Learning the Recorder (by sarah)

I'm relearning stuff at the moment due to the old whack on the head - so this mainly means I am colouring in but the girls want to learn the recorder and I have a hang up about the recorder...

Anyway to cut a long story short there is a Frozen recorder book on it's way to us and we have received a rather disappointing Elsa/Frozen "recorder" which is a crap plastic all in one moulded toy that is pretty useless but Mary loves it and it was stupid cheap so hey you get what you pay for (I was still narked if it says recorder - I expect an actual recorder!).

With panic I realised the book would probably be all music notation even though it says easy on it. I can't read music, I have a stab at learning it every few years but nope doesn't work. I normally just work things out by sound etc... this is actually what got me chucked out of my recorder class in school.

Apparently according to the then music teacher you can't be a musician without reading music. You can't play music. This crushed me. What had happened was that she hadn't noticed I couldn't read music, I was watching her and the other kids and working it out by ear and progressing nicely. Even when they started setting homeworks it wasn't too bad as it was nursery rhymes and I just worked them out but then... then they wanted us to do "proper music" story pieces as backing for singers or as part of the orchester. I did not know these songs, my parents were not into classical music - BAM a glass ceiling.

They were complex with different sized recorders - everyone else would turn up knowing the piece, after three weeks of this I knew that something had to happen for me to continue with recorder. So I asked my mum if I could have extra music lessons, she said yes and wrote a letter explaining the situation and that I could not actually read the music - could I have extra lessons (paid for) or did they know who to ask etc... to sort this out.

The letter was the death nell - in front of the enter wind section I was castigated - told that if I hadn't picked up reading music by now then there was no hope - I simply could not be a musician.

I left angry, and confused and crying, a hot mist of shame clouding my vision. I clutched my two recorders, one of which was basically shiny knew and the classic dark brown and cream, my nan had bought it for me as I'd moved up a group.

Being me I became kind of resigned and militant about this. I didn't really want to be playing the recorder anyway - I wanted to play the flute. Being a glutton for punishment I went along to the flute try outs. From my prospective it seemed to be going quiet well, I could get a sound out of the damn thing unlike the others in the room. But then the teacher took the flutist aside and hard the mutterings about not being able to read music, or writing for that matter and so on - I would like to add that I was also not the only child in the room at this point but I think the teacher had forgotten I could now hear properly as it was just after the second lot of grommets had been put in.

I doubt my pitch was perfect (I'm pretty sure it wasn't), I don't do sound as just a hearing thing anyway, I like to feel it, if I can't feel it I can't know if it will fit properly.

Anyway they came over to me and I looked up, "I'm afraid your arms are too short for the flute," he said.

"What about the picalo?" I asked - I was desperate to play the flute - this was because a blue telepathic animated character out of a cartoon series called Ulysses 31 played an epic flute made of gold and lights that she vanquished monsters with. Also I had curly hair - somehow I felt that meant I was destined for the flute.

He hesitated, "you have to learn the flute first before the picalo." He said gravely and I left the music room once more with the angry confused mist of shame and tears and snot.

My mother was furious but we could not afford flute stuff outside of the special schools programme.

Then because you know I never know when to quit I went for the choir in the final year of juniors with the same woman. But I was sick on the day the auditions were supposed to happen. When I got back there were four people out of the entire year who were too bad to go in the choir - they were the people I had extra reading lessons with in the special room.

I am a shy person. I was still determined, I was made to stand in the school hall in front of the entire year and given a piece of sheet music that the teacher knew I could not read. I didn't even know what the song was going to be. I was petrified, everyone knew I wanted to be an opera singer (it was down as part of my three fold dream which involved being a spaceman and archeologist so I could look at rocks - I thought as an opera singing I would get to design the costumes, write the stories and build the sets as well as doing singing, dancing and acting).

I recognised the song, I tried to sing, my voice stuck but then it unstuck and I started to sing.

The teacher loomed in putting her ear right in front of my mouth making comments. But I wanted to be in the choir so much I kept going.

She stopped the music, and announced I was in tune but too quiet and there was no place in the choir for people who couldn't pull their weight. Everyone knew how much I wanted to be in the choir. I don't know if I imagined it but at this point I was sure they were all laughing at me. My form tutor came and rescued me and sat on the stairs with me whilst I cried.

"Hey we can't all be good at everything, what if I told you you hadn't gotten onto the football team? You wouldn't be crying then would you?" we both knew I would never have gone for it as I was still learning to run without falling over at this point.

"I would." I said and she looked at me sitting there in her sports outfit she never took off - she knew me and sports, "if I'd tried out for the football team it would be because I wanted to play football so of course I'd be upset if I didn't get it especially if I was then told I was rubbish and would never be able to do it, in front of EVERYBODY."

