Early Witch hazel.

A week later than this last year I took a shot of the first very tiny buds appearing on the witch hazel. Well as you can see the yellow one is now in full bloom. I spotted the colour of it from the kitchen window - the red one is a little behind but won't be long. You can also just see the stems of my glorious dogwoods behind.

I took this this morning as after our children's Epiphany service - real burning of Frankincense which, as the choir was next to it at the front of church, set my coughing off again - we went to the Music Group Annual Lunch.

This used to be an evening affair but as we now have several quite elderly members they prefer to eat a lunchtime, so we just go to the local pub. I only did four musicals back in the '90s before the group folded. It was mainly due to a lack of men willing to play lead roles. Also we had to fund raise to put on shows due to license costs etc. and we struggled to cover these with ticket sales.
I joined as my daughter wanted to be in the 'Wizard of Oz' and they wanted children as long as they were accompanied. We had just done 'Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat' to celebrate our church's centenary in 1992 and had all been involved. Young children were in the choir and older ones like Alex had parts such as Ishmaelites and Pharoah's servants. Chris was a brother and I was a singer and dancer. That was it - we were all hooked.
Grace got to be a mini witch and a member of the Lollipop league in 'Wizard of Oz' in early 1993 and as Chris joined the local 'Players' she also got to be a fairy in 'Snow white and the Seven Dwarves' that year.
We went on to do 'Showboat'; 'Finian's Rainbow' and 'My Fair Lady' before it closed. Chris got into the more technical side of productions, stage managing as well as set building and lighting and the younger ones amongst us joined the Players' where we occasionally still do musical plays as well as the annual panto'.
There were 18 of us for lunch - old and not so old, some of whom had been in the group for many years and it was very nice to see everybody.