Our May Bank Holiday Weekend

Our May Bank Holiday promised to be a busy one - but Elliot was just chuffed that he had yet another day off school!

I love this time of year because all the local festivals start to happen and Saturday was the day of VenFest. This is a really local one to us (we can walk from our house!) and features lots of lovely local Dorset produce, live music and stalls. The event started off as the Dorset Venison festival a few years back but has evolved over time to include lots of other Dorset produce and is now called Venfest.

This was to be our 3rd time going and it was a bit of a special one as my choir were booked in to sing! We actually did a flash mob in the morning (an interesting experience!) but our main slot was in the afternoon and we had such a good turn out. It was our first gig of the year so it was fab to be able to run through our set list and see which songs went down well with the crowd! I find that the festival gigs are always really fun and we always get a great reaction from the crowd - I love it when the kids come and join in down the front...like mine did!

The kids had a great time at the festival and we pretty much stayed until closing time! 

Elliot found the Cerne Abbas Brewery stall highly amusing...can't think why :D

Sunday was a pretty quiet day - my husband went out training for his marathon walk in the morning whilst the kids and I caught up with Britain's Got Talent. In the afternoon they had a birthday party to go to - there was a giant dragon bouncy castle which Elliot loved bouncing on! Erin was a bit small for the inflatables but she got stuck into pass the parcel. It's the first time she's really understood it and it was very cute watching her passing it along and then getting really excited when it stopped on her!

Sunday evening was Line of Duty time and I was so excited to watch the finale of Series 5. We have binged watched all the other series over the last couple of weeks and we're finally up to date in time for the finale - it didn't disappoint! The highlight was this line!

Monday soon arrived and we had plans to visit Sealife Weymouth - we're blogger ambassadors so we love going along to check out all the new events. I'll be doing a separate blog post on the Lego event so keep an eye out for that this week. 

The kids always have a lovely day out at Sealife Weymouth and they always make a beeline for their favourite areas. The rock pools are always popular, as are the cute fairy penguins! 

The weather was lovely too so it was nice to sit outside and have a picnic. The splash park was on and it was a mission getting the kids to stay out of it! 

It was also a good chance for my husband to try out some of his new wardrobe items that were kindly sent to us from Jacamo. Working with them proved one thing though...we're not very good fashion bloggers haha! We found it totally awkward taking photos of the items but it was nice to see Paul in some new togs! 

His entire outfit consisting of black jeans, polo shirt and waffle style fleece were all from Jacamo and got the thumbs up from Paul. He said the jeans and tshirt were very much his style and very comfortable. The fleece was also a hit and perfect for Spring days like today when the sun is out but it's still a bit chilly! We actually took the fleece away with us to Iceland and it worked as a great layer for him under his coat. 

We finished the day with a spot of geocaching and just like that weekend was over!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend too x

*Collaborative Post

Joining a Choir and Singing with G4

Credit - Amy Priest

I have mentioned this before on the blog but I belong to a local choir called Just Sing. We meet once a week to practice and we sing a wide range of music including pop, rock and musical theatre.

Back in January, one of our lovely ladies Beverley heard about a competition that was being run by vocal quartet G4. Cast your mind back to 2004, G4 were crowned runners up on series 1 of The X Factor and they went on to have 3 very successful albums. The group split up in 2007 but are now back together and about to embark on their "Back for Good" tour.

For the tour, G4 were looking for choirs to sing with them on stage and unbeknown to Just Sing, our name was put forward by Beverley. Fortunately for us, G4 liked what they heard and we were invited to sing with them on their opening night at the Lighthouse Arts Centre in Poole - how exciting!!

We were given the exciting news in February and the concert was April 3rd so this gave us just over 8 weeks to learn 5 new songs including complex harmonies. The set list was very different to our usual repertoire but everyone in the choir rose to the challenge and we set about learning our lines.

The next 8 weeks went by in a blur and I seemed to be singing "Barcelona" in my sleep. As well as our weekly rehearsal, I practiced in the car...in the kitchen...in the shower...anything to learn those harmonies! My 3 year old son even got in on the act, he'd join in if I sang in the car and on several occasions he belted out "One Day More!" in the supermarket!

In the week leading up to the concert, we had two rehearsals and then all of a sudden, the day of the concert arrived. There was a flurry of activity on social media from lots of the choir members and everyone was so excited!

Although the concert wasn't due to start until 7.30pm, we had to arrive early for a run through with G4. Nerves started kicking in a bit then, especially as we had to wait for our sound check. Nothing like playing the waiting game to get the butterflies going!!

At just after 5pm, 100 members of the Just Sing choir took our places on the Lighthouse stage and we were off. It was so interesting being there for the soundcheck and seeing what goes on behind the scenes. We ran through our songs with G4 and it was definitely a different experience to singing in a school hall! It was slightly tricky as we couldn't really hear what we sounded like so we just had to sing and hope for the best! I took a video whilst we were singing You Raise Me Up, all you can hear is me singing though, oops!

Once our rehearsal was over we had a little bit of time waiting for the 7.30pm curtain call so it was a chance to mingle with choir friends, take photos and generally get excited!

When it was finally time to go on stage again, I felt so nervous and had major butterflies. But as soon as we walked out onto the stage and saw the audience the adrenaline kicked in and I just couldn't wait to sing.  And sing we did!

Credit - Mike Lancaster

G4 were incredible! I've seen them live before but this time around was something else. The vocals were crystal clear and the harmonies just gave me goosebumps, especially on songs such as Bring Him Home and Bridge Over Troubled Water.

As well as singing with G4, Just Sing got the chance to perform two songs by ourselves. Our choir leader Kelly chose Sing and Halleujah. Sing has always been special to Kelly, it inspired our choir name and we have always loved singing it. Halleujah is another favourite and it never fails to give me goosebumps when I hear it!

G4 did several medleys which meant they could cover more songs and this was a great idea, loved the Queen medley but the musical medley just blew me away!

Just Sing sang a total of 5 songs with G4 and the highlight for me was probably Nessun Dorma. I never thought in a million years that I'd be up on stage at The Lighthouse singing in Italian so it was very surreal but wow, what a song. There's a part of the song where the choir sings the chorus and what made it for me was when G4 all turned around to watch us sing, what a magical moment!! The song is very emotional anyway but I'm sure I wasn't the only choir member to be feeling a little choked up at that point!

Barcelona was another highlight, we had worked so hard to get the harmonies perfect and it was probably the one I was most worried about. There is a certain note that I always struggle to find but it went off without a hitch and sounded incredible from the video below:

The concert ended with a mass singalong to some classic rock songs and the atmosphere was just brilliant, we didn't want it to end.

G4 did a meet & greet after the concert and it was lovely for us to be able to meet them and say thank you for such a great opportunity. They were absolutely lovely and so friendly - and very happy to take selfies!

The choir ended the evening on a high with drinks in a local pub and everyone had enormous smiles on their faces...not just because of the drinks ;)

It was such a fantastic night and I really enjoyed myself. Singing with 99 other people, from all walks of life, young and old was a moment I will never forget.

Thank you to G4 for letting us sing with you and thank you to my fellow choir members for being amazing!