Just thought I’d tell you about this morning as it was an unusual service.  We started off singing, as we always do.  After a couple of songs the musicians were playing and Mo started to sing on her own.  She was making it up as she went along.  It was beautiful and the whole congregation was so blessed!  Anyway the singing really ‘took off’, so Dave came to the mike and said he would not preach today, instead we would just carry on singing.  For the rest of the meeting we were all just singing and dancing – it was really great!  In all the years we’ve been going to church, and even though pastors speak of days when that sort of thing happened, Mo and I have never known it happen.

After such a meeting who could just ‘go home’?  We went to Wortley Hall.  As we got into the car I caught my thumb, or rather the nail, and really hurt it. Look :O(

Anyway, it was a beautiful day and still plenty of frost around to help.
The first thing we saw were hundreds of sheep all walking one way in a very long line.  So long that we couldn’t see the end of the line in either direction!

Just look at that frost! You can’t see it in the photos, but the sun was sparkling all over the frost like hundreds of little diamonds.

I couldn’t resist a couple of macro shots, but even on macro you couldn’t capture the sparkle of the sun on the frost crystals.

In parts where the sun was you could see clear signs that spring is on it’s way :O)

Snowdrops

Daffodils

And now showing my ignorance…..another flower! ha ha!

And just another photo to show how wonderful Mother Nature is. Look what has grown out from, what appears to be, a totally dead tree trunk!  The photo doesn’t show clearly that it is shooting right from the side of the old trunk.

We sat for a while, on a bench outside Wortley Hall, and warmed ourselves in the sunshine.  The sun was so warm you could actually lay out in it, yet the frost was clearly all around – very strange.

One last picture to show how blue and clear the sky was.

We then went and had one of Sandie’s famous coffee’s with cream and marshmallows.

All in all, a lovely day!

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Some of you may not know that Emily now has a job as a puppeteer for a local Puppet Company called ‘Puppetechnics’.  We are very pleased that the years of training paid off for her.

Puppetechnics are making a film for the police.  It is being kept under wraps at the moment so I can’t give any details.  Emily had told them about us and that we made puppets so, as they needed some extra background characters, they asked if they could borrow some of ours.  I sent some photos of the few we have left and they said that they would love to borrow them.  We were then invited down to watch Emily at work.  We were thrilled, not only to watch Emily, but to get involved with puppets again – even if only for a short while.

It is being filmed in a special set the police use for training youngsters about all sorts of dangers.  We went to a reception area and was told that they were through the door on our right.  As we entered I thought we had gone outside again.  It was a large set that was rather like a TV set for a soap opera.  Here are some photos of the set.

I took this from an angle to show that it is just painted on board!

Below is a painted a wall and only the camera flash picks out the different texture and colours it differently. The eye doesn’t see the difference.

None of this scenery is real.  It’s all painted on a wall just in front of where Mo is standing.

Puppet props.

The two characters that Emily plays.

A character that had been ‘melted’ by a villain :O)

We arrived just as Emily was finishing up a scene – I might add at this point that she does her own, live voices too!  There were some real live policemen there acting along with the puppets.  It was great to see ;O)  We went to have a hot drink with Emily while the crew got on with stuff.  Soon after they had a break which left us free to wander around and take the photos.

They came back and David Thornton (the creative director) came and had a chat with Mo and I.  They are doing exactly what we were going to do.  All that stopped us was having someone like him on board!  He told us what he was aiming for and he certainly has a vision, with plenty of drive and ambition. It ended up with him saying that maybe we would like to come on board for some projects in the future.  A lovely thought :O)

They got back to work and Mo and I watched for a few moments and then made our exit, leaving them to get on with the filming without interruptions.

Below, waiting for the technical stuff.

Camera’s roll!

I will just add that we were really proud of Emily.  Not just her puppetry skills, but the way she handles herself while working with a group of mature adults in a serious, hard working environment!  Well done Emily.

