Human beings cannot live without art and music. We all have burning desires to create something, however small it may be. We cannot avoid the interaction with sounds. Hence, music forms a significant part of our lives, whether you listen, perform, or create. In this music era, mixtapes have taken the world by storm. Developed in the 1980s, it collects music from multiple sources that artists further record into a medium. Undoubtedly, it is a widely practiced American art form. So, if you are an artist, you should release a mixtape at least once in your lifetime. But, what ... read more
3 Instruments that will help you to produce mesmerizing tunes
Do you listen to music and forget everything that is around you? If yes, then you definitely are a music lover. But did you ever think about trying any musical instrument and jam with your own tune? If your answer is no, then don’t you think it’s high time for you to try one now? Numerous musical tools produce melodious music, and you also can play one. We all have an artist inside that we should give a chance to come out. Here is a small list of some majestic musical tools. You can learn them easily and can create your melody. Let’s find out which one ... read more
Five go to a Festival – BerkoFest 2017
Five go to a festival sounds a bit like a modern Enid Blyton book title, and I suppose in a way it could have been. Five of us going off to a festival in a beautiful bit of English countryside on a (sometimes sunny) Saturday afternoon. All that was missing was lashings of ginger beer. A couple of pints of local ale took their place though – for the grown ups in the five at least! I was delighted to be invited along to BerkoFest in the nearby Chilterns town of Berkhamsted last Saturday afternoon. I’ve been to “Berko” quite a few times before and have always really liked it as a town to ... read more
Kazoops! Just Imagine – Volume 1
Both Master C and Little Miss C have been huge fans of Kazoops since it appeared on CBeebies earlier this year. They love joining Monty and his pet pig Jimmy Jones on some epic imaginary adventures. I was thrilled therefore to hear that the music from the series was released on 28th October as an album called Just Imagine - Volume 1'. Featuring 20 songs from the first series of Kazoops it is available digitally and you can either download the whole album or just individual tracks from it. As soon as I started playing it on my laptop Master C started dancing around the living room and ... read more
Review: Pop Goes Your Name
As a parent there are times that I just find myself marvelling about how my children can find something relatively simple so, so amazing. I have a friend that is a DJ on our local community radio station and whenever he's on air and I've got the radio on in the car or the kitchen Little Miss C is always amazed that it's the same person that we've been out for coffee with. When she once heard him play a request for me she was all "Mummy, mummy - it's you. He's talking about you. The man in the radio knows your name and your favourite song. Wow." It was a very similar reaction when she first ... read more
When I Was a Lad… Megson
With all this cold weather we seem to spend quite a bit of time in the car these days going form one place to another and as Little Miss C can be quite fussy about what we listen to whilst in the car I'm always on the look out for music that we all appreciate. We've had a fair bit of success with a mix-CD of Mummy and Daddy's music, but I'm convinced that there must be good music out there, aimed at children but which doesn't make their parents want to drive into a brick wall when the CD comes round for the third time. Luckily for us Megson's When I Was A Lad - A ... read more
The twelve days AFTER Christmas
I think Muddling Along Mummy is actually quite right when she says that there are far too many blog posts that are all the same at the moment. I did struggle for a while with the question of whether or not I should jump on the reviewing bandwagon, but I'm afraid that the mortgage and desire to stay home with my daughter a little bit longer made that decision for me. True it does seem that the Next 12 days of Christmas campaign is all over many UK based blogs at the moment, but I thought I'd go slightly off on a tangent and remember what happens when the festive ... read more
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Mr C's parents invited us to join them on Thursday evening to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (apologies if that link doesn't work as their website appeared to be down as I wrote this). I've heard of these guys before, but I had absolutely no idea just how funny they are! I've certainly now seen the ukulele in a completely different light and I wish Mr C could play his at this level.They do some brilliant takes on classics songs that we all know and also some more modern stuff. My absolute favourite has to be their rendition of Kate Bush's Wuthering ... read more
Visit to River Cottage – part 3
A few final bits from our day at River Cottage HQ. Part of the grounds at RCHQ were used for some rural craft demonstrations and one stall that particularly interested me was that from wilderness survival skills who run courses that teach people, as their names suggests, wilderness survival skills. Having heard all about the various courses they run I'd be really interesting in going on one and might have to work on Mr C to see if he'd be interested in coming with me. Their ten day intensive bushcraft course sounds fantastic, but I'm just not sure I'm ready for ... read more
Weekend with friends
Mr C and I have come back from spending a fantastic weekend with our friends C and P who live in Hampshire. It was great being able to spend time with friends (H and D also joining us down there for the weekend) and reminded me of just how important these friends are. On Saturday we were treated by fantastic weather and spent the afternoon outdoors. As we don't have garden ourselves eating lunch outside is quite a novelty. Time was also spent collecting apples from the many fruit trees in their garden. C's plans for apple chutney should certainly be met - although if she uses all ... read more