Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present - Pelorus Trust Wellington Brass Band. Performing Mambo Caliente at the 2008 Band of the Year Contest, in Christchurch!!

THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE FOR ME!

I hope this remains online for a while, cos it ROK’D

Edit to track back to related post… > A Grade

Yup we went, and we did it again, and to be fair it was an extremly CLOSE contest, we only won by 2 points! However, this now means that we can compete in the A Grade next year, which means Wellington once again has an A-Grade band - which hasn’t been the case since around 2001 I believe?

Also - I managed to learn to ice-skate (cringe) …uh… kinda…. fell over like thirty plus times, got extremley sore, but after an hour and a half managed to stay away from the wall, with some semblance of forward movement for about 20 seconds!! Which I think is amazing for my first try, plus the fact I have no sense of balance.

To round of the last week of Brass Banding we competed in the Band of the Year contest which along with our section contests were streamed live over the internet! Alas I think they weren’t stored for retrospective viewing, unless they come later? I’ll keep my eye out, anyways unspurisingly Woolston Brass won; and I am told we came joint Second with Cantebury Brass. Woolston were even kind enough to loan us use of their bandroom whilst we were in Christchurch and this was quite a humbling exprience for me, as the bandroom has a museum dedicated to this bands illustrious history, I’m gutted I didn’t think to take any pictures of the hall, but hey ho….I’ll upload some of my Christchurch piccies when I get the time, as I have work in the morning, and need to grab some sleep….

Jeepers, where did the weekend go…? Might have something to do with the massive amount of rehearsing with the Brass Band, we fly down to Christchurch next Wednesday to defend our current title, which is huge stuff for us, because if we manage to pull this off, we will be bring an A Grade band back to the capital of New Zealand - sweet!

Yesterday we rehearsed from 12.00 (lunchtime) through to 6pm!! Hardcore! Leaving me just enough time to go and catch the All-Blacks anihalate (spelling?) the Springboks (sorry Rach)

Today started rather lazily for me, with a lie in followed by laundry, and a bit of pottering around on the computer (I suppose this is the modern evolution from pottering around in the garden shed??) followed by - yes you guessed it, MORE brass band rehearsing, you see we are running a concert/open rehearsal tomorrow night; ready for the big stuff next weekend….funnily enough a friend of our conductor wanted to record us for a film, we had to sound like a school band, apparently we were naturals….o.O

Me confident for Christchurch? Course I am!! (gulp)…

In other news - very unsurprising I have heard nothing from my local MP. Whom I wrote to via email regarding my council tax ‘fiasco’, I’ll let it ride for a further 28 days after which. I guess his stance will have been made clear….”who cares about the little guys after all?”

Hope everyone out there had a great weekend, and heres looking forward to a very POSITIVE week ahead

I’m back home after spending the whole morning, recording with the band, doing multiple ‘takes’ and pieces etc… it was an eye opener for sure! I’ve never seen so many microphones, bits of cable and bits of foam!!

I can’t wait to hear the finished article, but we have a lot more work to do. We’ll be recording at our re-hearsals over the next few weeks until we have enough material. Then it’s press time! Hehe…never thought I’d see the day where I end up on a CD!

So, let’s recap? Ambitions achieved and things I’ve done…hmmm….

Well, I guess most memeorable moments for me, are when I was in the Cheshire County Youth Brass Band, and also the County Youth Choir; with the band I’ve had the honour of accompanying the Celloist Steven Isserlis, and also Peter Skellern. With the choir I have taken part of Jean-Michelle-Jarre’s ‘Chronologie’ tour back in 1992 and also worked with Barry Manilowe at the Apollo Theatre in Manchester.

I’ve boogied with some of the cast from Hollyoaks and Coronation Street at an after show party following the opening night of ‘Oh What a Night’ in Manchester (my Uncle Chris is the author) - go Chris!!

Then things go a little quiet as I try to become professional, i.e. I work loads to pay the mortgage, then more recently I commission a march to be written for Frodsham Silver Band with my dad’s help. It was presetned to them in time for the Centenary Year, it’s called “Sandstone Centenial”

Then shortly after that I move to New Zealand from the UK. Start a new life, and start playing with a new band, Pelorus Trust Wellington Brass Band, and went with them to Australia this Easter just gone, to win the B Grade Nationals…..and now we are working on a CD!

In amongst all of that I have written a lot of poetry between 1999 and 2004 and have been published in over 12 anthologies in that time; not to mention being nominated for Amateur International Poet of the Year two years running, in fact in 2003 I made it to the semi-finals.

So…..what’s left to do? I guess I could pull my finger out and finished working on a Novel I’ve been writing on and off since I was at university; working title - “The Chronicles of the Son”…I’ve still got time The great JRR Tolkien took years to write his masterpieces; so I ain’t gonna rush mine, as I want a masterpiece too…I’m still not sure whether it’ll be publish worthy, but it’ll be read to my little munchkins one day, when I have a family.

I guess you could say, I’m one of those ‘almost’ famous people. I’ve tried stuff, but never quite been in the right place or the right time, to make it to the BIG TIME! and to be frank - thank goodness! Else I might not have experienced the wonderful things I have in my life so far.

We all make choices in the paths we take through life, sometimes at the expence of many an opportunity; the important thing I reckon and is kinda the moral to this post, is to choose without regret. That’s a foothold into yesterday, that slows your progress into tomorrow.