The photos won’t enlarge as it makes my posting so much easier.  Anyone who would like any larger photos just let me know.

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I had a lovely birthday and Mo arranged a buffet in the evening. I received some lovely cards and here are a few pics of the home made works of art.

Leeta and Sandie’s cards. It’s nice to receive home made cards. They are all very original.

Close up of them.

Tina’s lovely glitzy card and a close up of the butterfly

This card from Bill & Anne wasn’t home made but I had to show you because the moment I opened it, Sukie grabbed the little bell in her mouth and tried to walk off with it!

I received two ‘alternative’ gifts for World Vision which were lovely to open.

You get that ‘feel good’ factor knowing you have done your little bit. It’s a great idea for those who have all they need, or for those who don’t :O)
For anyone wanting to find out more, here is the address of their site http://www.greatgifts.org/

The evening came, along with the family and Pam & Michael. Leeta wasn’t feeling well enough to come, which was a shame. It might be the time of year but it’s not unusual for members of my family to be missing on my birthday, through illness or such.

It was a lovely evening and for once Mo didn’t do too much food – just enough for everyone to have their fill.

A couple of pics of the loverly cake :O)

It was a lovely day :O)

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We realised that we need a couple of tables to go either side of the chimney breast for lamps or vases. I searched Ebay for something, and found that the only ones we liked were very expensive. You can’t seem to find any real bargains on Ebay any more, just hundreds of shops selling goods and not many private sellers.

Due to the success of our fire surround, and the fact that it seemed to go without any hitches, we decided to tackle another project, or two, or three!

First we will make a pair of tables for either side of the chimney breast. Next we will make one or two small occasional tables in the same style. Then, all going well, we might actually tackle a cabinet for our sky & Tivo etc. We shall see :O)

Some time ago we got a whole lot of wood from ‘Freecycle’ We used some of it for my PC desk but still had lots left. We knew it would come in handy some day!

I set about designing the table and sorting out how to actually make it. We wanted tables that roughly followed the design of the lovely oak table we had made for us. I drew a plan on my Mac (see below) and made sure it would be just the height we wanted.

Mo went down and bought the wood and the screws we needed. We still had the wood glue and varnish left over from our last project. The only thing we lack is proper tools to make the job easier.

Mo set to preparing the wood for me, sanding and drilling holes.

Making the tops was quite easy really.

The difficult bit was fitting the legs. Such a tiny space to get your hands in to put the screws in. Needless to say the automatic screwdriver was a no go! Poor Mo did struggle with those screws. I could never have done it. We decided that screwing one table at a time – eight screws to be screwed in by hand – was enough for one session.

Finally I got to glue the inside legs in. That wasn’t easy as we could have done with eight clamps but we only had two :O( That meant that I had to do one leg and wait until the glue had set before I could do the other one. I also had to improvise and use blocks of wood as wedges in place of clamps. What was it I said about ‘proper tools?’ Without them jobs always take far longer to do.

Finally one table complete. Well at least made up, we have to sand it all down and varnish it but we will wait and do them both together. We may put trim down the legs yet. It might look neater, and the table we had made has it so they would match better.

I will blog about the rest of the project when they are finished.

All Finished!

When I made the tops up and glued the 2×2 around the edges, we were left with about 4mm of top spare. I couldn’t understand why until I measured the 2×2. It wasn’t 2″ x 2″ any more it was about 2mm less both sides. I guess that happened when they went metric. Not being a carpenter I didn’t know that. All of my calculations had been based on the 2×2 so Mo had to use a plane, that Len kindly lent us, to get rid of it. I must say, she did a good job of it :O)

She does have a couple of injuries that she made me photograph for you all to see. She said “I cut the top of my thumb off!” which probably means she has a cut in it, knowing Mo. I’ll let you know when I can see it.

