2) You need to engage with the audience
You might have the most glorious vioce on the polanet – but if you’re shy and nervous and not willing to at least make eye contact with, if not talk to the crowd, the audience with pick up on your discomfort and it will make them start to feel awkward. I would say a good voice will only get you so far, but you really need to be a front person, a spokesperson for the band. (Don’t expect the rest of the band to do any of this – they like to hide behind their instruments too much!)

3) You need to learn the song structures and be able to communicate this with the band
This can be quite tricky. And maybe in other bands its not necessarily the singer who does this, but definitely in Bootie & The Ho fish, I feel its one of my jobs to remember each songs structure (eg Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Solos, Chorus etc) and be able to communicate this with the rest of the band. Ok we’ve been playing together so long now that we all know the structures. But it does help when we have deps in who are unfamiliar with our particular way of playing some of the songs – and if, ahem, alcohol interferes with someone’s capacty for remembering where they are!

4) You have to be professional
People pay us money to play at their weddings & parties, so they expect us to be well behaved, courteous, smart and set up and take down equipment swiftly and unobtrusively. So in that case we are all roadies and sound engineers to some extent! You can’t really be a diva when it comes to things like that – you always have to muck in. (Its not usually a problem as we usually have a laugh while doing it)

So there you go. My advice to wannabe divas is to go out and audition for a band, or write a song and go to an Open Mic, or learn to play and instrument and start your own band – or go audition for a part in a musical. There are lots of avenues to explore.
But for the last time, no you can’t “have a go” when I’m on stage – its not karaoke!

We planned ahead and bought a magazine with a toy on front and quizzes/comics inside. Kept him amused for an hour or so. But otherwise you’ll need books, pens & paper for drawing, toys etc. This is where an iPhone or handheld computer game comes into its own. Or one of those poratble DVD players would have been ideal! They do have a playroom but its very toddler orientated – Daniel got a jigsaw out to find that half the pieces were missing! I did have ago at tidying up the room a bit as I felt sorry for the poor bored children who went in there to be confronted by a whole pile of discarded chairs and tables

2) Take something for you to do

I was lucky I had my iPhone so I could check my mails and update statuses (didn’t see any “No Mobile Phone” signs which I’m sure they used to have at the RUH?) But even after an hour or so of doing that I was start to feel a bit bored.

3) Bring some of their favourite food for when they come round

Useful top I had from another mum about this. I had brought some Ribena in a squirty bottle, some cold pasta and pesto with some cut up sausages, a packet of Quavers and some chocolate coins. After having to have a little encouragement to drink something when he’d had a half an hour kip after coming out of the recovery room, he wolfed down the whole lot! Probably said about 5 words to me the whole time. Poor thing must have been hungry as he hadn’t eaten anything for 12 hours

4) Don’t bother taking pyjamas or robes

He didn’t need them – just straight out of his normal clothes into a pathetically short surgical down. Then back into his civvies when he was about to go home. And you don’t really need extra layers as the RUH is so warm

5) Make sure clothes that they are wearing are quite loose fitting.

Would definitely recommend soft jersey/tracksuit material – also have loose fitting sleeves on tops as the nurses don’t take the cannula out of the back of the hand until right tat the end so it makes it tricky putting tight sleeves on

6) Take some cash for the canteen

Well you’ll need to get a coffee and a snack at some point

7) Make friends with the others in the waiting room at the start

You’ll be stuck together for the next 6 hours in quite close proximity and will often overhear their discussions. Daniel was wonderful and played with a little one year old by playing hide & seek with him. Which hi frazzled parents were eternally grateful for

Have a balanced reaction

I was definitely of the camp “Its all very routine nothing is going to go wrong” unlike some of the parents who’d come back from the pre med rooms with tear stained faces after watching their little ones having an anaethestic. But it was only while I was having a cup of tea while D was in the theatre that it struck me how life and death it all could be. I still tried to carry on as if it would all be ok – and it was, thankfully. And I think that was good for D to see me taking it all in my stride and probably contributed to his relatively good experience of it all.

