. As my husband was away for the weekend, doing some sort of band thing, I decided to go ahead and build another flower bed in the middle of the lawn without his permission (the front lawn is his baby you see I am not really allowed to touch it.) As it turned out I had all the makings for a lasagna bed including a roll of cheap black edging, BUT as it turned out I could only create a circular bed seeing as the black edging was so set in its circular roll that there was no way I could coax it into corners. If I have ever been given instructions from my husband about creating flower beds it has been "no circles" simply because he finds them hard to mow around. So seeing as he was gone for the weekend I a) built a new bed in his lawn without his permission, b) made it circular, as you can imagine when he returned words were exchanged. I created the bed and planted my wonderful plant delights plants and then realized that I now has room for the flower carpet roses, so in they went. That bed is now one of my favorites, especially when the roses are in bloom (which is most of the year as they are so prolific). Of course I also love the way the bed looks with my purple baptista and purple iris, also in that bed is my hardy banana, two wonderful sedums, a hardy ginger, some gladioli that I forgot to remove, annual dianthus that have returned, and my wonderful giant swamp sunflower which I have to admit is about taking over the bed and will have to be divided this year. So here is the dreaded "circular" bird bath bed.



Here is a close up of those wonderful fairy carpet roses, the coral



the deep pink



and the white



A couple of years later I wandered by Lowes one afternoon on my lunch break and discovered that someone, in an obvious moment of madness, had marked down all the Jackson and Perkins boxed roses to $1.00 a piece (from $19.99). I crammed as many as I could into my cart (12 I think) and checked out. Of course, as usual when I got home, nowhere to put them. This time I consulted with the husband and he allocated me a part of the front lawn where he said I could create a square rose garden. I set about the lasagna thing that weekend with gusto and soon my roses were in their new bed. As luck would have it I also found some ground cover roses in the same "dead plant section" so they joined their hybrid t cousins. With the addition of my alien yard art, the bed soon looked wonderful. I happened upon Lowes another day and they were basically giving away Lantana in one quart pots for 25 cents, so of course as usual I loaded up.

Here is the bed itself (excuse the unmowed lawn it was done this weekend)



and here is a close up of some of the roses in there. This is Sunsprite the yellow you see in the picture



Here is the pink ground cover rose that you see in the pic



You have heard the old saying I suppose "you can never be too thin and have to many silk blouses?" Well I am beginning to think that my version of the saying is "you can never have too many flower beds or have too many roses and asiatic lilies" I LOVE my garden.