Little Birds Flown.

The one thing you can say about life is that it never stays the same.  When you have as many children as we do it gets a little quirkier than most.

Those of you who have known me for years have heard me rant about the vagaries of Queensland roads [& Brisbane in particular] as we geared up for yet another concert in some inaccessible corner of Brisbane.  I do not miss that amount of stress in my life. The ODD is all on her own now but next year she should be employed full time in the music industry so has given up her teacher aide position on the island.  They have no~one else to teach instrument & voice so there goes another schools initiative program.  As a side note the inadequacies of the Qld ed music program, music being considered a *soft option* which must make anyone who has actually studied music howl with laughter, is one reason we homeschooled to the bitter end.

So the girl rounded up her music students for an end of career recital ~ to which I was invited.  Many, many moons ago ODD began her music career in the little island school band & choir, a big fish in a very tiny pond because in our house we took music seriously & if I was paying for instruments & lessons then by golly~gosh! that child was going to practise ~ & a child who practises their instrument will easily outshine all the children who don't. In our wonderful state system mostly they don't.

I had been deployed to pick up some goodies from the shops to feed the 1/2 dozen or so parents who might have been expected to show up.  No~one did.  I was it. With only weeks to go before summer break lessons are already winding down.  Why Qld schools insist on keeping every one in class while the thermometer threatens to go through it's top & the humidity reduces everyone to melting puddles of sweat I do not know, but they do.

One of the senior grades & I sat on hard benches to listen to a small repertoire from flutes, drums & ukuleles. I was amused. Firstly the girl was professionally outfitted in a little black dress. Secondly, aka Alison, each group was self~conducting.  Interesting as most of them seemed to have trouble with their counting & of course some were much better than others & some could actually read their music while others could not.

Just the same ODD seems to have done a pretty decent job with her flutes.  It is not a particularly easy instrument to get a decent sound out of & even the early fingering is quite difficult. Kudos to the girls.

As for the drums, ODD certainly doesn't play them & I had no idea she was teaching them but though the segments were short they also did ok.

The ukuleles were interesting.  Several of the children had only been learning for one or two weeks so some of the children got lost, some played one thing while the rest played something else entirely & only one child actually had the courage to sing along.  Interesting.  I applauded with aplomb.

ODD rounded up her various bits & pieces & that was that.  Nothing about her experience with public education makes her regret being homeschooled. End of an Era.

However T1 looks set to be returning to Brisbane in the new year.  He would be local, though not on the island, which would mean I will see a great deal more of my grandson than I have to date.  Waiting hopefully to hear if the job opening eventuates. It would seem that even once they are gone my children have a wonderful capacity for disrupting my life.