Seven Sons.

"Mother's of Boys work from Son up to Son down." ~ Anon



Church made an indelible impression on me this morning.  The preacher shared from his own life experience.  Every Sunday his parents took him to church.  They sat in the front pew: Mum, Dad ~ & their seven sons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seven.  Sons.  If you have sons you know why my mind is boggling slightly.  Can you imagine?

I have no idea what else he preached on.  I'm still dealing with seven. sons!!!!!!  Oh. My.  Seven.  Sons....

Second one down...

“I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry.” ~Philip Yancey



 I'm not even enrolled but I was up at first light this morning & headed out to Rhema so Dino could enrol in his course.  I have had a lot of practise at sitting around waiting thanks to Star.  I had my book [Froi of the Exiles ~ c/~ of Star but I am not recommending it as it is quite graphic in places & definitely for older, mature readers]; I had my laptop.  I had food & water & I was hoping it would be cool enough for me to sit in the car & wait it out.  It wasn't & I didn't.

It was muggy as, so I lugged my water & my book to sit on top of the hill under the trees where there was a little breeze, a great view & it was somewhat cooler.  I lasted about 20 minutes before the ants found me.  I cannot abide ants so I went & sat in the foyer in the air conditioning & happily submerged.  I can stay submerged indefinitely but Rhema is more than a little weird.  Good weird but weird just the same.  A steady stream of people found me & began chatting.  If I found someone with their nose in an 8" thick book I would assume they were a bibliophile & leave them to it.  Obviously the people at Rhema do not feel that way about people with their noses in an 8" thick book.  Apparently Dino is wonderful.  Not arguing that one.  Apparently I should be doing this course.  This one is seriously weird because that's 3 times now I've been told this & the first time the woman moved Dearest aside so she could get to me & demand to know why I wasn't doing this course.

Now we've only really been in this place twice before which may strike some of you as odd that we moved so quickly on Dino getting into college here.  No idea how others discern the Spirit's leading but I had that deep sense of peace & *rightness* that makes me sure we're on track even though I am still fairly cautious on other matters.  Besides the Lord confirmed it because Dino had to come up with all the money in just under a fortnight & the Lord left Him hanging till the 59th minute of the 11th hour ~ just like He did with Liddy because learning to trust the Lord's leading is lesson number one!

I am probably being a little more blond than usual but I have no idea what the Lord was trying to get through to me.  I just know that my jaw was pretty much scraping along the floor with the last lady, who was incredibly lovely & chatty enough that I didn't have to strain my brain ~ & as so often happens to me when it's the Lord's conversation anyway she hit on things I feel strongly about one after another: End Times: Israel; Fasting; Gathering in the Harvest....Prophecy.  I think the Lord's suggesting this is somewhere I can get some answers & grow because this woman couldn't possibly have known the sort of things the Lord has been placing on my heart or how He has been leading for the last few years but the Lord's got her there too!

Then Dino arrived lugging this big box of books that he dumped in my lap & the pair of us promptly began rifling through it to see what sort of treasure we had.  I have already snavelled two.  Some I won't touch.  I'm not much use in the Helps department & frankly no~one in their right mind would ask me to *help* with anything.  Seriously.  I've been known to starve guests because it has not occurred to me it's meal time & people might, just conceivably, be hungry.

Now this is not theological college.  The emphasis is very much on the practicalities of the Christian life.  It's not about putting preachers in pulpits; it's about bringing in the harvest.  This is exactly where Dino's head space has been so a perfect fit.  Everything learnt in the classroom then gets practice *out in the field*!  Dino is one of my *hands on* learners so once again a perfect fit.

I am exhausted.  Nighty~night.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Give me your thunks...

The fact that most people don't believe in hell doesn't mean they won't end up there. ~ Cliffe Knechtle

Do you believe in the doctrine of Hell? 

 Please produce your evidence.  From the scriptures explain what you believe Hell to be ~ the word itself can't be found in scripture & the words translated as *hell* have pretty literal meanings.  In this instance the KJV has done us no favours!

Muchos Gratias, peoples.

