Proms in the Park last year

I spent yesterday up in Manchester with the BBC Phil rehearsing for Saturday’s Proms in the Park. The sing-a-long medley this year is The Sound of Music. We always used to watch this film as a family at Christmas when I was little so I’m thoroughly looking forward to belting out all the songs and amazingly I still remember most of the words. Goes to show what you learn when you are very young stays with you.

We have sadly lost out on producing a new album for a well-known tenor who despite the record company wanting to employ us, didn’t want us to produce his album, although he has never worked with us before or even met James. Ho hum, I guess you can’t take these things personally and it might well be the old adage of the male artist who has a problem with a female producer… Whatever, we don’t know, but it looks like he’s lost out on making a record at all now, although I gather he doesn’t need the money!

So all the more reason to keep our fingers firmly crossed for Gemma Sampson’s showcase today in the jazz café. She is the artist in the jazz/crossover project we have been working on for about a year now and we are hoping the men from Decca are going to say  ”yes”…

What we hadn’t anticipated was the attention gemelli (twins) attract in a country like Italy. James was buying Anna an ice cream in the local bar when a lady came running in shouting “Guarda, guarda i gemelli inglesi”. We couldn’t walk down the roadwithout a local peering into the buggy and invariably waking up one of the boys by fiddling with their toes or some such.  So our fame in the lovely village of loro piceno rapidly spread, coupled with the fact that the owner of our lovely agriturismo in Le Marche happened to google my name. By the end of the week he had invited most of his family and friends to a barbecue where he very kindly cooked us a totally fantastic Florentine steak but then asked if I’d sing for my supper. (I sang Carmen as no way was I attempting any Italian rep in front of a load of Italians!)

My poor veg were in a sorry state on our return. All the rocket has bolted and the artichoke (my first attempt at one of my favourite veggies) has gone brown. For some reason the yellow courgettes, my pride and joy, are all rotting at one end. Still, the tomatoes are finally ripe and I’ve got a great tan.

However,  he was most definitely in the dog house a couple of weeks ago when he checked his contract and realised that his concert was on the Sunday night rather than the Saturday as he had presumed. We need to check in for our flights to Italy on the Monday morning.

ARGH!

He couldn’t get a flight back after his concert as it wouldn’t end until very late, nor could he fly straight to Italy on the Monday as I wouldn’t be allowed to fly alone with 2 babies on my lap, apparently. After a 24 hour panic, he managed to book ridiculously early flights into Gatwick on Monday morning. Anna will be exhausted but problem solved. However,  I can’t say I’m looking forward to getting all our luggage and 16 month old twins to Gatwick on my own. The dilemma is, if I decide to leave him in the dog house, who is going to go and fetch me ice creams on the beach?

It’s just a story about some toys. But what a story, and what toys!

That was enough for me, I decided Anna deserved a trip to the cinema, what a kind mother. As I’m sure you’ve read/heard/seen, it was a really lovely film on so many levels. We cried and we laughed.  Anna really enjoyed it too. So for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, grab yourself a child and visit your local cinema. Some friendly advice; it might be worth checking with the parents of the child first before you make that grab…

BBC Proms in the Park 2009, Salford

We have a bright red double buggy that sits permanently on the pathway up to our front door. It can just about go through the door at a push, but takes the paint off the hallway and obviously once you’ve pushed it in, you are literally caught between the buggy and a hard place, so we have taken to parking it outside the front door on fine days but using a bike lock to attach it to our fence. Well, we do live a stones throw from Deptford!

I woke up this morning to discover the buggy hadn’t been nicked. Oh no, just the bicycle lock. The thief clearly doesn’t have twins so kindly left the buggy behind. Does that mean I should buy a padlock to lock the bicycle lock more securely to the fence before attaching the buggy to the bicycle lock. Ridiculous.

I’ve uploaded a couple more live dates on the website and I’m glad to say the Proms in the Park is confirmed on September 11thand it will be televised like last year for those of you who don’t live anywhere near Salford. This year’s sing-a-long medley will be from The Sound of Music – does that mean I should wear a nuns habit???