She smiled and laughed, "Sarah you are amazing, you'll find away, it will be your own way, now come and see the stuff I've got planned for you lot, you're going to be so glad you aren't in the choir."

And I was - we made things and explored things, including creating our own papier mache puppets and sets. I am also still friends with two of the people who were in that group with me.

Of course I also then went and joined lots of choirs, and learnt the guitar and have sundry instruments in my house. Now I know I am not brilliant at music and I know I panic when ever technical stuff is mentioned but I love music.

These events did mar music for me though and looking at it now from where I am as an adult I feel that, that music teacher was most definately in the wrong. She was also my second year class teacher so I would have been 8? She was my least favourite of the junior school. I did revisit the school once before my work experience (which was in the infant school anyway), I made a special trip to her classroom to tell her how I'd been excepted into the choral society as well as having performed in a local performance of Joseph and his Dream Coat and so on - what I didn't mention was that I still wasn't having any school music or drama classes as I was still having to go to a special room to learn to read and write properly - I did however mention that I had been given a solo without being able to read music. I am glad I didn't know the term passive aggression as I would not have done this and I feel that in all honesty it needed to be done.

So back to the here and now as I am sure I've blogged about this story a couple of times before!

I have a recorder that I play merrily we row along to get children to sit down at readings and workshops. It turns out to be the only song I can remember since hitting my head though Jean says I could play lots of hymns (makes sense they are songs I would have known well enough from church to work out by ear).

Anyway she doesn't get recorder lessons at the school - she's had a bit of uke but they are not a big school and the teacher who could play, left... so I taught her merrily we row along. It took her about half an hour to master and remember and now she is playing it CONTINOUSLY!

Then I was struck by the panic - she was asking for other tunes and I can't remember any and I don't think I was particularly good anyway. That and the realisation that the book though saying EASY recorder would no doubt expect music reading skills... I turned to youtube.

I found this vid of Happy Birthday.

My dad was coming down the next day - it was his birthday - it took me 15 mins to get it down pat and I then remembered it in the morning for the kids to sing along to.

I was so proud of myself.

Jean is keen to learn and Mary has always loved the recorder :)

(She is now 4 and not the little thing in this video!)

The first thing that happened was my mum mentioned the teacher and we both had the same thought, if I can teach myself using youtube videos whilst suffering with the tail end of a head injury then how the hell did a qualified teacher stuff it up?

I realise I was a "special needs" kid but still... also there were like over 60 kids in my year - that is a 60 strong choir that was not a super duper choir so would 5 "bad voices" have made that much of a difference espcially if they were far away from the mics? And was it coincidence that we were all the "special needs" kids? I'd never thought on that connection before but it is there.

Anyway - I think I need to rest and then learn another song... well actually I am also setting up a section on here of educational stuff so Jean can find it when she wants to learn without me. It should also be useful to others and I may include links to good education workshop leaders etc... not really decided yet.

One last thing - it turns out I know random stuff about the recorder and sizes and stuff and got very defensive when Alaric suggested that only kids play them and that you never see adults playing them!

What a morning! (by alaric)

Ok. My days are usually pretty stressful. I'm supposed to work from 9am to 5:30pm with an hour's lunch break, but most days, I can't; with the school run I rarely get into work before 9am, and with picking Mary up from nursery (Mon+Fri), or getting Jean to Cubs (Wed), or getting Jean to Ju Jutsu (Tue), I tend to have to leave at 5pm at the latest. So I eat at my desk and work through the "lunch hour" to fit my working day into 9:30am to 5:00pm. Except on Tuesdays, I need to leave at 4pm to get Jean to Ju Jutsu for 4:30pm, so I make up for that by also skipping lunch on Thursday, despite staying until 5:30pm then (I manage to get in for 9am on Thursdays, as I can drop off at school slightly earlier on that day, and Tuesdays too). So it all balances out and I fit my contracted hours in each week, but with zero leeway and no lunch breaks.

But that is merely the backdrop to today's story.

Read more »

10 Years Ago…. (by sarah)

Ten years ago today Alaric got to the train station and thought "you know what I don't want to go to work today, my pregnant wife is very sick and in that hospital just there, I'll go and see her instead". This was an unusual thought for him, as it was he mostly worked from home and only went in once a week for meetings.

It was bizar behaviour on his part but something I am so glad he did. He held my hand as I sat on machines that monitored my vitals and then he went to get my breakfast. I think I fell asleep, something was going on, nurses were running past the door, Alaric came and with a nurse helped get me to the breakfast room with it's TV.

