Illustration Friday - JUMP

Illustration Friday - Heights

 

Throughout my school life I was always know as the shortest in the class. Even when I got older and wasn't any longer the tag stuck. In my family growing up I was the shortest but eldest child. Despite this I was constantly told to stop "elephant-ing around". Now as an adult at 5ft 2 I have a husband who is 6ft 6. My 4 year old is just above average and my 2 year old who was 56cm at birth has been off the height charts ever since. I figure I have till he's about 10 till they're all taller than me. Strangely, I always imagine I have very very long legs.

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

 

puz·zle [puhz-uhl] puz·zled, puz·zling.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puzzled?s=t 

 1. a toy, problem, or other contrivance designed to amuse by presenting difficulties to be solved by ingenuity or patient effort. 

 2. something puzzling; a puzzling question, matter, or person. 

 3. a puzzled or perplexed condition; bewilderment.

Desert Music

Band nights in the desert are even bigger than discos and being the first one of the year we needed a poster to get everyone extra excited.

Illustration Friday - Vocal

“All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.”

Being Easter and with the Illustration Friday theme of “Vocal”, I felt something slightly religious was in order. When we came out to the desert one of the big things I missed was our church community. We first moved to Sydney when I was heavily pregnant with Jonah (son No.1). Finding church a Church that would feel like home was always going to be difficult as “The Sydney Anglican” was a very different cup of tea from “The Canberra/Goulburn Anglican” I had grown up as. But, walking into St Mark’s on that particular Good Friday, I knew we had found our place. One of the things they had which reminded me of being a child in Church was a crazy choir. All choirs I have encountered share similar quirks. They all take themselves a little too seriously. They are all filled with colourful characters. And…faith doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite for joining rather a love of singing. My mum and dad love to tell of the choir at a church in Cardiff (UK) where I went as a four year old. When the choir weren’t performing (!!) the Hello mags, Dick Francis novels and knitting would come out of their matching white handbags…until their next choral number!

At St Marks in Sydney they have there own colourful choir characters. There’s the tall fierce alto with the Cleopatra hair and the permanent air of disapproval on her face. She frequently likes to angle her body so she’s not facing the choirmaster conducting, but the congregation - her audience!  Further along the aisle, there’s the short round soprano with the “Mrs Who” glasses who likes to tell the organist how to do her job but in her absence plink-plonks through the hymns while holding her breath, afraid of missing the wrong note.  Finally, I can’t forget the self-proclaimed atheist who sings baritone with more passion and gusto than the lot of them.

And so, after 34 years of Church going I have discovered that the colourful characters of the church choir are not only “vocal” in their hymn singing but vocal in character. They are not people who are backward in offering their opinions on faith, religion, music, art, politics and people. They are outspoken, outrageous and … well definitely vocal!