Bop to the top.

Fran and Maddy have spent the week at their musical theatre group, culminating in todays show. Was very good, though i get a bit irritated by the habit they have of having a few pet performers and then too many kids not being in a lot of it. Sometimes they do well, sometimes they don’t get the balance right. To spend £50 in a week per child, i think they ought to be able to keep everyone fully involved, not as almost spectators. I suppose i come from a youth theatre background where skilled staff shared the roles around, up to and including having several people play one part. However, despite being disgrunted on the behalf of 20 or so littlies who had very little to do and the fact that they did every single solo or duet but almost none of the big group numbers, it was okay. Fran and Maddy actually started the show with a little verse long duet, so i can’t moan on their behalf, but i’m not sure of the wisdom in 2 kids getting to do 50%+ of the show to themselves really. Ho hum. Once upon a time i could have done it much better i guess, though i may have lost the knack over the years 🙂 Really must do something drama-ish at an HE event sometime.

Anyway, they’ve had a good time, though Fran wasn’t 100% well and i think she found the number of kids (40 from age 7-14) a bit overwhelming at times. However, everytime i collected them they were in a throng of girls and thoroughly happy and on one occasion i happened to overhear 2 of the bigger kids talking about how nice they were, which made me glow 🙂

Best thing of course, from their point of view, was that Daddy got to see the performance today, what with it being a bank holiday 😆 He was… completely bewildered 😆 Even High School Musical has too much plot to condense into 25 minutes and still make sense to a novice!

We’ve had some lovely times with Josie and Amelie this week. Amelie and i have done the “how babies get made” talk, discussed power stations and a variety of other things. I made them a sheet den behind the sofa and they played in that and we’ve been out and about a bit. I’ve cycled a good few times, Max’s Gran has improived a bit for now, so that is a bit of a temporary relief and we’ve planned and booked some holiday time together for a family week away.

Purchase of the week has to be this music stand  which is lovely and solid, doesn’t attack fingers and has made guitar practise even more appealing for some reason. We now have an official music corner in the living room.