But since I’ve got home and he’s gone to bed – can feel the tension and stress for the past 12 hours starting to leave my body. So it shows that I had been internalising a hell of a lot of parental worry about it all. Maybe I should have shed a tear at the time?

I resisted for so long – that and the fact I didn’t want to go to O2, so had to wait till Orange got the iPhone.

Even then I wasn’t going to get one – I certainly didn’t want to be like some people incessantly peering into their Blackberries when they should be helping me feed the kids at tea time (ahem!)

But the nice lady on the Orange upgrade line was so chatty and friendly that before I knew it I was parting with my hard earned cash (now and for the next 2 years!) and my shiny white iPhone turned up 3 days later (would have been 2 but as per usual there was some delivery man shenanigans -how the hell re you supposed to stay in ALL day to wait for a delivery man??!)

So I’ve had it for about 2 weeks now – and yes I love it. But for reasons that I had never considered before

1) I can keep on top of my email

I realised that when ever I was doing something else, usually involving the children, in the back of my mind was the nagging thought that my inbox was filling up – maybe with offers of work, or irate clients, or freindly messages from friends. Now with my iPhone, I can quickly check my mail – and most of the time realise that none of the above are true

2) I can read up on blogs I’m interested in when I have some downtime

So when I get 5 mins and have a cup of tea, I can take a bit of time to read some of my favourite blogs/sites, instead of watching mind numbing kids tv or George of The Jungle for the umpteenth time. Favourite sites at the moment:

http://www.happiness-project.com/

http://clientsfromhell.tumblr.com/

http://flylady.net/

3) I can check my Twitter and Facebook updates quickly so I don’t need to even open these time-burgling sites when I actually sit at my computer doing real work

4) My shared Google calendar is synched to my iPhone calendar so I instantly know what I’m supposed to be doing (and what DH has planned) without needing to get to my PC to find out

5) I also love the instant sending of pictures & videos to Facebook and Twitter – although its debateable about the intersting-ness of the stuff I have posted so far :>

Now all I need to do is to see if there is a quick way I can post to this WordPress blog from my iPhone and then I am sorted!

We spent last weekend in the Golden Cap in Dorset at a lovely campsite in Seatown. Approached by a very narrow and busy road, I had my doubts as we first arrived and it started raining the moment we got out to put our tent up. Plus we found our lovely Vango Killington 400 tent was somewhat damp (and had trapped a few insects that had met their maker and gone a bit mouldy – groo!) after packing up hurriedly after Lakefest at the start of the summer holidays.

Still once the tent was up life looked brighter and the sun came out so we had a post lunch stroll on the pebbly beach looking for fossils.
A very gentle few days – the boys didn’t bicker too much – and even played nicely on more than one occasion. Daniel mostly went and hung out with other kids on the campsite – so I apologise to any other parent who might have been bothered by our eldest (he did seem to keep coming back with odd bits of food from people…)
There is also a lovely pub, The Anchor Inn, right by our campsite and right on the beach serving lovely ale – Palmers Copper Head was a favourite with Marty – and delicious food. So we really didn’t have to stray far all weekend.
Its a shame though that the main road through Chideock which we tried to walk through is so conjested with cars – it made it feel like we back outside our house in Bath again. (But then I guess we are part of the problem)
All in all, a lovely 3 days – we were quite lucky with the weather and Marty even found a fossil or two!

Well I’m “in training” at the moment. And its not too bad. Its definitely helped having a small group of like minded runners who I can tarin with – so when I would usually slow down and stop because my legs were aching, I now plough on through and find that its actaully ok. Its also nice to have a bit of a chat on the way round the route – and certainly takes your mind off the exertion! I’m trying to go every other day or every two days – hey I even went out this morning before breakfast! Still not doing massive distances – just my normal route along the canal and back. But I’m pleased to say its not the huge struggle thought it would be – it might almost be fun!

If anyone fancies sponsoring me – here’s a link to my sponsporship page:

The three people with brown hair on the left are Mummy, Daddy and Daniel respectively and the three blondes are Hels, Hebe and Jessamy.

I think he’s captured our likenesses perfectly :>