Reuben is a poet and the rest of us are quite creative too

Reuben came home with this poem and drawing on Friday. 

I knew he'd done the illustration, but it turns out that he wrote the poem too. Which, he tells me, is not just any old poem, but a diamante poem. And there I was thinking that diamante was something cheap and sparkly, when actually it is a poetic form (thank you Wikipedia!)

Last weekend, I was singing with my choir in a performance of Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. The text is Old Church Slavonic, but don't get the idea that it was high-brow and tedious - it's actually completely gorgeous with some fabulous bass singing that is growling away right at the bottom of the range, and if you don't know your Bog from your Otche it doesn't matter: it's the music that counts with this piece anyway. There's a short video clip from our dress rehearsal here. The concert two days later went really well.  Thank you, man in the front row, for being so blown away by our magnificence that you applauded loudly in entirely the wrong place. We all felt the glow of your embarrassment!

Dave has also been busy creating with cardboard and sticky tape and has made a fabulous stair-sliding vehicle. You can see Tilly and her friend Catherine putting it through its paces here.

And finally, here is my beautiful mother's day card from Tilly.

My 'muvus day' card!

It came in this cool envelope decorated with a pig and was delivered with breakfast in bed. As seems to have become traditional, the troops hung around to 'help' me eat it!

But they also did a great job at clearing up the kitchen. While wearing tutus. Of course. 

Right Dave, we're dressed and ready!

Tilly directs operations

But sometimes, 3 heads are better than 1