Do you ever feel inadequate at life?  I mean the world is full of amazing people & me, I can't even fry fish.  Not that I want to learn or anything but there's all the rest of it.  Stuff I reckon I should have figured out by now like how to raise kids to the glory of God.  Heck, just knowing how to raise kids would be good.  People have written books on this stuff & I get google eyed.  I read this stuff & go, Really?  This works?  Then I think about my kids & go, Nah.  Never going to happen. 
It's pathetic, really it is.  Take evangelism.  For someone who talks so much I have never figured this one out.  How do you do it?  I've seen it done.  I've had it done to me & I'm always like, Come again?  What was that all about?  And church.  I am really, really bad at doing church.  I see people heading my way & the spoilt brat inside starts screaming. Nooooooo. Please, please don't talk to me.  Find someone else to pester & I never, ever know what to say to these people.  Maybe it's because I don't do well with small talk.  I'm always a little vague about things like the price of eggs in the fish market on Fridays.  I do slightly better  with things like Happy Easter if the other person copes well with a response about Eostre & the sun symbolism in the Basilica.  I should just respond, Happy Easter & leave it at that, shouldn't I?  So why don't I?

Consequentially I treasure my friendships.  Anyone willing to put up with my idiosyncrasies has a spot in my heart.  So when I noticed my friend's posts were drifting further from Christianity & into Neo~Paganism I didn't say anything.  Not my business.  My liking or not liking her is not dependant on what she believes.  I felt no imperative to point out the error of her ways.  I never noticed Christians ever being able to change anyone's mind for them.  That's the prerogative of the Holy Spirit.  I know she's heard the gospel & so I kept my mouth firmly shut.  Yeah, I know all the arguments ~ but please!  wasted effort to go over old ground.

Then my friend decided to 'fess up.  Not sure why given she's pretty much lost all her Christian friends over this issue.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have risked that & it's not like she didn't know where I stand.  Now she has decided I am a good person to discuss religion with & I'm like, Whoa!!!  Are you sure you want to go here with me?  Because I do actually know something about Paganism.  Remember history is my thing but I don't do politics.  If you are into history but not politics what's left is culture & religion.  I do both those.

How did I get here? And now what do I do?  Because there is only one thing I know of that can change my friend's mind: a personal encounter with the Living God; the God of Abraham &  Issac & Jacob.  I can muster all my logic & all my apologetics & all the proofs at my disposal & it will never lead anyone into the Truth.  One touch from the Living God & all that changes.  In an instant.

Some days I feel like a toad who has lost his harrow.  Some days I don't do life well.  Like today. Maybe I'll just go back to bed & have a nice long nap.  Maybe things will look better tomorrow.  Maybe.

Yes, it really is that bad...

The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.~Mr Wiki

We all know the story of how to cook a frog. The frog is our education system & the water's been heating up so gently the majority have been lulled into a false sense that things are pretty ok & pretty much just like when we went to school.  OK, so we know that numeracy & literacy levels are down but we just need to get the kids of the computer ~ or perhaps we just need to change our expectations for a computer literate society.  Either way there's not much wrong.  Not really.  Anyone who homeschools has gotta be ever so slightly out of their teensy little Chinese mind.

So here is the thing.  I don't do the political thing.  I know there's a political agenda to all this.  I do my reading & keep in touch but you can argue politics till the cows come home & people will still sit on the same side of the fence they started on.    Nope it's much more personal for me, far more experiential, because we sent our kids to school.  Not my idea!  Even 20 years ago I had issues but Dearest wasn't in favour & so ours dutifully toddled along to the local school, which was a tiny 2 teacher affair with about a whole 30 students across 7 grades.  And because I was a good & dutiful mummy I signed up as a helper ~ not in the tuckshop.  Heaven forfend!  I don't do food.  Nope, I trained for the reading program.  Then I trained for the writing program.  I even trained for the math program.  For 10 years I worked the numeracy & literacy program at our local primary school & however bad you think things are, believe me, they are that bad.  Actually they are probably worse than you ever imagined because our government in it's infinite wisdom has turned our schools into a toothless tiger.  They are unable to discipline & so the kids have turned them into a laughing stock.  They know full well there's really nothing the schools can do to them.