Me relaxing in luxury at Kilworth???

Greetings from Kilworth House. Had a great concert last night (was lovely to see David and his wife in the audience cheering me on) and after a lovely whole nights sleep in hotel luxury,  I’m about to warm up for concert no.2 tonight. I feel a little guilty as when I spoke to James at about 9am this morning he said he’d been up for hours and twice in the night for the boys but it was his turn to work last weekend…

He told me he had a very strange dream where his Dad was getting really cross about the twins wrecking their house and breaking everything in it (we are visiting them next weekend and the house is for sale) so James jumped to the boys defence and pointed out that the pigs running around the kitchen were far more likely to blame. (James’ Dad keeps a couple of pigs in the garden – the plot thickens.) Then he was woken up by Arthur screaming so we don’t know what happened next. I’m sure there is some deep meaning in it somewhere. Pigs, babies, kitchens?

Danielle De Niese’s new album is released tomorrow and on it she sings two songs we composed/arranged from my Venezia album – James is conducting. It makes a nice change to hear them sung by a soprano and we got a good review for them in The Independent on Friday. I am suitably selective about which reviews I read- basically only the good ones.

Speaking of money, we received our PRS statement today which is always exciting as you earn extra money you didn’t bargain for and also find out where your music has ended up. The money you earn is from your work being played and can be anything from a few pence to several thousand pounds (if you are Mark Ronson!).

SO:

• £360 from South Africa for The Kumars at no.42
• 7p (yes pence) from a juke box playing a Katherine Jenkins track
• £12.50 for a comedy pilot in Japan
• £12.61 for me singing the Habanera under adverts on Channel 4 for repeat Friends episodes

Not sure which of those is the weirdest way of earning a living. Surely a comedy about an Indian family set in England won’t be funny in South Africa and how on earth does Carmen sits under Friends???

The lovely Port Quin in Cornwall

The start of a new week and I’m delighted to have a ‘nit-free’ family. I realise this is probably too much information but the little blighters are SO tedious to get rid of and don’t exactly help you make friends and influence people… We had a meeting with Myleene Klass last week and she has the most beautiful long flowing hair,  I do so hope she doesn’t have nits now. I’m consoling myself with the fact it’s an old wives tale they jump from head to head.

We wrote and recorded 2 songs for a new Decca artist last week, Mary Jess. Such a very nice girl, no airs and graces and a beautiful voice to boot. She went to China to study as part of her University degree and ended up winning the Chinese version of X Factor! Quite a story. Her album should be out early next year for Chinese New Year and hopefully our songs will make it onto the final tracklisting (also gives her plenty of time to be nit free after working with us – more lovely long hair, oh dear).

Some good news is Proms in the Park has enquired about my availability for the Last Night of the Proms in Salford again which I feel really pleased about as I’d presumed they wouldn’t want the same soloist 3 years in a row. Fingers crossed they make a definite booking.

The boys have been full on lately – lots of waking in the night. In desperation I took them into GOSH on Monday morning to have their blood levels checked an extra time as I couldn’t believe there wasn’t something wrong. Anyway, got the results today and it turns out Seth has an excuse and is a bit hyper but Arthur (who had me up 4 times last night and then woke his brother up…. ) is completely within normal levels. So don’t be fooled by the cute picture,  he is being a little so and so. (Clearly not the expression I would normally use at 3 in the morning but I didn’t feel I should use that language in writing.)

We spent an idyllic weekend in Cornwall at a family wedding in the beautiful church of St Endellion made famous by the classical music festival held there (established by the late Sir Richard Hickox). I sang Fields of Gold but in 6/8 and much slower (if you know what I mean by all that), otherwise it could have been the aural equivalent of my Dad disco dancing.

I have found a rival for Naunton as the prettiest village in England;

Port Isaac is my new love – fickle aren’t I?