He explained a bomb had gone off, we watched the news as it unfolded with a sickening sense of relief, Alaric could have, should have been on that train. Then the panic as we realised that it wasn't one attack but several - that it was hitting routes we knew. I tried to phone my friends and family who worked in London. Unsurprisingly the networks were jammed - in hindsight we should have been leaving the phones for emergency stuff but we weren't thinking we just wanted to check everyone was safe.

Our Drs started to disappear as they left to help or be medical stand by, my parents turned up thinking they were going to have to tell their very ill very pregnant daughter that her husband was missing on one of the blown up routes. They had been trying to phone him, none of the phones were working.

They were angry with him in that way you get angry when a child didn't come when you called, and you imagine the worst. Then he got hugged. And then the maternity ward began to break down. They say there is no stress induced pregnancy but woman after woman came in with blood pressure problems or in labour or both. The ward filled, there were women on trollies in the corridor - we were not on the labour ward but one woman ended up in the advance stages of having her baby in the maternity ward with me. They pulled the curtains round her bed, she was calling for her husband - her parents didn't know where he was, he had not done an Alaric, he was either dead, injuried or stranded in a motionaless London.

There was not enough beds or staff and bloody foot prints appeared and stayed on the floor. I was bewildered.

After much trying we got hold of as many friends and family as we could, checking they were all ok. More than one had had a near miss, were sitting still in London, sitting on steps crying or telling me how eeri it was with all the traffic stopped, with the hush, and with everyone being kind. London is normally a free for all, pushing, rushing, ignoring the press of humanity but that wasn't what was happening. Everyone was milling, quiet and in shock, everyone knew they were the lucky ones.

Everyone had been expecting the attack since 7/11 in the US, in truth London commuters had been being a bit nicer to each other since that point all fearing that this day was coming. If your train was delayed by more than ten minutes and you had no reception but someone else did - they would lend you their phone to phone and say you were alive. This affect multiplied on the day, I did not really register the stories at the time - I was too ill and mainly wanted to know that the people I cared about were fine.

That is not saying that I had no feelings for those who weren't, it was horrific but I needed to know my friends were fine.

When he got home Alaric found we'd been added to shout outs, it was before the days of social media but we did have blogs and mailing lists and everyone was checking that we were ok. People were worried.

My friends and family were lucky, but mum's friend son - not so much. He's alive due to the carriage he got in but bar the shock of the actual explosion and minor injuries he then had to be escorted past the carnage. Last I heard he still hadn't gone back to work, not all the scars were physical ones, not all of them could heal.

Much later on I realised that it had been even more of a close call for our little family, if I had not been ill and in hospital then we could all have been on the train. It's a strange twist of fate and one that wedges inside me, that me almost dying potentially saved all three of our lives. I say potentially because we might have been late or delayed or I might have weed myself on the way to the station or a million other things, but all of those things are nothing but grace as was me being so ill Alaric felt justified in not going to work that morning.

Terrorism is a horrendous thing, life taking for political gain, for power, religion, to make a point, to drive the wedge... murder is the only name for it.

It was muslims that time but it followed a tradition of London bombs. Someone asked me how I could still travel on the tube into London - the answer, "The RIA didn't stop us, oil disputes in the 70's did not stop my mother, hell she even had her bank hijacked, so why let this lot?". They weren't all muslims like the RIA were not all the Irish, the point of the bombings was to divide, to make an us and them, sadly with some people they succeeded and that is sad. Muslims were killed on the trains and buses, muslim doctors came and aided people straight away - before anyone really knew what they were dealing with, weather those drs were putting their own lives at risk or not.

Terrorists don't really care who they kill, who they injure or maim, that's kind of the point of the bombs. Ever wondered why we don't have metal bins anymore?

Anyway that is all besides the point. Today there are people remembering loved ones who should but aren't still here and no amount of photos shown on international TV is going to heal the wholes in those families. Later today I am going to light ten candles - one for each year, for the yawning chasm of pain, for those who were lost and those that still bare the scars.

Concussion Update (by sarah)

Just a quick update - I have improved drastically, went to the Drs yesterday and he is pleased with with the fact I can plan knit and colour in even though I can't follow patterns or do my own drawing. Writing still hurts, reading still hurts and gives me virtigo.

I am bored but hey I'm felting like a fiend, I made wings - they glow. I am not up to using the image uploader yet - I'm barely using the camera and the quality of pictures taking is shocking.

This will all just take time but it should be a full recovery - I have fine motor skills back and no longer slur - speech is still slower than normal but as I was a fast talker this is only evident to people who know me. I also take a while to answer some things or think of the word - it's weird but I do normally get there. Sadly this also means I solve problems several hours after they needed solving - I am not used to not being able to see ways to solve/get around/sort things out.