Ok, I was working the remedial program so I got to see first hand just how bad this can be.  I worked with the older children because some of the boys were so out of hand others were frightened of them.  I was not.  Most of them were super clever kids bored & frustrated beyond endurance.  I worked with grades 5, 6 & 7, ages10~13.  I had kids with no phonics ~ no decoding reading skills at all, who couldn't even read at a grade 2 level.  How do you do grade 5 work when you can't read your instructions, let alone understand them?  Bad, but ok.  Most of these kids had good reason for being behind: sickness, interstate moves, travel, learning problems but then someone decided it would be a really good move to give their good readers some read aloud practise & sent them out to me for some one~on~one reading time.  BIG mistake.  Remember these kids weren't considered poor readers.  This was the cream of the crop, the bright kids who were considered to be doing well academically & they weren't beginning readers, yet child after child came unstuck on words like: abbreviation, abdication,  abduction,  aberration,  abjection,  ablation,  ablution, station, stationary, fruition ~ how do you get to grade 5 & not know *ion says shon*?  I was apalled.  And that was the easy stuff.  It was about then I twigged that if I wanted my kids to read well I was going to have to do the work myself ~ & I did.  It's why Star never went to kindy.  Why should she compete with 25~30 other littlies when I could give her all her pre~reading skills one~on~one at home?  I didn't expect her to read.  That was not my intent & purpose but hey!  Guess what?  She learnt to read in about 6 weeks of 10 minutes or less a day.

And here's the thing; poor readers are usually poor writers.  Good readers generally write well.  They have a good grasp of literary usage.  They understand how language is put together on paper because they read it.  Don't get me started on math!  Star's concret, everyday math is excellent ~ far better than mine, & I taught her.    I found what motivated her & went with it.  We had no math problems until the experts started meddling & accssed the child of cheating~ at which point said child dug in her heels & refused to co~operate any further.

How did we get into such a mess?  We gave children rights but did not require a corresponding sense of responsibility.  So here's some of what I witnessed first hand in the playground because I was there at the time: a child try to push my son's head through the iron bars of the verandah railing [required 7 staples]; my high achieving athlete bullied unmercifully by younger girls [only when I threatened to remove said child which would have resulted in a monetary loss for the school was this issue resolved]; knives in school bags; one child arrived with dad's gun minus the cartridge thingy; A child throw pine cones at a teacher's face [drew blood; we were told it would go no further as the paperwork wasn't worth it & the parents, who were not there at the time, abused the teachers for inciting their son to violence; they didn't]; a child write F---on the sole of one shoe & YOU on the other.  Every time he didn't want to do something he put his feet up on the desk & his epitaph in the teacher's face.  I have been asked to not enter a classroom because the class teacher felt they could not guarantee my safety.  I have heard children use words I don't even know the meaning of & utter threats against teachers' personal safety.

Oh well, you might be thinking, you live in a low socio~economic area.  These things happen. Nope.  I went to an exclusive private girls school, which I hated, & I would stand in assembly Monday morning while the money went down the line one way & the drugs came back up.  I listened to 12 & 13 years olds recount their sexual exploits over the weekend. [That was an education!] We had girls flipping out on acid ~ & the teachers wondered why I was always reading a book under my desk.  Far safer than the real world! But that at least was high school.

The difference is the escalation in violence, drug usage, sexual exploits at increasingly younger ages.  I remember chatting with one lad who was yawning his way through yet another lesson & always seemed to be tired about the whys only to be informed he'd been up half the night smoking pot & watching t.v. He didn't even blush at the admission.  I did that for him.   I have worked with girls not yet out of primary school who were sexually active ~ & proud of it.  I've watched kids sit through classes & not do a tap of work.  When I mentioned this to their teachers I was told there will always be those kids who will slip through the cracks.

You might think my experience was with a particularly poor school, bad teachers.  You would be wrong.  The teachers were wonderful, very dedicated.  They tried hard within the constraints of the education department.  They employed people to cater for those struggling & for their gifted students.  They subsidised excursions & camps but I started timing the amount of time wasted each day on discipline, lining up, issuing instructions, resolving problems & it was in the hours each & every day!  A class was lucky to get a full hour of instruction time on any given day.

High school is even worse because the kids are bigger & so many of them do not really want to be there.  They are over school but required to be there by law.  Locally, on any day of the week, you will find the shopping centres full of kids from every school in the shire who have simply walked out of class & are wandering round the shops till it is time to catch the bus home.

I do not wonder why people homeschool.  I do wonder how any loving parent can subject their children to the sort of *education* I have seen in our schools.  Even when Star was pressuring me, even when it would have been so much easier to give in & send her to the local high, there was never any question in my mind that however hard it got, however difficult Star decided to be, however bad I was as a teacher, Star was far, far better of at home.  I have seen our schools.  They are not a pretty sight ~ & most of it will never make the news headlines ~ but that is part of the political agenda & I did say I wasn't going there!

