It's been 6 months!!!

Well, it's been 6months since I wrote here!! That's a long time!

Most recently I went up to the Wairarapa, which is in the lower North Island. I performed at 5 Libraries up there. I caught the train from Wellington and got picked up at Featherston Station. The gigs were fun. Some small audiences and some medium-sized ones. At each gig I asked kids and adults to give me some ideas for new songs. Here are some of the ideas they wrote down:

Superheroes
How the world turns around and we don't fall off (I like this idea!)
Love
How to make rainbow jelly
Something about girls putting TOO much make-up on (Claudia, I agree!!)
Roses blooming
honesty
Silly people
Clothes
New friends and old friends (Good idea! I already have a song about friends)
Hope
Supercillyis Spider
With you
No one
Aren't mums and dads great (This is true!)
Lollies make me spew
Chocolate is yum
I have an alien on my head (Very interesting.....)
If you can do it so can I (I really like this idea!)

Thanks for all the ideas......I'll never run out of songs to write, will I!?

I met some lovely people up there. They werevery kind and friendly. I met a lovely girl called Te Uira. It was nice to me you =)

I also sang at a fundraising evening for "Operation Coverup". They knit blankets for orphanages in the Ukraine and Muldovia - see if you can find out where they are on a World Map or by searching the internet. It gets very very cold over there and often the children only have a small cotton cover on their beds. "Operation Coverup" give children their own warm and usually colourful woollen blanket! It keeps them warm and makes them very happy =D

I am still recording my 2nd CD. It takes a long time!! I really enjoy it though. I have 2 neices called Maria and Laura and they are very good singers. They are 6 and 10. (actually I have 4 neices, but the other two are grown up and one has a son!) They sang on "Don't Wanna" on my "Dragons Under My Bed" CD. We have recorded them singing one song for my new CD so far and they are practising another one - you might sing it at school. It's called "Seasons". I am recording a new version of it. My daughter, Sian, is now 18 and she sang "Individuality" on the Kiwi Kidsongs CD, with a boy called Theo Va'a, when she was 11yrs old and then we sang it together on my "Dragons..." CD. She is going to sing a lovely song about clouds on my new CD.

I really enjoyed the summer in Nelson! I hope you all had a good summer. I don't enjoy winter quite so much, but I suppose if it was summer all the time, I'd get sick of it. Do you think I would? Hmmmmmmm, I'm not sure!!

Well, this week I'm going over to Blenheim and Picton (top of the South Island) to perform at Schools and Kindys and also to start writing a School Song for Riverlands School. Looking forward to that!

I spent some time last week at Hira School as I am going to write them a School Song too! It's a lovely school with very friendly teachers and kids. It's a little bit country, is surrounded by bush and hills and has it's own creek running through it! They have a mud brick pizza oven and a mud brick letterbox!! I think I'll have to put those things in the song!! Don't you?

In my last post I talked about making shakers. I visited a Kindy and the Head Teacher there told me that using things like rice/macaroni in the shakers may not be appropriate in everyone's house. Also using empty toilet rolls may not be appropriate either. I suggest you ask your parents/caregivers what's OK to use and what isn't. Everyone is different, so it always pays to ask. There are lots of things outside you can use - like little stones, pieces of bark, gum nuts, acorns or other seeds perhaps. And you can use empty boxes - like teabag boxes - or cut a piece off an empty gladwrap roll, stick some paper over one end, put your shakey bits in, stick some more paper over the other end - decorate and "Bob's your Uncle"!! Have you heard that saying before? Ask a big person what it means if you're not sure! =)

Don't forget to comment, to ask me questions, to make suggestions and to KEEP SINGING!!!!

Have a happy day =D

Kath