I am very behind on work, I dread to think about how many emails I have. I am taking it easy and waiting for my brain to sort itself for another 4-6 weeks depending on headaches, I am going to the clinic about the polyp/lumps in my sinuses in August, I am getting sorted. I am enjoying colouring in but it takes forever, writing this is taking for ever and is harder than I could have thought.

I am still very tired and need to get away from noise as I start to have trouble processing information and sensory import. I've not been able to watch TV or films or fair ground rides or highly patterned clothing. I sleep and get dizzy but this is now a lot less than it was.

Feeling thick would be a good discription and the reading writing stuff is the way I remember it from infant school - I used to get vertigo then - that was the dyslexia - is it that now? Has the concussion made that worse? I am distracted but can now keep hold of my phone - I've completely lost my keys though but then not really allowed out on my own anyway :/

I think I've fucked up part of my career again at least temporarily and I am hacked off about that.

There is still a bump, a phyiscal ouchy lump that sits there in my hair and the whole area hurts if I laugh but hey I've started to laugh, I take a while to get jokes but I was often slow at that and then laugh and laugh once I got it but this is more so than that.

The girls have mostly been brilliant and poor Al... well he's been the hero once more. I dry brushed my hair for the first time today as lump was still bleeding/weeping before - I am a frizz ball but it's stinging so I don't wont to put serum or anything on the hair and I learnt at the weekend that putting my hair up can pull on the lump area - not nice.

I am getting there - thanks for the well wishes an d patience and help.

Concussion (by alaric)

For all of the time I've known her, Sarah has been poorly. When we first met, she was being investigated for a bowel problem, and she also suffered shoulder pain from a bike accident when she was a teenager. When she was pregnant with our first child, she had an exciting array of complications, and took many years to recover from the experience; she had mobility issues and pain due to a separated pelvis, lacked energy, had reduced sensation in her legs, and so on. The second pregnancy was nowhere near as bad, but Sarah still bled for months afterwards due to problems with her womb lining.

However, some months ago, while trying to lose weight, she cut wheat from her diet; and a load of niggling health problems she had reduced significantly, while her energy levels rose. She suddenly found it easier to lose weight, and things were looking pretty rosy.

However, this meant that she wasn't certain of her limits any more. Last Sunday, she was dancing, and found that she could now dance hard, and didn't need to keep stopping and resting; until she was suddenly dizzy, and stumbled backwards off of the nice soft grass and onto a concrete path, where she fell over backwards and hit her head hard on the ground.

I didn't see it happen; I was looking the other way, but Jean called out to me, and I saw Sarah lying on her back. She was instantly surrounded by people, and a paramedic was at hand almost immediately, so other than providing my cloak as a blanket, my role was reduced to holding her hand and helping Jean to pack up our things so we could leave.

This led to a thrilling trip in an ambulance with her neck immobilised, and several hours in A&E being examined and X-rayed.

Thankfully, this revealed that she had no structural damage to her spine or skull, so she could be released from the collar and head restraints, and sent home.

Jean was a star throughout; she rode in the ambulance, with Sarah's glasses and phone and medication, while I followed in the car, and helped the ambulance staff by verifying the truth of questions they asked Sarah to check her memory function. She didn't panic, even though it was clearly stressful for her, and did all the right things.

On Monday, Sarah mainly slept. On Tuesday, my father and stepmother visited, and we had a day out; Sarah was still speaking slowly and having short-term memory problems (forgetting where she put things, mainly). But on Wednesday she was struggling, with her speech slurring and often struggling to remember words for things, so she spoke haltingly. So we took her back to A&E, where she was given a CT scan, which thankfully confirmed that she didn't have any bleeding inside her skull (which would have been bad news). So she was let out again, and told to come back if she wasn't better in another week and a half.

At the time of writing, a week after the accident, she still has difficulty concentrating for long conversations, and can't concentrate on reading or watching TV or anything like that for more than a few minutes at a time. If she tries, she starts to struggle to think clearly at all, and her speech worsens. I've not kept track, but she sleeps through the night and probably spends at least a quarter of the day napping, and has to restrict her waking hours to mentally non-taxing tasks. Loud noises cause her pain, and I've been having to work from home to keep an eye on her and to keep Mary from bothering her.

So, it looks like she has Post-concussion Syndrome; this means she may be better in a few weeks - or may well be like this for years. Apparently about one in ten people still have symptoms after a year.

Her personality is intact, and her memories all seem to still exist; she just has to take her time to find them, which makes conversation difficult at times. But she can't do any of the things she loves to do, because sustained concentration renders her zombie-like within minutes. Unless that clears up, her career in writing, crafts workshops, and science communication will be over. I feel reasonably confident I can leave her looking after herself at home now, but she won't cope on days when Mary is not at nursery, so if things don't improve my job may become awkward until Mary starts at school in September, too.

So, for the time being, all we can do is hope it gets better!