Dithering....

Nobody wanted to be a Pommy. Pommies might be gallant in wartime, but they had an unfortunate ancestry. They were descended from all the people who had declined to found America and Canada and South Africa and New Zealand and Australia ~R. Stowe

Some time in the next few days Star & I resume school.  Her last year, a last chance to share & so I have been scanning my bookshelves to see what is there that I just know I am going to love reading aloud to her & that I hope Star will love as much as I do. I have picked Randolph Stowe's The Merry~go~Round in the Sea.

Do you know this book?  I have owed a copy for years & periodically I reread it for the pure pleasure of the language used by someone who knows how to use English.  It is a most beautiful book ~ but then Stowe is a published poet as well as a novelist.

I have heard this book described as a *coming of age* story ~ which does not in the least do it justice!  It is far more than that.  It is one of the most evocative books I have ever read ~ partly, I suspect, because my experience of family was very similar.  I came at the tail end of one generation yet was closer in age to my cousins of the next generation, crossing boundaries & experiencing both the closeness & the inevitable pulling away, the history & stories & clannishness of a people who are secure in who they are, where they have come from & what they believe.  For a child it is mesmerizing & the deep core stability generates a feeling of strength,  invincibility & security.  Stowe captures this in his central character, 6 year old Rob.

Rob's world is idyllic & part of Stowe's magic is his ability to capture the sights & sounds & smells so richly that one can read his words with the sense that one could find their way blind~fold through this world.  Inevitably the world as Rob thinks it is is revealed to be something else entirely.  Beyond Geralton & the family station the Second World War rages.  It consumes Rob's favourite cousin, Rick, unravelling everything Rob once believed until, like the merry~go~round in the sea, the cruel light of day reveals an uglier, less kind world that had always existed, lovingly hidden by the blight of family loyality.

One of Stowe's strengths is his ability to show things as they are without preaching.  Thus Rick's struggle to fit back into an Australia that was determinedly provincial, narrow~minded, bigoted & claustrophobic is unsentimental; Rob is sentimental.  It is he who clings to a vision of a world that only ever really existed in his own mind but oh! it is a beautiful world!

 Knowing my Star she will hate everything about this book but it's one of those books everyone should have read at least once in their lifetime ~ like To kill a Mockingbird.  Some books are just too good not to share.

Not what I was expecting?

And you're gonna make it

You're gonna make it after all

Did they hurt you ?

Was it worth it after all ?

Worth it after all ? ~  Garrison Starr

So what happened with the fast?  Honestly, the woman has a flibberty~gibbert mind, can't concentrate on anything for 2 minutes at a time!  Well, actually I can,  just other things got in the way.  It gets complicated because you can't hold God to ransom & I reached a point towards the end when I really wondered what I was doing ~ besides missing out on some really good food [& who did steal my cornetto out of the freezer anyway?!] & getting rattier & rattier as I tried to juggle the complicated mess my life suddenly became.
 
Fasting is interesting because it is never what you think it is going to be when you begin your fast.  I had a long list of things I wanted to lay before the Lord ~ family things & there are some of you who have asked me to pray for specific needs at different times; anything still unresolved went down on the table again, but just because I wanted to talk about stuff didn't mean that was what was on the Lord's mind.  Uh, uh. 
 
One of the things I wanted to talk to the Lord about was Dino because Dino felt he was supposed to be in bible school & heading into some sort of ministry.  Confirmed all round as we all went into prayer about this with Dino but over the years Dino has made some really poor choices which naturally came back to bite him ferociously on the bum so although the spirit was willing there were some major roadblocks in his way: still on his learners, no savings, no bible college...yadda yadda & I really thought the Lord would be more interested in having a chat about the whole sorry mess, don'tcha know but nada.  The Lord wanted to talk to me about stuff in my life ~ & no, I did not want to talk about that.  I'm just dull.  My sins aren't of the spectacular variety.  I mean if you're determined to be a sinner you should be the best sinner possible don't you think?  Ok, maybe that's a little out there...
 
Anyway Someone had mentioned Rhema to us & we went visiting because we still aren't real settled in a church.  We went to the Friday night service because nights work for us & Dearest & I both went "Sabbath!" & thought it was a really great way to begin our Sabbath. [This is to do with the fast.  Be patient.]  Rhema has a bible college attached & within minutes of mentioning our interest someone was dragging Dino away to chat about it some more & give him the paperwork to look over & make sure he knew when classes began.  Dearest was keen on church.  I went hmmm.....I'm the cautious sort when it comes to churches.  Star was freaking because half the youth group surrounded her & asked the Dreaded Question: So which school do you go to? Then Star & I went away.

