Foxes, the game.

Most of Hide & Seek is up in Edinburgh right now for a big project for the fringe, but they've got a game on Saturday for the Hayward Gallery- so I've been brought in to run it. (I can't tell you how thrilled that makes me.) The game is for some unspecified number of families (or adults, but probably families) in the afternoon. I'm preparing for somewhere between 50 and 80 groups with the option to expand significantly if we need to.

The game is a sort of naturalist fox hunt. There is a fox who magically can turn into a human somewhere in the Southbank centre. We know what the boundaries of his territory are, but we're not quite sure where is earth (den) is. Can you help us? Foxes mark their territory with scent and faeces markers. They also mark important landmarks within their territory. Find some poo and dissect it, hopefully what they have been eating will give us some clues as to where they are currently. Oh, and his foot prints look like this...off you go.

Today I needed to pick up quite a lot of odds and ends for what has turned out to be rather a crafty game set up. It was great fun, and quite a lot like a treasure hunt looking for all the things I need. (still don't have fake flowers...will continue to hunt tomorrow.)

Something it would have been good to keep in mind:
Meters and Yards are quite significantly different. I now have three METERS of orangey brown fake fur...This is a ridiculous quantity.

At the end of the game when the earth has been found there will be a craft table with supplies for making fox tails to take home with you. It turns out that construction paper is difficult to find in London, particularly if you want only one specific colour and not a rainbow. So I was delighted when, after dejectedly finding absolutely nothing of use in the craft store, I went to the bookstore next door and found a bin filled with rolled up pieces of thick, brown packing paper. Which is perfect  for what I need. And totally unexpected. Also, they had sidewalk chalk. Best store ever. Also, what? You're a bookstore!  

In addition to making fox tails, players will need to dissect the fox poo that they find. (In order to discover what the fox has been eating to aid in locating them....this totally makes sense. Go with it.) So that means that A) I had to make quite a lot of salt dough to be used as fox poo and B) I had to figure out how to make it brown.

You know what people don't seem to sell? Brown food colouring. So I bought, along with 5 kilos of flour and bunch of salt: cocoa powder, soy sauce, onion gravy granules, and instant coffee. It's been exciting discovering what sorts of weird chemical reactions happen when you try to combine all of that together. So far the best in terms of colour has been cocoa powder mixed with a bit of oil and then kneaded into salt dough which has been made with coffee instead of water. It's a perfect colour, but unfortunately REALLY difficult to knead. Which I'm not particularly interested in considering how much of this I'm making. More experimentation proceeds apace.

My hands are currently covered in the lingering smells of soy sauce and cocoa powder with a just a slight hint of onion gravy.

It's gross.

Best Shopping Trip Ever

London is a Snow Globe

We've been having a bunch of snow fall this week. Each morning I've been checking to see whether transport is running and wondering if we were going to have a snow day. Frankly, I've been hoping against a snow day because A) we need the rehearsal time and B) I, um, really like my job? Anyhow- London has been pulling through with very little delay in transport (particularly for tubes and buses. The trains out to the suburbs have been hit a bit harder, but even with serious delays- the trains have still been running.)

This Thursday, during my incarnation as a nursery assistant, we started out the day with our annual Pantomime show for the early years in the hall. (See previous post.) The tykes *loved* it, screaming their heads off and standing up in order to point out the bad guy and give as much information to the characters about what was happening as they could possibly muster. The show was Jack and the Beanstalk and in the first act when Jack and his mother were talking about being poor and oh, so very broke- one of the front row tykes kept saying "I could give you the money!"

D'Awww.

In the afternoon we usually have games all together with the other nursery classes and I wasn't sure if we were going to or not because the hall was full of people and outside was covered in snow.

Silly me, I shouldn't have worried. We had an EPIC 40 minute long snowball fight and sledding session.

