Islip 19-21 st October 2018
This was the second time we have been to Islip and what a lovely weekend we had staying in the guide hostel at Stanton St John! The weather was kind to us and the sun shone brightly, allowing plenty of photo opportunities which we took full advantage of. Many thanks to Debi for organising it all so efficiently, and to Susie and everyone else who did the concert organisation and set the hall out for us.
It was great that Gill was able to be back with us, both rehearsing and filming the concert, not to mention being our photographer in residence for the weekend! It was sad that Jan couldn’t make it, but hopefully we will also be able to welcome her back into the fold next time.
This weekend we were very much focused on the Saturday night concert, so Saturday was a quite intensive rehearsal session. The hall for the concert was a little challenging as our numbers have swelled and so space was tight and, although the sound out front was fine, it was quite difficult to hear ourselves on stage. But the audience were delighted with the concert and we had so much positive feedback afterwards, about both the performance and the newrepertoire, so we were delighted.
Sunday was a more relaxed day – we went over a few things that needed tweaking in the repertoire, but we also tackled a new piece – one which had been with us for some time but we are only now at the stage where we can actually do
it justice! It is very encouraging to see just how much our playing has improved since the early days and we are now a very cohesive and hard-working group – to such an extent that the vote was to do more practise rather than go for a walk
in the sunshine! Although a few of us did sneak out for a little breath of fresh air and a quick power walk!We are now really looking forward to our weekend in Stoke Newington in November where we will be playing two concerts, one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday afternoon. Details of both of these can be found on the website and you can also follow us on Facebook.
