Musical lottery luck

A drive to Kenilworth today to look after Rhiannon while her Mum and Dad are away for two nights of gigging in Lincolnshire. As I was about the leave Kath called with the news that the M4 had been blocked by a crash in one of the Brynglas tunnels at Newport. It's happened before when I've been about to drive out of South Wales, and to avoid traffic standstills, I drove northward, first to Ystrad Mynach, then across the eastern Valleys to Pontypool and Usk to join the usual route to the Midlands via Monmouth. It took me an hour and a half to cover the first thirty five miles, putting me under pressure to drive faster than was enjoyable once I got to open road. I arrived with five minutes to spare and met Kath and Anto just as they were loading the car to leave.

Rhiannon was taking part in a singing event in the afternoon, involving a thousand children from schools around Warwickshire, taking place in the Warwick University Arts Centre. I'd offered to accompany her class on the coach taking them there, and was a little surprised to learn that after a classroom lottery held by the teaching staff, I was one of the lucky few to be chosen out of scores of parents who'd wanted to go along to support the teachers, and take part. I hadn't understood how little room there's be for spare adults with so many children involved.

A team of eight including two musicians led the event, teaching children by singing songs a line at a time and having the children repeat, after the manner of call and response singing. Almost everything was accompanied by physical movements, and there was much standing, sitting, waving of arms and wiggling about. Progressively songs and rhythms and movement became more and more complex, climaxing with a train song done as a four part round. It was an invigorating experiences, and sitting in with the kids  was such an invigorating experience. My word, did I get lucky!

After supper, Rhiannon and I sat together with her laptop, and she asked me how to do some things and showed me without realising, when we started exploring the use of Corel Draw, just how much she has learned in school, in a natural and unforced way. She's a child that loves drawing, writing and painting, and making things. She was in the throes of handwriting a letter to her cousin Jasmine in the form of a scroll on a large piece of paper and an Easter chick with an opening beak from a folded piece of cartirdge paper. I couldn't help noticing how skilful she was using the laptop trackpad mouse. It was such a delight to have this rather special time to ourselves.