Highlights included
1. Dropping snowballs on to tyke's heads
2. Ganging up on the teachers who took longer to get out of the classroom. And by "ganging up" let's please be clear that I mean "ambushing."
3. Squealing tykes
4. Squealing teachers
5. Sliding tykes down a small hill while using plastic building blocks as sleds
6. Our PE teaching marvelling aloud that we get paid to do this...Sometimes I'm amazed at how lucky I am. (All the time. All the time I'm amazed at how lucky I am.)

London is Fab.

This afternoon after school I was wandering around all over central London during my customary walk and ended up in the West End where I realized that HAIR was closing in three days and if I didn't see it today, I never would. So I went to check and see if there were any tickets... why on earth do they all randomly get naked right before the intermission? There is no narrative reason whatsoever for that to happen. To be fair, there is barely any narrative anyway...

I probably should have shelled out another 12 pounds to be in the dress circle instead of at the tippy top of the theatre because they spent a lot of the show prancing around on all of the levels but mine, but it was fun anyway. And man do they end on a high note- for the final let the sun shine they invite anyone who can make it down there fast enough on to the stage and everyone is singing away with them and it is very high energy and cool.

Can I just say that I love that I can just decide to go see a West End show? On a whim?

Music

I just got way over paid for a gig. Not that I'm complaining, but when I play in two pieces and get paid the same amount as the soloist? That's just silly. Especially when the gig is as fun as that.

The baroque choir conductor that I've been working for put together a concert to fund the Bach cantatas that he's been doing. There was a Telemann recorder concerto, some English clarinet music, a lovely cantata by Pepusch (I love baroque recitative; love love love it), and then a bunch of gorgeous a capella singing- some early music, some arrangements of jazz tunes and (I'm so serious here) Old MacDonald. The choir is made up of the conductor's friends from University and the are fabulous. Really wonderful to listen to. I was grinning while sitting in the audience and just kept thinking to myself that a: I want to sing in a choir and b: I love music. I love love love it. (Which sometimes I forget.)

After the gig we went to this adorable/expensive local pub (that's what you get for living in a posh London suburb) and everyone was lovely. I ended up chatting to two people in particular and because the singers all have real world jobs we ended up talking about job opportunities and ideas. One woman is an English teacher and was telling me all about the training for that- apparently it is very flexible, fun, and with this certification allows you to teach literally anywhere in the world. (She's using it to travel the globe, not a bad idea.) Then there was a fellow who works at The Royal Albert Hall and each time I mentioned a project that I had worked on he would spout off two or three organizations I should put my name in for. So we exchanged contact information because I want to pick his brain when I have a notebook nearby.

The recorder soloist was a friend of mine from Guildhall that I haven't seen in a year and a half. So we spent the train journey catching up and chattering away like chickens. (Do chickens chatter? I mostly like that phrase (that I may have made up) because of the alliteration.) She's got very into medieval music recently and we now have a master plan that involves me learning the medieval harp (don't worry- it's small! (ish)) and forming a trio with her partner. Brilliant? I think so.

The fun thing about traveling on public transport with the bass is that everyone talks to you. This is annoying sometimes, but tonight I was game. I was also on two different trains and three different tube lines, so there were a lot of different people to talk to. There was the couple from Boston (my sister! she's moving there! wheee!), the man from Essex who works for French Connection, and then on the final leg of the journey three hipsters who managed to involve the whole of our section of the carriage in our conversation.

"That's a double bass"

yes. Yes it is.

"What'd you play?"

the double bass.

"No! No, I mean what music?"

Telemann concerto.

"Dude. Telemann sucks. 400 concertos and they all sound the same."

... why do you know that?

"Everyone knows that."

You, over there in the corner. Do you know who Telemann is? Nope? Didn't think so.

"He's a composer"

Ah. That explains it.

They were funny. And wearing 3D glasses and 1940's women's felt hats. I love London .