We decided to put the trim around the legs after all. I wanted to do it the same as our coffee table but it would have cost too much to get several lengths of 3″ battening, which would have gone down the sides and across bottom of both legs. We had to make do with a small ‘L’ shaped trim which was twice the work and not quite as posh. I’m sure it will look nice when it’s finished, but you know what it’s like when you can’t do a job the way you want to.

All of the trim had to be rounded off so it was a lot of sanding. I discovered that sanding makes me sneeze and cough continually so I have to wear a face mask, which then makes my face sweat! I hate the sanding down. We do have an electric sander but it’s a cheap thing and, as such, doesn’t work. We had to do all of the sanding by hand.

Mo had to do the clearing up because of my sneezing :O)

She did actually cut the tip off her thumb. Here is a photo of the wounded soldier ;O)

When it came to varnishing the tables Mo had to saw the handle off a brush for me as it wouldn’t fit between the legs for varnishing. I turned them upside down and did 4 or 5 coats on the legs first then I did the tops.

And here are the tables in situ :O) You’ll want to click these and see them larger coz they’re soooooo cool.

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For any of you that don’t know this is an iPhone – Made by Apple and nobody else :O)

All photos can be viewed larger by clicking on them :O)

Desktop and the reverse side.

I have to say that I have had some gadgets in my life but this is the best of them all! It’s just like having a mac in your pocket. Soooo user friendly and easy to operate.

I will list a few things (with photos) that it does, but it has a lot more on it as you can see from all the application icons. The camera is fantastic!

I’ll start with the obvious – the phone. As you can see from the photo, it has huge numbers (and makes proper tone noises), not that I will need to use them much as I just type in the first letter of the name and the ‘contacts’ list comes up, I just need to touch the phone number in my ‘Contacts’ and it phones automatically. It also does what you would expect and turns off the iPod volume when you answer the phone and then turns it back up when you ring off. You can have two or three people in a joint phone call if you wish. It does a lot more but I haven’t used it and maybe never will, like visual voicemail etc.

The ‘Contacts’ is my complete address book including birthdays, web sites, email addresses, snail mail addresses etc. It also has a photo that is used to show who is mailing, ringing or texting me.

The next is the texting. I always hated that on my mobile phone as I always hit the wrong buttons and the automatic spelling always did strange things. The iPhone handles texting just like MSN (see photos) It also has a lovely keyboard that highlights the letters as you type (for fast typing). If you make a mistake it’s a standard keyboard so you just delete the letter easily.

Email is exactly as on my computer. So is the web browser. It has full browsing to all my favourite sites and searches. I can only use these feature if I am near a Wi-Fi hot spot though (I think) :O)

Web browser and a section zoomed up for reading.

I have a direct link to YouTube for watching videos. It works a bit like iTunes and must be a special ‘Mac’ link to it.

The iPod part is, I expect, like any iPod but as I have never had one I’m only guessing :O) It has all sorts of options and ‘Cover Flow’ for your album search.

‘Cover Flow’ for searching through your albums.

As I said, it has many more features and applications but I haven’t used them yet – except ‘Maps’. I almost ignored this as I thought it would be only for US. How wrong was I? From the world map I managed to pinpoint, and see, our own house, down to the shrubs in the garden :O)

It also has a Calendar programme that keeps all my appointments and reminds me of birthdays etc. A Photo album that I can view slide shows from, The local weather from wherever I am, Calculator, a ‘Notes’ programme and a world clock.

Here is a photo taken on my iPhone, at night with no flash and no adjustments to the photo!

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Christmas day is over and Mo has gone to bed so I thought I’d do a quick blog as I won’t have time tomorrow :O)

We got up at 8am and normally we don’t touch our presents until we get back from church. However, Dave knew what I was getting and begged Mo to let me have it to bring to church – he so wants one :O) I was allowed to open it first and quickly charge it while we got ready.

We arrived at church raring to go. Christmas morning service is always better than the carols by Candlelight as it is a more relaxed family atmosphere. It’s not ‘the preacher and the congregation’ we are all just a group together – all taking part. We also sing all the old favourite carols, which includes Away in a Manger and Once in Royal David City etc.

