Paris

We have just returned from an amazing weekend staying with Joanne and Ted in their lovely Paris apartment.

The apartment is a 5 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower and absolutely beautiful 19th century loveliness.

You do have to go up 5 flights of stairs to get their but it is worth it and the view of the Eiffel Tower is fantastic.  We discovered that it sparkles on the hour each night.
The hospitality is second to none.  Not only did Ted give us a meal worthy of a michelin star.  Many fantastic courses with different wines with each.  But George entertained us between courses.  First with magic, then with guitar playing and then with joke telling.  Excellent.
We spent most of the weekend just walking and getting a bit sunburned and eating.  We had a picnic with the family in the gardens of the Musee Rodin. 

You are given a sticker for entry and everyone has stuck it on a lamp post just outside. 

It reminds me of Kieran's apple sticker collection.
Eurostar is a pleasure to travel on compared to the cheapy airlines.  So civilized and stress free.  Trev and Erin were so relaxed that they treated themselves to what looked like an egg McMuffin but had cheese added.  Luckily the culinary experiences improved once we hit French soil.
We did attempt to go to the Mausoleum at Les Invilides as we thought we should do something indoors but apparently you can't buy tickets after 4pm!  So we just sneaked in the entry door and registered the over the topness and that was sufficient. We also went to an exhibition at the Grand Palais.  We meant to go to the Musee D'Orsey but we kept sitting on benches

and eating icecreams or chocolate eclairs instead.
Excellent weekend in every way.

Spanish holiday

 We had a lovely few days in Spain, staying with Chris and Xavier and doing lots of sight seeing.  This is the inside of Sagrada Familia.  I have been to it a few times and up till now the inside has been a lovely glimpse of architecture with lots of scaffolding.  Now it is open.  And it is stunning. 

The quality of imagination in the building is extraordinary and it works completely.  The forest of pillars, the light from the stained glass, the tiny details have all come together to make a whole which is quite extraordinary. 

I urge you to go and see it.

Here we are in Parc Guell.  As you can see we had great weather - sunny and warm all the time.  We picked the right week to go, fabulous there and foggy here.

Lovely.

Eggcellent day out

Today to celebrate my birthday the Martin family went on the Faberge egg hunt around London.
There are over 200 eggs around various parts of London.  Basically it means you have a walk around the city with a kind of purpose.  We did the same thing for the elephants a couple of years ago.

Tea and birthday cake

We started on the South Bank where we met up at the Royal Festival Hall.  We had tea and birthday cake which Kieran had made.  Then nourished and refreshed we set off like the intrepid eggsplorers we were.

Alice at Southbank

Kieran scanning

Kieran scanned in the little barcode at each egg hence the endless updates on Facebook. We spotted several on the South Bank then on to Trafalgar Square. While crossing the Jubilee bridge we spotted men on the Clock of the Savoy Building. 

Men on the clock

Pelicans

Luunch in Green Park (Buck House in background)

At Trafalgar Square we didn't spot as many as we had eggspected,  but we were serenaded by an eggstraordinarily awful bagpipe musician.  Then on to St James's Park.  Succesful hunting along with entertaining  pelicans - what's not to like.
After that we went to Green Park where we had a picnic lunch over looked by Buck house.
A few more spotted and then on to Picadilly where we used the facilities at the Royal Academy and gawped at the enormous queue for the David Hockney exhibition.  We amused ourselves by then finding eggs in Pall Mall.  What a posh place that is.  Berkeley Square was lovely with some great sculptures.

Berkeley Square (no nightingales)

Egg in front of South Bank skating. (Kieran scanning again)

Alice blending with egg

We got to Hyde Park and had a tea break and then we had pretty much run out of steam.  We walked to Kensington but were a bit eggshausted by then so we all went home.

As a day it totally had the eggs factor!

Whoops - inaccurate reporting

Brian has told me that the piece for the recorders wasn't an arrangement but an original piece. 

You can't trust reporters!

Another world premiere!!

Just to finish off February in style Brian had another piece premiered yesterday.

His Welsh teacher is a primary school teacher in St Davids and asked him to arrange the folk song they had set for the Eisteddfod for her recorder group.  They performed it yesterday and it went very well apparently - he got lots of compliments on it.

Entertainingly the boy who plays the bass recorder has to stand on a chair to play it because it is taller than he is.

More good news

February is being a brilliant month for the Noyes family!

Brian's son Richard has found out that his film has been accepted by the Tokyo Film Festival.  Richard made the film last year - a short which he wrote and directed (and funded) himself.  He has submitted it to a few festivals but this is the one he really wanted it accepted for because it has an international reknown for short films apparently.

So - what a week!

Brian has a cd recorded and Richard has his film accepted.

Recording in Russia

Today has been an exciting day because Parma recorded Brian's piece 'Shadows of Memory'.

The recording took place in St Petersburg, though the only way  you could tell was that people were talking Russian in the background - one recording studio looks like another.  The conductor is based in USA but is Russian so he was talking to the orchestra in Russian. 

