Calm Before The Storm
Well, here's the last day at work before Kids-Camp. And
the weather for it looks 'changeable' - to say the least! Most of the time this week has been spent playing with sound samples for dramas, trying to find clothes for aforementioned dramas and almost everything in between!
So I've been going out - on those days I've not been rushing off to meetings - to charity shops, and TK Max (yes TK Max....) buying lurid shirts and bermuda shorts for the 'beach day', and wandering around some unfamilier bits of M&S for bits for the day when we all have to dress as an animal... (say no more, say no more, lets see if it 'works' first!) - finally there's the 'Dalmation' day for which I'm probably going to end up destroying an old t-shirt!
Anyway, lots to do, so little time - tommorrow will be fun, getting to the community centre at 10am and not leaving until we're done which is likely to be some atrocious time on Sunday morning! I'm tired already and we havn't even begun!
So, the next post you get from here will probably be after the summer camp - so, if you want to - pray that we all get there and back safely, everyone has a very good time and that I come back with lots of good footage for the video night (be there, or be err... elsewhere...).
OK, seeya.
Camp Freddie
Well, everything is hotting up - not neccessarily literally - for the big 'Hi-Team Summer Camp' which I'm going on (as official media guy) next week. Suddenly I'm surrounded by lots of whizzy gizmos which I'm going to have about an hour at some point to get familier with before having to come up with a groovy video of the whole thing (yikes!).
Actually, it really looks like it's going to be fantastic - albeit rather draining on the energy front, but as always with these things a calculated panic sets in soon before as we try to find all the stuff that we need to take (where in Hammersmith on a Wednesday lunchtime I'm going to be able to find an animal costume, beach clothes and lots of spots - I'll explain later - is beyond me!).
Also, it's a momentus day with Wes moving out of our flat to go share with James for a while (we've got Katie and Matilda moving in after Summer Camp) - which makes it a bit of an end-of-an-era for me, given that we've pretty much shared flats since 2nd year of uni - some six years back... and we're missing his birthday party due to camp stuff this Saturday... grrr.... still, he's not far and we need him back for filming 'Morris'.
Then there's all the AV Crew and Biblical Foundations stuff that I've had to do as well, so really I'm swamped - and a Friday deadline, so what am I doing here?... good question! seeya.
d: came, d: saw, d: conquered....
North London was swamped yesterday evening with a large number - OK, I didn't try and count them - of young people, both christian and non-christian off to the Soul-in-the-city event at Alexandra Palace. Hosts David and Carrie Grant kept everyone entertained (although their "stalling" skills need some work!) and the musical undercard of Green Jade (hip-hop, cool), New Inspirational Choir (pretty good) and "Witness" (OK, for rap(!)) battled with such amusements as "Palace Academy" where Mike Pilivachi beat off all comers with his rendition of what I think might have been "Bridge over troubled waters"... although not many were sure. After he'd recovered his voice, he preached up a storm then introduced the guys who were the reasons we'd come over from West London - "my friends, Delirious".
Lights down, the boys walk onto the stage. Stew sporting his "Jesus" t-shirt and - since the day before - blonde hair, Jon replete in a brown Oasis-esque duffle coat and big shades. Martin in his ripped suit and Stu looking cool but a bit too far away on the far side for an asessment of his fashion sense . True to form, Stew sits down behind drums and the beats of "Grace Like a River" pound out across the West Palm Court, a few seconds later whoever was on sound gets the mixer sounding a whole lot nicer than it had for any of the other bands and the whole place erupts into praise. No sooner has the last note stopped from that, Martin - looking like a man on a mission - swings straight into a acapella intro into an energetic rendition of "Rain Down".