After singing about six carols we have a time when the children bring their presents to show everyone. Once they are done, the adults who got presents do the same. Dave made me get up first as he knew what I had ;O) I must say it got a great amount interest. Dave made me give a small demonstration so I took a photo of them all watching me and then showed them. He also made me show them that it turned automatically as you turn the phone. They were very impressed. Actually, It does even more than I thought!

Going to church always starts our Christmas day off lovely and brings back memories of our childhood to me.

When we got back we had a special Christmas fried breakfast, which I really enjoyed. The only time I ever eat one :O) We then opened our presents and both played with our toys for a while. Sindie and Gary popped in to borrow a lead and that was nice.

We had dinner late (because of the breakfast) and it was very enjoyable too!

It’s been a lovely day for us, and I hope you all had a lovely time too :O)

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The dress rehearsal date came and I was really concerned as half of them were forgetting their lines constantly. Some were still not actually acting, they were just saying their lines and standing not doing anything. I thought this show was going to be a real shambles and not as good as last years. Somebody reminded me that it was the same last year at that point. I decided not to worry or get stressed over it as it wouldn’t change a thing. It would either work or not. That part of it I wasn’t in control of. I’d done my part, the acting was up to them.

Dress rehearsals are held with an audience – a large group of people from the centre for people with learning difficulties. They make a great audience as they enjoy anything and are a very responsive audience.

The opening video came on, followed by the puppets who basically introduce the story. The audience cheered as they saw the puppets. They made such a din chatting and laughing at them that they couldn’t possibly have heard the puppets speaking :O) We moved into the show…….

I was very pleasantly surprised as it was going really well. If anybody forgot their lines the others would ad lib so it wasn’t noticeable. I had tried to instil this in them so many times and finally they all did it. Not that many lines were forgotten. I was amazed. I should have remembered that some of them don’t actually ‘act’ until they perform to an audience (even though I wish they would) It was going well. This particular audience applaud at the end of every scene, which must be an encouragement for the team.

All in all it was a success!

This was only a rehearsal, and as such there were a couple of scenes that we hadn’t rehearsed – last minute additions and scene changes. The final scene could have been better and the curtain call was all wrong so I made some changes which I typed out and was only able to hand them on the night of the official show, about 30 minutes before the start. I did a quick run through with them and that was that. No time to rehearse it properly.

The room filled up with a paying audience now but I wasn’t too concerned as it had gone well at the dress rehearsal. Sandie & Len and Sindie & Gary came along with Livvie, and Emily who had brought a friend.

My concern had been that we were tackling quite a serious story, and wondering if maybe it might be a little ‘heavy’ for Christmas. That was why we added all the multimedia and puppets. We also made one of the characters funny throughout. Was it going to work and lighten the more serious parts? I think it did. I won’t spoil the DVD I am doing for you all by telling you any more.

The new ending worked! I was thrilled. I have to say that I am very proud of the team, they all worked so hard and pulled out the stops when it mattered. The biggest problem was a child running around with the noisiest toy in the world. It sounded like a football rattle! I had to really chop the video about to eliminate that when making the DVD. Thankfully we had a video of the dress rehearsal so I was able to do it without losing part of the show, even though it wasn’t as smooth as I would like.

Saturday night was not as full as Friday and I was a little sad at that. The last night is important and it would have been better for the team to have seen a packed room. Never mind, the feedback we received was great and we’ve been told that we must put this show on again as it would be criminal to only do two performances of it.

I have the idea of putting a lot more work into it, improving certain scenes, polishing it up and doing it again next year. Maybe we could hire the local theatre and put it on there. It is only my thoughts at the moment but we’ll see :O)

Here are a couple of photos of the main characters.

Obviously the four wise men :O)

Jhalil, played by Pam

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At Sandie’s request a couple of clips from the letters.

