Ooh, I feel like I've been away for weeks! Unusually for me, I've been leading a relatively busy social life this past week or so. Actually, it's all stuff revolving around the children but hey, you have to take your entertainment where you can get it.

Last Wednesday evening, DS and DD had their summer concert at their music school. We are incredibly lucky to have the wonderful Beauville Arts, run by Clare and Jonathan Mallalieu, two talented music teachers who run their very successful music school in a nearby village. DS, having played the cello and saxophone, is now trying his hand at the electric guitar, while DD plonks her way through piano lessons with more enthusiasm that skill although she regularly produces music that belies the lack of practice she devotes to it. I keep telling her if she practices more, she'd be a virtual virtuoso, but with 'Horseland' and 'The Saddle Club' on 15 times a day, well, when's a girl to find the time and her first love will always be horses.


For the first time in months the weather was good so we were able to sit outside in the garden of Jon and Clare's gorgous old presbytery and listen to our offspring, and a few of the adult learners, show off their new- found or newly honed skills with varying degrees of success. Sympathetic murmurs accompanied those who lost their way while wild clapping was reserved for the adults who managed to reach the end of their pieces. Bizarrely, the third piece was called 'The Conquering Hero Returns'. I looked and looked, in case he was planning a Zorro style entry, but no, he definitely doesn't arrive until Friday.

DD played a 'Mini Rag' with some complicated fingering (well, for Grade 1 anyway) which she managed really well, despite repeating one bit twice. Doesn't she look the picture of concentration!

DS played 'Californication' by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - one of my favourite songs. As I sat in the garden on a beautiful, balmy summers evening, listening to DS and Jon strumming away, I felt a moment of sublime motherly pride.

The evening finished with a band, which had been hastily put together for the evening, playing a very creditable version of 'Imagine', which we all sang, warbled and wailed along to. Then it was time for aperos and chat before term ended for the summer.

In July I get a much needed rest while DS and DD go on a residential music and drama school run by Jon and Clare. If anyone reading has children over the age of 8 I would highly recommend there summer schools. They have people from all over Europe who come to take part. Over the course of 6 days they will put on 'The Sound of Music' from scratch, from sets to costumes, culminating in a free show at the end of the week. But better still, they stay there! All week! Whoopee! Freedom for me!

Of course I shall miss them terribly.