Festa Brasileira

This year we were both 50! My observation is that before you are 40, 40 seems old – well in fact before you are 30, 30 seems old – but when you approach 50, 60 seems young and 70s seem like middle age and 80 is just about getting old and maybe 90s is old age. So, as you can tell, I am still feeling young and that the best is yet to come – not that best hasn’t already been as well – but there is still loads of good stuff to follow!

So, to mark our birthdays Ben was very keen that we have a joint party/gig and for it to be a fundraiser. The trouble is my birthday is in March and his is November so my birthday was going to go by before any celebration. I also had a feeling that the big party would be nearer his birthday than mine. So back in March, on my actual birthday we had a dinner party with a few close friends. To make it as enjoyable as possible I didn’t let Ben do much of the organising as his way of getting things done it to work himself up into a stressed-out frenzy (he’s such an adrenaline junky), and he starts yelling at everyone and that launches him into action. My way of getting things done is to stay as calm as possible so that I can think straight – adrenaline muddles my brain. So I chose all the food and prepared it all and sorted out the hire of crockery and cutlery and tables and chairs (yes, by a few I meant 20... well you have your closest 3 or 4 friends then the next closest group with spouses is a big jump!), and Ben and Louis strung up some fairy lights etc and Hilary and Louis did all the serving and I had a wonderful evening.

We had two tables, one in the living room ...

... and one in the conservatory.

me helping Hilary to finish preparing the desserts

We swapped people around after each course ...

... and by the end of the evening all the men were on one table and all the women on the other!

It was such a fun evening!

Also, a big thing for marking my 50th year was the launch of my first CD and that happened at the beginning of July. That too was one of the most fun evenings of my life. It was held on a permanently moored boat on the Thames – the HMS President. 140 people turned up! After all the preparations the most enjoyable bit was standing up singing! But looking round the room at all the people that are so special to me was amazing – friends, relatives, work colleagues – it was an awesome feeling that your life touches so many people.

The title track of the CD and the only original is a song I wrote called Tout Droit ... and my french teacher from school, Tim Poole came along.  I think he was happy with my french!

Anita Wardell has been my singing coach for the last four years and encouraged me to do the CD. She has been such a champion and it was a priviledge to sing a duet with her towards the end of the second set.

So, finally we get round to having the joint party. We didn’t want to have it too soon after the summer holidays and then we were very caught up in helping Louis with the bus refurbishment. After that was over, there were three weeks remaining until Ben’s birthday so it was all a bit short notice. But just the right amount of pressure to give Ben the adrenaline kick he likes for project work!

My piano teacher Roland is a well established jazz musician in London and has musicians from a number of different countries in his line-up. He himself is originally from New York and other bands members are from the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa. I took Ben to see him and his band at the 606 Club in Chelsea and it was great. He mixes up his Latin, African and Caribbean sounds and rhythms and the characters in the band are so colourful. So, Ben was very keen to book them and when he rang they all had the 28th November (the day before Ben’s birthday) free. (Did I mention I thought the joint party would end up being nearer Ben’s birthday?!)

Ben has been very involved with an education project in Brazil that a friend of ours, Phil Hawkins, has established. This summer and last summer he has been out to Brazil with Phil and they have had some amazing opportunities connecting with representative in government for education, this year meeting with the Secretary of State for Education in Brasilia! This is in addition to the work they have been doing at teachers conferences and workshops in schools with teachers working on opening their eyes to different learning styles and thinking about different approaches to the school logistics for example at the moment in the state secondary schools the class group stays in the same classroom and the teacher comes to them so the rooms are not kitted out for the subject, no maps etc in a geography room, no science equipment – everything is theoretical and no technology subjects are tackled. Anyway – this is a longer blog for another day. But the project is called Aprender and the website is www.aprender.co.uk if you want to see more and this video gives a bit of an insight into what they are doing.

So this was the chosen cause for the fund raising aspect and of course because its Brazilian and because Brazil has been close to my heart since I was 14 or 15 (thank you my lovely friend Odila, for introducing me to your country) the theme including food was to be Brazilian ergo Festa Brasileira!

We decided to hold it at Ben’s school and James, the chef at school was very keen to help with the food preparation. We decided to do a Chuhascuria so a couple of barbeques were set up in the playground, Brazilian rice of course, a sweet potato and black bean stew and a Brazilian style salad. For dessert we served frozen grapes (which I don’t think is particularly Brazilian), mango and pineapple. The bar was supplied by the usual “bring a bottle” which appears on standard UK party invites although we did make sure it was a little stocked beforehand. Pupils and ex-pupils helped setting up the hall and with the bar, and friends and family helped prepare and serve food. Thank you to our amazing friend Janet Rickards who must have put in about 10 hours helping!

Getting the hall ready.

Balloons are blown up...

... flowers have arrived ...