The lights flash on and off and pick out colourscapes of sound and vision, the guys are on a roll - although they are spending quite a lot of time gesturing to the monitor desk, I presume it's not Colin on there this evening... However, back to the music - any preconceptions that we're in for a straight play through of 'World Service' are dispelled as the band then rock into an extended version of 'My Glorious' - reprising 'Glory, Glory send your glory'. From here Martin makes his way back to the keyboard and treats us to a solo 1st verse of 'Every Little Thing'- introducing it as "here's a song that you can maybe sing in church, or - if you're like me - down the pub too!", ending off with a chorus of 'I Could sing of your love forever'. It's a quiet moment as everyone in the place comes to praise God and Martin comments on how it's sometimes really easy to be a band going around playing gigs, but it's so much harder to do what the guys out in the auditorium are doing on the streets - and they give us a clap.... very nice.
With imaculate timing, Stu leads the band back into 'Inside Outside' where - (for possibly the first time ever!) - his vocals come singing out loud and clear, very very nice! From there, we segue into 'Majesty' and every hand is lifted in praise, in the quiet following Martin starts singing "And the wonder of it all....". The place erupts into Deeper, and - as we thought 'that's our lot' they top it off with an absolutely rocking, crowd bouncing, guitar screaming rendition of 'God In Heaven'. The place resounds with - as Martin puts it - "shouting out some things that are really true" - "To God in heaven be the glory".
They finish loud and proud, the lights dim and Mike P returns to the stage and several people give their lives to Christ - it's a special moment and the boys don't disappoint, rounding off the evening with the call they've been singing loud and proud for years now - "this is for all you History Makers". They play their socks off, Stew is streaming sweat everywhere, Jon is looking a little bit warm - still in his duffle coat, Stu lets rip with cutting overdriven solos, Tim leans back and shouts to the heavens and Martin wanders around the stage looking 'phew!' - the big ending and we're all done, a gig of much magnificence and inspiration that's hopefully changed many lives - "Thank you, Goodnight"
Here comes the rain again.
After a week or so of glorious British sunshine, we finally came back down to earth again yesterday with the most almighty thunderstorm that I can remember seeing in London for a long, long time. What with flooding of the church basement and roads ankle deep in puddles, I presumed that we - with our 2nd floor flat - would be immune - but no. Not content with just coming through the window that got left open(!), the cracks in the plastering of our lounge ceiling apparently didn't think it needed to keep the water out either - and water flooded in through the light fitting and down the wall.... not good!
The landlord was up on the roof this morning, clearing out the drains and is apparently going to do something about fixing the cracks once it's dry again - so
hopefully the sun will continue shining for a couple of days more now!
Nonetheless, there was a slightly musty smell when I walked into the lounge this morning, and opened the windows...
By Poxy!
This weekend has been interesting! We started out on Friday by heading up to Faye's house for a dinner-party type thingy (for which I had to borrow my Dad's dinner jacket) to celebrate her and her fellow students finally becoming real doctors, and playing a bit of jazz - on a Casio keyboard! A good time was had by all, but by this point Wes had broken out with a large number of blotches which divided opinion amongst the Doctors as to what it actually was.
Returning to the flat after a morning back home in Edgware on Saturday afternoon yeilded the news that actually - yes - it was Chicken Pox, cue all the other flatmates ringing around their parents to ascertain whether they'd got it when they were children - it seems we all did. So while it seems that he's going to be out of action for probably up to a week, we
shouldn't get it!
Most of the rest of the weekend - before our, now pretty predictable Sunday evening of Church followed by Nandos and a video (this week: Seabiscuit - 5*s !) - was taken up with programming the new version of SongBase - the software that Wes originally came up with for use in church for projecting the words, it's starting to look good and the church laptop can definitely do 'Dual Screen' provided that it is configured accordingly - some more testing is still required though to see what stuff we'll need to support in order to make it work. And it really does seem that the 'background' feature is something they REALLY want, so we might just have to put out an interim version - for testing purposes ;-)
Hmmm.... just thinking aloud there, tonight it looks like we might try and get some more of 'Crouching Phil, Hidden Morris' filmed - especially the bits with Jason in, as he's off to Cambridge soon. But with Wes's current state, I expect we may have to wait a little while before we can finish the bits with him in!