Oh! And the reason this is "music" and not just "gig" is because on Thursday I went to see the London Philharmonia with Gil Shaham playing the Walton violin concerto and it was *amazing* he looked like he was having so much fun and rambled around the stage playing the violin. The orchestra rocked and the second half was The Planet's by Holst. It was an excellent, excellent concert. Made all the more fun by the fact that Gwen had managed to get us seats in the centre 7th row. Heck yeah!

I had a lovely birthday, thanks for asking!

I had stayed up late the night before making pancake batter, deciding that chicken hot dogs were close enough to count as sausages in a breakfast environment, and washing all the dishes. This meant that when Sarah showed up for breakfast and chatting it didn't matter that I was still totally in my pajamas and had only rolled out of bed because the doorbell was ringing. We had a marvelously wonderful time talking about life after school, being a freelance musician, visa issues, upcoming nuptials, ohmygodwe'relikeadults, music pedagogy, and the like.

We ended the conversation because I had a lunch date to make and in spite of completely losing track of time managed to show up only 20 minutes late...sorry Jon. Jon and I had dutch pancakes which are giant crepe/burrito hybrids with things like eggplant and bacon cooked into the batter. Craziness. Lunch was delightful and it was great to see Jon again.

Then I wandered over to Covent Garden where I located an astrology shop and read all of their Virgo birthday cards. We are apparently critical and perfectionist. Hmmph. Also- our astrological vegetable is carrots.

Ella called and I remembered that there is a restaurant/bar/tourist trap in Covent Garden that has wonderfully creative cocktails for 50% off on Sundays and Mondays. So we proceeded to get a little tipsy in the early evening. Remind me later that I dislike bright, fruity drinks that turn my mouth unflattering shades of blue. Banana Coladas though? Yes.

We then walked up towards Oxford street to meet up with Sarah, Dave, and Meredith at John Louis where we provided unhelpful advice on the topic of Buying A Lamp. We also lusted after beautiful but expensive and impractically deep pile carpets. Should I end up with scads of money at a latter point in my life I may need to be restrained from decorating my house entirely in William Morris prints.

The five of us, having disagreed on lamp purchases but agreed unanimously that bean bag chairs are a Good Thing, continued on to tasty tasty Thai food. I had some delicious Tom Ka Gai and some disappointing chicken satay.

So there. Doesn't that sound like a nice birthday?

Trafalgar Square Adeventure or GIANT KARAOKE

So T-Mobile is, by all accounts, not the best of the mobile phone service choices. That being said, they have the freaking awesomest ads ever! Check out this one that they did in Liverpool Street Station: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM They didn't close the station, so there were a number of bewildered commuters. I'm totally bummed I didn't get to see it, because HOW COOL?

So when Jo told me this morning that they were filming the next one in Trafalgar Square today I was like "We're GOing!!" And so we did.

This time there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people there and instead of dancing it was giant, Trafalgar Square style Karaoke. The crowd jumped up and down whenever the cameras on these giant, impressively mobile booms swung over us and on the giant screen they had the words and shots from the crowd.

We sang Hey Jude, Build me up buttercup, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Summer Lovin' before Pink showed up. She ended up standing on a short platform about 10 yards away and we didn't notice at first. We were just like "why are we suddenly being shoved by SO MANY PEOPLE?" And then we figured out she was there. She was lovely the whole time: performed well, put her arm around a couple of the people who shoved their way on to her platform, and was even good natured when someone threw a phone at her (aren't Londoners nice?)

Then we all sang Hey Jude again and this was clearly the one they were actually filming because we sang the na na na na's for (and this is not an exaggeration) 15 minutes. By the end I was singing into my microphone (most likely fake, because that many cordless mics? No way.) "No no no no, no no no nooo, I'm bored now, let's stop"

If you get featured in the Ad you get 500GBP, but Jo and I have a very slim chance of that happening. The two little girls in red jumpers sitting on their parents' shoulders? They're totally gonna be in it- the flexible boom cameras circled them for a good 30 seconds at one point.