We were connected by Skype and were talking to the guy from Parma (Bob) and the recording engineer (Dirk) as they ran the session.  It started at 7am (our time) and they did the recording in sections.  They had rehearsed it the day before for an hour or so and had obviously run it through then to get a feel for it and to know what it should sound like. 

The recording engineer ran the show pretty much, telling the conductor what worked and what didn't, pointing out places where an instrument was out of time or out of tune.  It was fascinating because in a concert the conductor is king, but in a recording the engineer is at least equal if not slightly more in charge. 

The sound on Skype wasn't great, and got worse after 9am when people started work and there were more people using the line, so Brian couldn't hear detail, but when he asked about speeds and dynamics they adjusted things as he asked them to.   The session lasted till 11am and they had done numerous takes of all of it by then. 

They  now send the recordings back to the studio in the States for the post production creation of the cd itself.

It was really exciting and a little bit boring all at the same time.  Mostly exciting though!

Lovely weekend

This weekend we went to Stratford to the theatre and then on to Helen's for Saturday and Sunday.  Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. 
What prompted all this was some complimentary tickets we had to anything at the Theatre Royal in the winter season.  So we chose The Taming of the Shrew.  I realised that I had never seen it but I was prejudiced against it.  However, I thought maybe I was being harsh but actually I wasn't.  It is a problematic play where the shrew is tamed by mentally abusive behaviour.  However it was very well done and a great cast and very funny until the final humiliation of Kate. 
Anyway as we were half way across the country we decided to to go to on to South Wales where we had a lovely social time and were enthused enough about Stratford that we have bought tickets for a Comedy of Errors in the summer.  Helen and Brian are coming too.

The only trouble with a lovely weekend away is that work is a bit meh on a Monday morning.  However there was an email about an article in the Cambridge News.  It was covering an article we had  published about cancer in tasmanian devils.  Very amusingly the online article had mistitled the captions.  So under the picture of the devil was Professor Mike Stratton and under our director it said Tasmanian devil.  Excellent!  Started the day with a real giggle.  Unfortunately our publicity rang up the paper and had it corrected, what a party pooper!

Not performed on the night

Brian's piece wasn't performed in the concert last night, which I was very miffed about - especially as they just said 'it's too long'.  However in a spirit  of fairness I think they actually meant that they didn't have enough rehearsal time to do it properly and perform it that night, which is a more valid excuse. 

Brian did get to hear it though.  They worked through all 6 pieces chosed for the workshop and did record them so we have a recording of the second run through, which is far from perfect but still nice to have.

He was very happy with it.  It has done what he wanted it to do, and sounds really good, even in the not fully rehearsed version we have.  There were lots of people  in the Wales music world there and he got lots and lots of positive comments about the piece which is all really encouraging.  The conductor, Jac van Steen, is back in my good books now because he has told B to keep in touch and will see if he can find a European orchestra which might be interested.

It has definitely raised his profile locally and let people know the quality of his work, which they didn't before and that is important and could be something really solid to build on.

The other thing - and I can't remember if I mentioned this before is that there is an American company called Parma recordings who are going to record the same piece in a cd with other composer's works.  The recording is being done in St Petersburg so B isn't going over there, but will be Skyping into the rehearsals.  He does have to pay towards it, but although not cheap, you couldn't get the quality of the cd and the marketing etc doing anything yourself so he has decided it is a worthwhile investment (not financially but in all other respects).  So when that is available it is sold through Naxos and we can look him up on Amazon!

How exciting will that be??

Candid camera

Walton beach

Folly at Wimpole Hall.  This was built so people could admire it from the house

Hill climbing in Cambridgeshire

Tea on the pier

This winter has been surprisingly mild.  Jolly good too, if you ask me.  So Trev and I have been making the most of it and going for interesting walks at the weekend.  Trev longs to take “a moment of magic” photo.  However half the time his camera is in his back pack.  We went for a walk in Hatfield Forest recently with Jill and while we were pausing for some water a deer ran past, then two more deer ran past, then about twenty deer ran past.  Then Trev said “I’m getting my camera out!”.  Needless to say that was the end of any native wild life for that day.

So today Trev had his camera out and was ready but most of our encounters with nature were aural.  We heard a woodpecker (really a little early in the year for that sort of thing) then we heard a tawny owl.   He took a few photos but when I went to take a photo of him the batteries had died.  Hey ho!  It’ll happen one day.

Here are some pictures of our walks, including some of our walk with Mike and Linda at Walton on the Naze.  It has a very pretty nature reserve near it but is rather a “kiss me quick” kind of a resort which hasn’t moved on from the 1950s.  We ended the walk with tea on the pier and were impressed with Linda’s optimism in asking for green tea.  She got a cup of hot water with the teabag on the side.

Parts in

Brian has spent the last 3 weeks - since he was told the piece was being done  by the BBC - creating and printing the parts.  He had 3 days off over Christmas and one day off for his birthday but the rest of the time he was hard at it.

Theoretically the computer can do it.  However the computer doesn't pay attention to convenient page turns, put in cues etc etc, so it still takes a lot of human input apparently.

He handed it all in to the BBC on Thursday, so now we just have to wait until 2 Feb. 

Exciting!!

