Well, here I am sitting in Caffe Nero in Gatwick Airport, writing my diary for - DECEMBER!

December? At the end of February?

Well, yes, sorry...I don't know where the time goes, to be honest! But here I am, ready to fill your mind full of stories of Christmas and New Year cheer in FEBRUARY!

December

I started off December with a kind-of throwaway attempt at working on a new Project. The job was Project Coordinator for the Hear Glasgow! Strategic Music Partnership. The interview was a last minute thing that I didn't even know I was going for till two days before. So, applying Gran Harley and Wee Jessie Jones's wistful philosophy 'whit's fur eye wont go by ye!' the thing obviously wasn't for me. So, of course, I went for the interview, came away realising what a botched job I'd done and...got the job!!!

So, there I am, the all fancy-nancy Project Coordinator for the Hear Glasgow! Strategic Music Partnership for the next two years, starting January...good, a few months then to find out what it ACTUALLY means!

But, leaving that aside for now...(nervous breakdown to follow!!!), let's have a wee look at the rest of December...

I had a nice couple of visits to Campbeltown. I took the wee plane over from Glasgow which was, well, an experience.

This wee plane can only be described as the mini-clubman of planes - absolutely tiny and there were only six of us on-board - INCLUDING the pilots! Honestly, I thought the two guys in front of me were just passengers with lots of gadgets, but no, they were actually flying the plane, right in the seat in front of me!

Thankfully, I no longer have a fear of flying - in fact, I think I'm going for my pilot's licence!

On the way back home next day, the flight was equally small and equally quiet (well in number of passengers - not in engine roar), but it was like Google Earth. Honestly, flying down, over Arran and seeing Scotland like that - I wanted to stand up and shout 'freedom' - and would have, except that plane was too low to take my full five-feet-four height!

On my birthday weekend, I, as usual, was working with Judy Fielding at the Christmas Show of all Christmas Shows - great fun and as usual, I was greetin' when they called me onto the stage, sang happy birthday and then the whole cast sang my Christmas Song...special days indeed!

More singing that night when I went out with my friends to the Cabin Restaurant for tea...very good fun, except the MC wasn't too happy with me and Lynne as we kept singing at the top of our voices...

AND, speaking of singing...

Well, you know Caitin (Goddaughter1) - brilliant at everything, particularly dancing and acting - she got the part of the mum in the school panto and completely stole the show and - get this - her singing was absolutely fabulous! I'm going to get her to sing all my songs when she's famous - she has NO say in it - I'll be her manager!

More singing when I went to see the Sirens of Titan - they sang the song - Cristmas is coming home to Glasgow - amazingly well and with an incredible arrangement...I'm defo going to record it and release it for next Christmas...my pension song, I hope!

And then, Christmas where, as usual, my mum ended up in hospital with a chest infection! That's been the past three Christmases!

The dilemma was not that my mum was critically ill, on oxygen in hospital. No! The question was, what should we dress up as this time! Last year it was Abba, time before that it was the cast of Absolutely Fabulous - get us...hilarious aren't we? Anyway, we're running out of ideas...unless we look out our daft old hospital scrubs and turn up as surgeons to take my mum to theatre.

Which is exactly what we did - only thing was that we carried it off...a little too well! Masks on, the hospital staff asked no questions, then when I said 'Okay Mrs Caffrey, it's down to theatre for you', Mrs Caffrey's bed surrounded by family, all of whom looked appalled that the NHS would be disturbing folk during Christmas day when their family was there - then my mum's face - frozen in a type of shock-horror! Okay, this joke had gone far enough! Masks came off, all laughed hysterically (a little too hysterically mother) and loudly and we were escorted from the building - 'posing as an NHS surgeon is a serious offence' apparently!!!

Christmas day was spent with GD2, which was great; especially as she wouldn't put down the hoover we got her! Not reinforcing stereotypes here, it's just that she loves the hoover!

Christmas night was spent looking out into the falling snow, singing White Christmas...once again, hilarious us, eh? Probably the only people in the UK who sang that song on Christmas Night...!


January

The beginning of January was spent in Fuerteventura on the most relaxing, chill out holiday in a long time...it was great...great food, nice wine, lots of sunshine - ahhhh...

Then, after reading the Business Plan for Hear Glasgow! Strategic Music Partnership on the beach! It was time to come home and get into it...

My baptism of fire on my first day was a Steering Group meeting, which was clearly in a foreign language - funny, I thought this was Glasgow's Strategic Music Partnership...

Since then, I've been wading through language books and s-l-o-w-l-y learning that foreign tongue.

As each week goes by, I get a clearer picture of what I'm supposed to be doing. So much so that, in two years, when my tenure as project coordinator is over, I might actually know what I'm supposed to be doing!

Seriously though, it's a challenge I'm up for...working with young people, giving them access to music - all types of young people and all types of music - is something that is a no-brainer for me, everyone should get a chance at playing music, working in this business and getting the sheer pleasure and totality of what it means to have a wee shot at music - bliss!

Of course, I didn't say that in the interview - what I must've said was something like - 'there's no point reinventing the wheel, let's have a meeting or five, how do wee roll that out, we should have joined-up thinking and how can wee feed back'.

Clinched it!


February

I'm just writing about February as we're nearly at the end of it - well almost.

What a long winter it's been. My garden doesn't know what to do...and for me this is a strange one. Last year, Amanda suggested that I plant something in the garden and watch it grow - 'aye, okay' said I, not convinced! But now, now that I've seen the see shoots come up, I'm dying to see the tulips grow...trouble is, the poor wee flowers don't know what to do with themselves! I canny wait to see them come up...I think I'm ready for winter to be over...mind you, I'd rather have the snow than the rain.

In the middle of this bleak winter - isn't that a song? Anyway, GD1 announced that she was going to take me out for a Chinese Mean - that old tradition we have where we go for Chinese and always end up having the very classy Sweet and Sour chicken with fried rice, a regular and a diet Irn Bru - Caitlin's mixed it up a bit because at the beginning of the tradition - back in the late 1800s - she used to have boiled rice - oooh risqué or what?

After her very grown-up gesture of buying me my dinner this time (wait! I thought she was only four - I'm sure of it!) we had the pleasure of seeing 'Songs from the Shows' at the City Halls in Glasgow - what a buzz. The Scottish Symphony Orchestra in this magnificent venue, play songs from the shows to accompany school children from all over Glasgow, who sing these songs - FANTASTIC! (Rewind to my dream of all children accessing all types of music - imagine being 13years old and getting to sing in that venue with that orchestra?)

Another show, which, if I'm honest, I was ambivalent about - Strictly Come Dancing at the SECC in Glasgow.

Strictly BRILLIANT! Having only just got into the TV series, I loved this night - but, my god, how much money must they make - quite fantastic!

And the Crabshakk had it's first birthday - a night of champagne and music (Celine Donohue and Neil Sturgeon were brilliant) and total celebration - you still canny get a table in there on a Saturday night for love nor money - UNLESS you book about three-million years in advance! A real testament to Lynne & John, my lovely friends, who have worked so hard on this and just make it work...sublime!

And that's that...

The end of this month sees me presenting two workshops at MusicLearningLive!2010: one early years workshop (with Judy) and one song-writing workshop (25th & 26th) - I'm sure you can hardly wait to hear how it goes, so I will report back next month!!!

And, great gig that I'm really looking forward to at the Recital Rooms in Glasgow (27th February)...Liz Lochhead and I are doing an extended version of our Edinburgh Fringe show - Lochhead and Laula: Love, Love, Love...

Hope to see you there.

Have a great rest of February and hopefully and thawful March

Cheers

Carol Laula