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This blog is probably a bit late, due the the fire surround blog but I’ll do it anyway.

This is the second year that Mo and I have put on a Christmas show for the local community. Last year we did “What Christmas Carol?” which was very well received. This year we did a totally different type of show.

“The Fourth Wise Man” is a story about exactly that – a fourth wise man who keeps missing the moment and never makes it to the Nativity.

As it was a slightly serious story (unlike Scrooge) I decided to fill it with multimedia to break the scenes up. We wrote a lot of humour in also, with one character that is funny throughout.

We decided to have three sets of ‘Wise’ men – Adults, children and puppets! Firstly so that it would appeal to an all age audience and secondly, as we had a mugging in the story, we decided that using the puppets for this would be better than having violence on stage. It actually added humour to the violence so it worked.

I was faced with a huge amount of videos to make so got started on that immediately. Filming puppets is not an easy thing, in fact it’s harder than anything I have ever filmed. The first attempt was a bit of a failure and it mostly had to be scrapped. Eventually Sindie and Livvie came round and we set the stage up in our lounge! Without proper lighting and equipment it was not as good as I would have liked but I was able to get enough video to add to the little bit I was able to save of Emily’s puppetry to complete the two songs the puppets sing. Before too long I managed to get all the puppetry stuff filmed.

When we were talking to the TV people about the show we had written for TV, we were told that filming puppets was a specialised field and would need a special team of camera men. I now see what they meant.

The show introduction.

The song “Wise Man”

The Song “Manger Zone”

The mugging

While all this was going on we were meeting up with the team regularly for rehearsals.

I also needed to get video of five letters being written. For this Gary came to the rescue. While I got the surface to rest on ready Sindie set to roasting some paper in the oven. Everything had to look like it was feasibly written 2000 years ago. Sindie had picked up a twig on her way round and I broke a biro and inserted the inner tube into the centre of the twig for a writing implement. Gary wrote out about four letters (in full) as I filmed constantly from several different angles. It worked great! The only thing that didn’t look reasonably authentic was his rings – he couldn’t get them off.

I had a few other videos to create, making twelve in all but they all went without too many hitches. The main problems I had was sourcing various music clips and video clips that needed to be inserted in my videos. That took me forever!

We also had two original songs in the show. One that I wrote the lyrics for which needed the music arranged and to be recorded, and one that was written especially for the ending. This was the important part of the whole show so it needed to be written carefully. I left that totally to our music man. I had enough to do :O)

I then moved on to some props – scrolls and maps, the gems and head bands for the wise men. At the very last minute I was faced with having to make the costume for Jesus! Someone had let us down. Sandie came to the rescue there and gave us a lovely Victorian sheet. It came out nice I thought ;O)

What would we do without family?

The next part will follow soon

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Ok, as promised, a final update on our work.

We have now finished the room, until we are rich enough to buy new fitted carpet. Mo patched it up best she could and we decided to try and cover the missing bits with a rug. We were going to buy a large rug and cut it in around the fire but as we were looking for one I suddenly thought. Why spend a minimum of £50 on a rug just to cut up. We already had a smaller one and it was the right colour so we decided to see how that would look.

Once we saw that it would be ok we set about cutting it to shape. Again, I measured and marked and Mo cut it. This is how we seem to do most things ;O)

Here are some photos of the finished room, along with just a few Christmas bits. It’s all we had time to do this year. All photos are clickable to enlarge.

The corner cabinet is some old thing we got from freecycle just until we can sort out a new one, after Christmas. It won’t be a corner one though.

We usually have lights everywhere but Mo made up for it by setting up our disco light. Here is a little video of it.
It isn’t as fast moving as the video though – thank goodness!

I have included two other photos. One for Gold Anne – The gold fairy :O)

and the other of my guitar – just coz it’s lovely :O)

And now a before and after so you can see the difference.

We can now relax and enjoy Christmas :O)

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