New Year resolutions

Hmm.  It's that time of year when I resolve to make myself a better person.  Last year I resolved to actually finish all the books for my book group which I did, sometime moaning like a small child through the entire tome.  The year before I resolved to try a new recipe every week.  Which I sort of did but it's not always practical.
So this year I was thinking of having a screen free day once a week (obviously, not counting work).  BUT  I don't think I can do it.  No computer, email, TV or cinema.  I am not that strong! Just do the eating less and taking more excercise as usual I suppose.  Sigh! 
Maybe I should read Proust of War and Peace or something but I'm not convinced it will improve me.
Good luck with your resolutions whatever they are.

I hate blogger!

I have tried 4 times to load some photos and it has stuck each time.

Here is the link again - which works for me, but the last one did too so??????

Fingers crossed

Happy New Year everyone!!

Christmas pics

Hi

Here are some pics of us over Christmas.

Nic's huge present was a saddle rack, a horse rug rack and bridle hook. Brian's tiny present was a pen thing to use with the iPad.  All very useful.

We all had lovely gifts from lovely people, and a lovely time as well. 

Here's   hoping everyone has a good and happy 2012

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas.  We had a very good Christmas last night, and so today feels like Boxing Day even though it is Christmas day.  Very relaxing for those of us not working.

Brian is having a very busy Christmas.  He submitted a piece to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for a Welsh Composers workshop series and had had it accepted!!!!!  They workshop about 6-8 pieces over a few days and then perform 4 of them in a concert in the Hoddinot Hall ( small concert hall in the Millenium Centre).  So the chances of getting it performed by the BBC are really pretty good.

He was told on Monday 19th and has to have all the orchestral parts submitted to the BBC by 6 January, so instead of having a relaxing Christmas he is working his socks off preparing all the orchestral parts instead, however it is all in a good cause and is really very exciting!!

However he has just said the magic 'lunch' word so I shall toddle off and eat some ham.  As Nic and Adam are both working today and Kate is having lunch with Carl's parents we have gone Scandanavian this year and did Christmas presents and dinner last night.  As we always have a ham on Xmas eve we stuck to that, and have decided to go for a piece of beef for tonight.  So no turkey.  Gosh, how radical are we?

I hope you are all having a lovely time

Christmas Preparation 2011

Well, we decided to see Sherlock Holmes on Sunday, so set off early to get parked for free in Cambridge. Very successful that was, but once we got there it started sleeting and was very cold. So our initial stroll round the Botanics became a close inspection of the greenhouses. Imagine our surprise when we came across these in the alpine display:

Alpine gardens plus

Yes, it is Santa!

So that was fun.  The sleet stopped so we had a shop and saw Sherlock, great fun as you'll know from Facebook posts.  This year we decided to follow up our triumph with the Yew tree with the top of our Holly tree.  So here it is, we're so green!

Tree resting en route

Tree in position

Great thing about the tree is it has its own berries, so half the decorating is done already.

Peggy's photo album

The photos that I put into an album for Peggy's birthday are on Picassa, and the link is here

I have borrowed Brian's scanner, so can do more of the old pictures which I have if people want to see them. 

Any requests????

Sarah & Chris's wedding photos

 Here are some photos of Sarah and Chris's wedding - don't we all look smart!

Sarah and Chris's wedding

After a foggy, misty moisty week the 12th November was dry and mild. The wedding was at Hengrave Hall near Bury St Edmunds. It was an enchanting setting for a perfect wedding. The chapel had a turret and crenallations. It just about fitted us all in. The page boys looked adorable. Sarah looked beautiful. Her dress was lovely from the front and the back and the veil had little glittery bits in it.
Then on to the reception. We congregated in a posh courtyard and when we got a bit cold we could go into the lovely sitting rooms while the photos were being taken. The place was like the setting for Cluedo but fortunately without the murder.
The food was exceptional and the setting had hosted Elizabeth I. Nicky was of the opinion that Good Queen Bess would have sat where she was as she would be near the bar.

Sarah and Chris's wedding

The speeches were excellent and the first dance was lovely. Although Sarah and Chris did have a look at the end as if they hadn't realised how long that song went on for. Erin and Nicky were the dancing queens and rocked the night away whilst most of the clan found a comfy sitting room to chat.
All absolutely lovely.

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Yesterday was fireworks/Guy Fawkes day. I haven't been to public display of fireworks since the kids were old enough to go on their own. Being freezing or more likely soaked while watching and listening to fireworks was never really my idea of fun.
However, yesterday we had friends over for dinner and I thought I would buy some indoor fireworks. We have had these before and they were really a bit rubbish. And the first ones, called Snakes, were a bit rubbish. They looked like turds! But it was most amusing.
The discovery of the evening though was finding that our friend, Peter, who is a rather conservative sort who works for KPMG, turns out to be a pyromaniac! He was totally reviving the spirit of our who considered the instructions "Don't go back to the firework if it fails to ignite" as a challenge to their manliness.
Peter was right in there reigniting the failed ones while previous ones were still burning. To be honest, his degree was in biochemsitry and as we know most chemists are a little insane.
We saved the best to last. it was a sort of Roman candle. Here are some pics.

Maybe I will get some more for when the family are here next weekend!