What a week!

It would be an absolute truth to say that the past week has been one of the most rewarding and hectic periods in my life (so far).

Singing at the Opera House

It's not everyday you get the opportunity to sing at the Sydney Opera House. It's even less frequent that you get the chance to perform in three shows on two days in two theatres. On Sunday 15th July at 2pm and 6pm in the Opera Theatre, and on Tuesday 17th July in the Concert Hall, I was among 100 very privileged choristers to join the Choir of Hard Knocks on stage for a finale that will stay with me, and I suspect the audience, for a loooong time.

For those who don't know, the Choir of Hard Knocks is a project administered by RecLink in Melbourne, and which was the subject of a 5 part ABC documentary aired earlier this year. The Choir Director, Jonathon Welch, is the most genuine and giving person I think I know, and I'm blessed to be able to call him a dear friend. He's taken a rag-tag bunch of homeless and disadvantaged people with little or no singing experience and turned them into a singing sensation.

I got the opportunity to visit the Choir at rehearsal in January, and the improvement in their skill since that time is phenomenal. Not only are they sounding wonderful (and better than some 'regular' choirs I've heard), they sing with absolute passion, enthusiasm and feeling that shoots you right in the heart. If I wasn't singing with them at the Opera House, I would've been in the audience, weeping throughout the performance as did my partner and friends.

Above is a picture of my choir backstage at the House.

Finished Object

I also finished a jumper I'd been working on for a dear friend of mine - being a Melbourne boy he appreciates the warmth of a handknit. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a decent picture of it - this is the best I could manage.

It's Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic in 8ply in Graphite - the pattern is Sue Flynn's Shawl Collar Jumper from "Australian Yarn Art".

Uni Results

And then, at 1am on Wednesday morning after the Opera House I log onto my Uni account and find out that I scored Distinctions for Legal Process & History and Legal Research. What a blast!

It's really reassuring for someone who hasn't studied for nearly 10 years to come back to it and find out that the amount of effort you're putting in is being rewarded - maybe this semester I don't need to work quite so hard. I think my other half would appreciate that...

Opera House Debut

One of my passions is singing and to feed that passion I'm a member of a community choir here in Sydney - we specialise in popular music, so there's no Bach or sacred music to be seen anywhere in the repertoire.

We've been invited to form part of a massed choir finale at the Choir of Hard Knocks shows at the Sydney Opera House in July - wahoo!!

The Choir of Hard Knocks is a wonderful group of disadvantaged and homeless people in Melbourne brought together by Jonathon Welch, who dead-set deserves a medal for what he's doing down there.

Anyhoo - that's why there's the counter at the bottom of the page. I've never sung at the Opera House, and now all of a sudden I get the opportunity to do three shows over two days in two different theatres.

Too cool for school!

Fun, fun, fun till Daddy takes the bus keys away...

Some people shouldn't be allowed on public transport.

Let me tell you a tale.

Yesterday morning was a bit of an adventure on Sydney's buses into the city. It's a wet morning - not a good start - so you know that the bus will probably leak and there will be wet umbrellas galore. So, the bus is due at 7.43am - I'm at the bus stop just before 7.40am. Bus arrives at 7.50am - it's late but you tend to expect that when it's wet 'cause people take longer to get on the bus, and there's more passengers than on a nice sunny day.

So I get on the bus - the driver is engaged in conversation with a female passenger in the front seat - and they're not discussing the weather. She wants to make a complaint because the bus is always late. Unfortunately the bus driver buys into the situation and starts to 'discuss' the issue with the passenger.

Then the driver decides he's too stressed to drive the bus and makes everyone get off and get on the bus that just pulled up behind. No happy passengers - and most of the anger is aimed straight at the pain-in-the-you-know-what woman who seems to think there's some personal vendetta by this bus driver to make sure her bus is always late (which it isn't - I get the same bus every day).

So I try to calm the waters and suggest to Mrs Dumbass that perhaps the earlier bus had been cancelled and this bus was on time. Her response "Shut up!" So that's the last time I try and mediate!!

Ah well, had a nice chat with some fellow passengers who agreed that Mrs Dumbass needs to get a life.

And behold - who was on the bus this morning. Yep - you got it. At least the bus was on time today - it's not raining. And can you believe she's putting on her make-up on the bus. What's the deal with that??? I don't understand women who do that - the bus bumps along and I know I'd end up with lippy all over my face.

The whole trip into the city this morning all I was hoping was for a bit of a bump and for the goddamn brush she was using to poke her freaking eye out!!!

Procrastination...

So what do you do when you want to blog, you know you should blog, but you're not sure what to blog about?

You avoid it. You do Sudoko puzzles, you study (which you should be doing anyway), you generally procrastinate.

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's procrastinating.

So, let's talk about my blog title - The Singing Knitter. Why did I pick that name, well I'm glad you asked.

If there's two things in life that I adore it's singing and knitting. Not necessarily at the same time, but hey, if the opportunity comes up I'm there!

I've been knitting since I was about 8 I think - you'd think I'd be good by now, but hey, you can't have everything. My other half thinks I'm good, so that's fine by me.

Same with singing - I started in the primary school choir at about the same time, skipped it in High School and recently got back into it. Nothing serious, just community choir stuff - but I've had the most wonderful choirmaster for the past few years and it's changed my life.

Oh, and of course the odd trip to the karaoke bar with work colleagues to belt out some Anastasia, Stevie Wonder, and whatever else comes along.

And this year I've picked up the law books and started my undergraduate degree - it's been a while in coming but I figure I should start now or I'll never do it - aha procrastination in action again. Mmm, maybe I'm getting over it at last?

It's alive!

So this is my second attempt at a blog. The first one fell by the wayside 'cause I'm basically a lazy person.

But then a friend got a MySpace site, so I thought I'd do that too. Then I realised that maintaining a MySpace space is gonna be a bit of a big job, and I just thought, Nuh.

So I've come back to a nice old-fashioned (!) blog, and this time it'll be different.

This time I'll post regularly, and say meaningful things about something important. Or maybe I'll just rave about nothing in particular.

We'll see.