Dino had been at great pains to remind me that often the blessing doesn't happen during a fast.  It happens after & here is what has been happening after: Dino's driving manual got passed so I rang & booked Dino's test; the test is for the day his first class starts so we will be over on the mainland anyway;  It is booked for the time we arrive back in the shire & was the first available time; His tax return will be exactly what he needs to cover his tuition & books; the course is Centre~link accredited so he will have a small income & can put fuel in my mainland car; Classes don't clash with Star's stuff; I will have to go with him to orientation & the first day [please pray he passes his test or we will have a major nightmare on our hands!!!] but the first thing that got said to me [remembering I'm a lurker & it was Dearest who was getting all excited & chatting to people] was, Why aren't you taking classes too? Umm....I have Star....Now Dino is talking about when I can start classes & Dearest is juggling money so I can start classes.  What is with this?  I haven't even asked the Lord about it yet!

So we toddled back on Sunday with all Dino's paperwork & went to Sunday morning service. Dearest is happy.  Star's half~asleep; mornings are not her thing.  I was prepared to endure some truly awful music & ho~hum preaching.  Saying I was a reluctant participant is putting it mildly.  Not that I had said anything because Dearest is the spiritual head, right?, & there was a good bit more at stake that a Sunday morning church service but I had a real heaviness of spirit & a migraine kicking in, so thrilled to bits I was not. 

 I know about corporate worship.  The key word is worship ~ not corporate & after about 5 minutes of being majorly distracted by the hand waving & the clapping & the general bibbing & bobbing about to music I didn't know & didn't appreciate I felt the Lord say, Well, why don't you sit down, shut your eyes & worship as usual.  Lightbulb moment ~ so I did. The music bothered me far less & I let the actual words minister to me.  I just became a non~participatory participant. Then the preaching began. Yes!  For the first time in a long time I wasn't screaming inside at getting fed slop, or worse, incorrect slop. Do I have a critical spirit?  You betcha!  Our critical faculties were given to us for a reason.  It's misapplying them is the problem.

So this is Dino's last week landscaping.  On Saturday he goes to orientation.  On Monday he begins classes.  And this is how I know our God is a God of miracles: Dino hated school & doesn't even have a year 10 leaving certificate.  All he ever wanted to do was fish ~ for which he didn't need school.  It's taken a shattered shoulder & some serious disciplinary action on the Lord's part but the Lord finally got his attention & now has him where He wants him to be!  One by one the Lord is mowing our lot down to keep the promise He made to me that His word would not depart from our house & that all of our children would be taught of Him. Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty.

An Australia Day Interlude.

That's my wife; she's the lemon ~ The Dish.

 It began to rain within minutes of us walking through my mother's front door ~ & it continued to rain solidly all week.  I like rain but enough is enough & there is no escaping the fact it severely restricted our activities because no~one wanted to drive in the sort of monsoonal downpour that engulfed us all week.

 Australia Day was our first sort of dry day; our only dry day in fact.  We made the most of the sprinkle & headed out.  First we popped into the Leisure Centre to view The Dish ~ a movie we have all seen before but it takes such a quirky & gently satirical jab at the best & worst of Australia [& our love/hate relationship with America] that I still laugh myself silly. It is full of brilliant one~liners.  And who can forget the sight of the Aussie scientists playing cricket in the dish to level it up? Or the Ambassador's face as the band plays Hawaii Five~O thinking it's the American National Anthem?

[ Do you remember the Moon Walk?  Where were you?  We were dragged out of class to watch the grainy & impossible images & I was very bored.  I think I sorta missed the point.]

 Then it was on to Trader Dukes for lunch.  Star was the only one able to manage dessert on top of mains ~ a mudcake that had Ma rolling her eyes & Star in seventh heaven.

 Despite the fact  lunch wasn't even interrupted by a light sprinkle the lowering clouds kept threatening something more serious so we cautiously went for a wander along the Maroochy River & through the caravan park.  Not to my taste maybe but the long term residents certainly get points in my book for creativity.  This lot went Hawaiian...

 but this lot thought going for another Big Queensland thing [& seeing as pineapples & such like were already taken] opted for The Big Boot.  Whatever rocks your boat.

