The Wonderyears @ Wokingham Food and Drinks Festival

For the second year running The Wonderyears were invited to perform at the Wokingham Food and Drinks Festival on the 25th August, as part of the entertainment.

The journey there was horrendous, as there was a thunderstorm raging. Some of our drivers had to stop as the rain was lashing down, one driver had a thunderbolt cross the path of her car; just inches away.  When we arrived the weather miraculously changed as the sun came out, thank goodness, as our audience were out in the open.

As usual our concert went extremely well with plenty of audience participation and requests encores.   We all had a marvellous time.  Well done to everyone, including our team who work in the background our sound technician Paul and his assistant Ian.

Hope you like the photos, to see more please use the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/71269875@N07/sets/72157631257975916/ .

Following On

  Have just found some time to update you with more of my ramblings.

  Monday was our, The Wonderyears, last rehearsal before our concert on Saturday. 
  Earlier this year a team from The Wonderyears beat the Eggheads, which was amazing (we're very proud of them).  We've also had some of our members on Ration Book, a series that was shown on the TV channel Yesterday.

 

  I belong to our local WI http://www.trumpsgreenwi.btck.co.uk/ , I hear you groan.  It's sad that we have this sort of reputation.  Our group has members from a wide range of ages, all lovely ladies from all walks of life.  Our activities include walking, attending concerts and theatres, going on a variety of outings (the last one I went on was a very interesting look at Law London, the previous one was a tour of the backstage of The Royal Opera House) there are also book clubs, knitting circles, a cycling group and speakers for our onthly  meetings.  We can also go to our own college, Denman's, where we can learn new skills.
Wednesday I went to our Summer Social, which was a Garden Party in our founder members garden. Unfortunately most of our younger members were at work and due to space we were limited to the amount of ladies who could attend. The photos show us all deep in conversations drinking Pimms (of course).  The food was, as you can appreciate being as we are talking about WI ladies, out of this world.  Several different kinds of salads, meats, seafood and deserts to die for. With great company, plenty to eat and drink, lovely surroundings, fine weather.  What more could you ask for?
Yesterday I went shopping and browsing with my friend whose daughter is getting married soon and she was looking for ideas for favours, you know the little gifts that the bride and groom give their guests these days.  When did this start? It's like the goody bags the children are given at birthday parties.It used to be sugared almonds prettily tied in a packaging with ribbon.  Now it varies and they've become more imaginative,and expensive.  We looked at lavender hearts with the bride and grooms initials embroidered on the material, soaps tied up with ribbon etc but still neither of us felt that we had seen the right thing.  We also shopped for clothes, a real trial these days as we seem to be the forgotten age group.  As you see in the WI photos we like to dress casually in the main but we do like to have sleeves, you'll find most of us dressed in things we've had in the wardrobe for a while as sleeves seem to be out fashion these days; due to our age we like to cover our upper arms.  This means dresses are hard to find although the couple we did manage to find were made from materials so garish that neither of us would have wanted to be seen in them.  PJ's were another difficult one, why don't we have the choice of mix and match especially, most of us have shapes where we are different sizes for tops and trousers and it would be good to play around with a seeming variety of sets to wear over a period.  Finding something for a special occasion is almost impossible.

Signing off now with the hopes that you've enjoyed the read.

I am a retired lady, I hope you will enjoy my experiences.

This is what is referred to us my 'me' time. As I have no or little responsibilities, I can chose, more or less, what I do and when.  I am married and have three grown children and grandchildren, unfortunately I only have a minimum contact with my granddaughter as she lives some distance away.

My main hobby is singing, I'm a singer with The Wonderyears, I'm also their Publicity Manager.  We can be found at  http://www.wonderyearsrock.com/.  We are a group of 24 singers, our average age is over 70 and our eldest singer is 89, we also have a band comprising of two guitarists, a keyboard player and a drummer all kept, or sort of, under control by our MD and Founder Dave Thomas.  Our repertoire is rock, punk and contemporary pop, which often amazes our audiences.  We have had some amazing experiences, for instance this year we entered Britain's Got Talent and managed to get into the last 200, not bad when you consider there were approximately 60000 acts. Our next concert is on the 25th August, I will write a blog telling you all about this later stage.

At present I'm a British Telecom Storyteller, 1 of 100 relating our journey to and during the London Olympics and Paralympics in our own way.  There is so much talent among this group I really feel honoured to be one of them.  Through this I have met Olympians Daley Thompson, Leon Taylor, Debbie Flood and Dame Kelly Holmes (Debbie Flood and Dame Kelly I had the honour of interviewing).  I've also met Lord Coe and Richard Booth, the renowned photographer whom I also had the honour of interviewing.  I've visited the Leander Club, been to the top of the BT Tower, into the Team GB House and had excellent seats at the Ladies Final Artistic Gymnastics.  You can find my articles on www.btlondon2012.co.uk./storytellers http://btlondon2012.co.uk/storytellers/MeetStorytellers-Pages/STbio.php?newcode=40. You might also like to have a look at other storytellers work, there are photographers, artists, film and video makers, poets etc in other words lots of fantastic things to read and see enjoy.

My other hobby is art, but this is really for my own amusement, though I have to admit that I have recently put one of my pastels onto the BT Storyteller site.  It's a pastel of Jessica Ennis, I hope she forgives me.  I'm also looking to having one posted to the site of Mo Farah, again apologies.

Enough for now I think.