Darcy has one last practice!

Then creates some lovely table decorations.

The evening was amazing, really fun! When the main band “Roland Perrin’s Limited Edition” were having a break Phil, Ben and Emma (a primary school teacher who had travelled with them this summer to look at the primary education) gave a little talk to explain what Aprender is all about and showed the video above. Roland gave Darcy and guest spot (he's her piano teacher too) where she played Horace Silver's "Song for my Father" with the band, and he gave me a guest spot singing with the band too when I (of course) sang "Chega de Saudade" and at Ben's request "What a Friend we Have in Jesus" which is on my ablum.  Some pupils and ex-pupils have been getting a band together and did a set before Limited Edition came back for the second half which ended with an amazing “drum off” between the two bands. It was excellent!

The guests arrive.

Roland Perrin's Limited Edition!

Phil, Ben and Emma tell us all about Aprender

Pupils and ex-pupils do a set.

Healthy dessert!

The awesome band entertain again ..

Darcy's teacher seems pleased with his pupil ...

Long distance shot of me singing Chega de Saudade

Hilary and Adam

Me and Louis

My Dad and Mum

Here with her lovely daughters is the amazing Janet, who gave so much time to helping prepare the food.

Then we danced..

... danced ...

.... danced the night away!

We raised over £1400 for Aprender by requesting donations rather than birthday presents (cos we have enough stuff anyway!)

The Boombus

A few years ago Louis had a dream of owning a double decker bus that he could (of course) live on, hire out for parties and use for social action projects. Three years ago he fulfilled his dream and bought a bus that was all kitted out for kids parties from a DJ based in Telford.

He began refurbishment work on it and was having some alterations made by a coach works company in Kent. The company rang him and said that they had just had a bus delivered back to them that they had refurbished a year before that already had living accommodation facilities on it (plumbing, shower, cooker, fridge) and asked if he would he like to trade in his bus and buy that. It was going to cost £10,000. But they had already started work on the other bus, which had cost him £2,000 to buy and was now still going to have to pay the coach works so he didn’t say yes to the newer bus and was still figuring out what to do. However, when he went to collect the first bus after they had done the work, having driven 2 miles down the road it spontaneously combusted!! Yes, it just burst into flames. His friend who had driven him to Kent to collect it was driving behind and saw smoke and flames coming out of the back and flagged Louis down! No one was hurt! AND he got all the money back through the insurance and had enough money through some funding for the social action projects he is involved with to buy the £10,000 bus! For the last couple of years it has served him well as living accommodation, has hired it out for parties and school fairs and has done lots of youth drop in for local councils, youth projects and even run a mums and toddlers drop in where he takes some volunteers that will look after the toddlers and a beautician who will do the mums nails etc while the kids are playing! Oh... and set up a recording studio in it!!

Here is his promotional video for the work he's been doing on it:

A Street Party:

Sleepover on the Bus:

Then last year in “emissions zone” was imposed in London which meant another £5,000 spend on converting the bus to low emission fuel or a £200 charge every time the bus entered the zone. This has restricted the buses activities somewhat although quite a number of people has still booked parties and been prepared to pay the £200 charge as part of the evenings costs (obviously not kids parties but things like stag nights etc!), and Louis has been looking around for more funding.

A few weeks ago he was successful in obtaining funding of £10,000 for both the fuel conversion and some improvements. Yey! But ... about 4 weeks ago, whilst working on it with a friend, I don’t know whether it was due to lack of sleep, not eating properly (a mother always worries about these things with sons) they made the decision to rip the entire contents of the lower deck out ... without a project plan, a budget plan and with a party deadline of last night!! He had booked his friend for a week to help him with the work, but then the friend who is a builder had other work to go to. So who do you turn to in a situation like that? Mum and Dad of course! Ben is pretty handy and loves projects but even he was overwhelmed by the amount of work and the scale of Louis’ plans for the bus. So, the logical pragmatic member of the family had to step in (me) and we put together a task list – couldn’t find a copy of MS Project on any of our PCs so had to put it in a spreadsheet and got Louis to estimate the times for design, sourcing of materials and execution to give him a realistic view of what could be achieved.

So for the last three weeks Ben and Louis have been working solidly on it, Ben teaching during the day, stopping by for a bite to eat before going over to the farm where the bus is stored and working til about 3am!!

And in the last week emergency calls were sent out to friends and family to get all hands on deck. Two days ago I was recruited as an upholsterer and have now learnt the skill of working with leatherette and an electric staple gun and Hilary (who I had booked to come round and help me with some admin) helped me all day yesterday!

And of course, we pulled it off and the bus looked amazing. They stopped by on the way to the party to pick up the upholstered seats, lights flashing, music blaring, mist poured out of the bus door like a rock concert state ...

It is fun being part of a crazy family!! At times stressful, but I wouldn’t trade it.