 All along the river, & then the beach, the water was a fetid & putrid brown with ugly yellow scum.  The sand was littered with all sorts of debris that drew the kids like magnets.  We saw tepees & pirate ships made from the scraps but the jagged timber floating in the water just looked nasty ~ & this was after the clean~up crews had been through.  The colour of the water was a shark's dream come true.  Not the sort of water to swim in ~ but people were!

 We beat the rain home ~ just.  Not that we let the rain bother us.  We played Racing Demon, Rummikub, table tennis, pool & darts.  We did jig~saws.  We talked a lot & we ate a lot.  We drank hot chocolate & nibbled on Ma's Christmas shortbread, saved for our visit.

 Today we came home.  Star drove.  I don't know what RACQ was thinking but their web site failed to notify us that the southbound lanes of the Bruce Highway were under water at Donnybrooke.  We crawled at 5mph for over an hour, got diverted, got screamed at & honked at by an irate truck driver [gotta love that road rage because none of his anger was going to make the traffic move any faster], got rained on some more & finally crawled in our own door to find that somehow the cats knew I was coming home today & were beside themselves with anticipation.

We love our Ma. ♥♥♥

. Great Rummikub players are the ones who can enter that zen state where they can just look at all those numbers and then start flying around moving things around until poof, they win.~Clint Walker.

The rain is raining.    True, it's our wet season but the rain puts the beach  & the bush both out of bounds.  The beach is just unpleasant but the bush is full of leeches.  Perhaps to short circuit the Star yodelling the whole village into insanity my mother dragged out the   Rummikub tiles & suggested we play a round or two.  Growing up the family game of choice was 500  & I can still play a mean hand of 500 but despite the number of children we own, as a family we have never been much into board games & what was played tended to be chess.  We had our own tournament going through any wet holidays though inevitably Liddy & Dino were wiped out fairly quickly & the tin tacks came down to Theo & Joss who were both incredibly competitive & stubborn.

I'm not sure my mother will ever ask Star & I to play Rummikub again.  Have you ever played?  If so you will know all the little tiles have numbers on them.  That alone is enough to do my head in but nothing loath I was prepared to have a go despite the fact, like Gin, you need a run & 3o points to go down.  If I have to count above 10 I'm in trouble ~ so I was in trouble before the first tile went down.  My mother does not normally have trouble with numbers but I think Star & I have done for her, Star & I both being *numerically challenged*.  Star became completely dyslexic & incapable of putting any of her tiles down in sequence because she knew what she meant.  Sadly this lack of sequencing did not bother me ~ but then I was chronically putting down runs that were missing essential numbers in the sequencing.  Let's just say it was not Star who noticed!

Naturally my mother cleaned the pair of us up with very little trouble. 

Meanwhile the men are holding down the fort & attempting to comfort two cats who have completely lost the plot & blame Dearest, or so Dearest says, for my absence.               

Well, it's a marvellous night for a moon dance,
With the stars up above in your eyes....Moon Dance: Van Morrison


We are spending a few day with my mum up on the Sunshine Coast ~ minus the sunshine!  Star drove us up after her audition, & did a very nice job of it too ~ the driving, not the audition. 

 I think her audition piece went all right.  She sang Van Morrison's Moon Dance ~ a song she had to lift about an octave for her voice but she is still cracking & disappearing all over the place & had to work very hard in the days prior to have some chance of it sounding even reasonably ok, which she says it did.  Both Dimitri & Alison were auditioning.  Star was rather tempted to do Figaro & take of Dimitri because it is a piece that lends itself to being taken off rather beautifully but she restrained her impulses!   Apparently she got a very nice Jazz/bluesy/classical feel to it.  Not sure if that means she's versatial or just all over the place!  Her sight reading was a disaster!!!  She couldn't pitch her voice anywhere near where she knew the notes should go although she could hear them perfectly well in her head.  And people think singing is easy! How little they know!

We arrived up north a lot earlier than we were expecting to, about mid~afternoon, so squeezed in an afternoon walk around the village admiring everybody's gardens before the rain belted down in true tropical torrential downpour!  And I break my fast this morning.Yay!  I am looking forward to breakfast.  Fruit & yoghurt ~ & coffee!  How I have missed my coffee.  Have a blessed weekend peeps & we'll see you on the other side.