Getting to the Point...

The falling petals are still fresh but those left on the stems are getting to the point that I love best for photographing them; intensifying in colour as they dry out and shrivel.   

I reckon there's at least one more blip in my tulip series after this one.  That will either make you smile or groan depending on whether you fall into the lover of flower blips camp or the hater of flower blips camp.  If you fall into the former, there's another shot in extras :-)))

Found out earlier that one of my teachers from secondary school has died and I'm taken aback by how sad I am.  

Mr Seggie was a music teacher and although he never taught me music, he was in charge of the Junior Choir, of which I was an enthusiastic member.  

I remember the day my friend Anne and I went to audition for the choir.  Sadly Anne couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but was convinced that because her older brother had played a lead role in the school musical (Pirates of Penzance) a few years earlier, she was in with a chance.

We all gathered in the Assembly Hall and were called one at a time by Mr Seggie, to join him on stage by the piano.  Nerve wracking!   We were each given a choice of two songs to sing while he accompanied us on the piano   and quickly sussed that if you only got a few lines in and he stopped playing, you were either brilliant and you were in the choir or you were hellish and had no chance.  

Thankfully I passed, sadly Anne didn't although to be fair, she was so bad during her audition, she actually stopped singing and started laughing and told him she would join the Debating Society instead!  :-))

I have so many fond memories of choir practice, being encouraged by Mr Seggie to sing a bit louder then being called Foghorn, the gentle ribbing because I came from a village outside the town where my school was situated and his hilarious nickname for it, as well as the fun we had singing at school concerts throughout the year and in local churches at Christmas.  One Christmas I practiced so hard that when it came to the night of the concert I had no voice left and had to stand there and mime!  What a dissy!

So many songs that when I sing them today, I automatically fall into the alto part as taught to me by him and when I do, his face swims before me, with his manic grin that he kept in place as he conducted us as a reminder to smile as we sang.    

Thank you Mr Seggie for all those wonderful memories.  THIS  is for you.  I'm sure you'll have the Heavenly Choir belting it out in no time :-))