funny days

Yesterday was one of those...funny sort of days... The way me, claire and Rachel work is normally fairly organised - we do like to plan what we're doing and be on top of who is in charge of saying what and normally spend hours debating a set list of 4 songs...I think I went into shut down this week. Having agreed I would do a gig on my own I then ignored finding out anything about it - knowing that it would be in my old college was enough for me to know probably psychologically that it would be probably be best for me not to find out anything else. I knew the day and that Claire and Rach wouldn't be there and that I wanted to be brave enough to say yes to it - so I did. So this time the set list was thought about in the car on the way there. It was a bizarre day - one where you have lots of little funny and random chats. The rooms filled up around the very edges but definately no more than that with a few college students who normally get together to MC but they we're not going to play today. I spent the first half hour leafleting and remembered how much I actually like talking to young people who are hostile and abusive - actually really - there's such a fantastic honesty and opurity in young people who do not put an polite manners with you and I love knowing that a break through with someone who has started off hostile is a true victory. Philippa did a couple of sets and I did one in the middle. Eventually some guys MC'd. Having spoken to everyone earlier on leafleting I didn't feel at all nervous before or during my set...it didn't go particularly smothly - we missed out the last chorus on the first song, my voice was sore and we'd not sound checked or run though at all. Joel Cana was there to drum for philippa and we asked him to play so he made it up as he went along - though he is an amazing drummer. But they listened, i talked about what the songs were about and they listed to that to - which never happens...and I was thank ful that we have had so much experience of hostile environments- compared to some this one felt friendly!
I haven't blogged in a while but I forget to. Tomorrow we're recording the acoustic tracks for that EP and I'm feeling really positive about what's coming up for us. It feels like an easier chapter - well - a more exciting one anyway!

Tonight there will be music

This evening is the Philippa Hanna album launch. I'm really looking forward to it...though slightly apprehensive. My brother Andy Baker has a support slot and I'm singing some of it with him. I managed to totally forget about one practice, almost had a nervous breakdown in the other I made it to as I had to drag my children out to it and they both had tantrums and screamed and clung on to my legs all the way through and so I got loads of things wrong. Managed a quick run through last night after some pasta but there's a few tricky harmonies to remember. I don't normally get nervous but singing with my brother is different...I'm not unfamiliar with being shouted at whilst on stage if I make a mistake - I don't get that from Claire and Rachel - we laugh at each other...which I can handle!
I am so pleased for Philippa though...she is such an inspirational talent and as an inspirational character to go with that which is a rare and beautiful thing. It's so good that she has such a brilliant album to document some of what she' achieved recently. I really hope tonight is a good one for her. Having chatted with Claire and Rach loads about how difficult it is to get good support to events and to create a consistent following..which I thought was a problem only we had, through talking with my brother who manages Philippa and is involved with lots of artists, it seems that even people who really deserve and amazing following just don't get it. Why does making music have to be so hard. Artists need people to come to their events and support them...it is that support that generates new support.. and that sort of momentum is so hard to create...even if you are good at what you do! I now that I have been guilty of not turning up to gentlemen gigs and philippas gigs even though both are good friends... and because I KNOW how BRILLIANT they are I assume they won't need me to be there for them - but if that is what everyone does then maybe they regularly see the same sea of blank faces that we regularly see too!

Of Course I needent have worried...obviously...and beauty

...and I love knowing that things will be fine because God has it in his agenda...even though logically and practically it will never work. Anyway how exciting to have embarked on the second course and what a lively group we have this time! I was worried that they would all hate each other and refuse to talk - lack of talkingis NOT going to be a feature of this course. This week we were looking at beauty...how the media makes us feel - being faced constantly with airbrushed and rich celebrities. Why oh why do we look at images like this and end up feeling boring and worthless...we all 'know' it in our heads that these images are not reality but the reality is that they can have enormous affect on how beautiful we think that we are. It made me sad recently at the checkout at Sainsburys...my normal magazine buying activity occurs in the supermarket as somehow a magazine cost might get disguised as some brocoli or something we really need and I don't 'feel' I am spending good money on rubbish at least...but as the checkout lady was scanning my copy of happy with a pretty girl on the front with amazingly bright blonde bouncy curls positioned so perfectly like a big sphere around her head the checkout lady sighed with such genuine defeat and expressed that her hair didn't seem to go like that. Well the thing is that NO ones hair happens to go like that without a team of about 20 professional stylists, great photographers, makeup artists, lighting crew and graphics artists ready to make this image look amazing. I am sure that getting up to get to Sainsburys for her morning shift this lady didn't have all that available to her...and neither does this same model everyday of her life either... we ALL look great sometimes and rough as at other times...lets be honest and any single one of us could look stunning if Vogue had us lined up for their front cover...they would make sure of that. So why do we waste SO MUCH time being disatisfied with the way we look but wishing we were like someone else... who is also wishing that they looked like someone else too. Stupid crazy world.

Picture btw is totally unrelated...though it is us performing our Doll Factory song for the first ever time...which i really loved doing! And happens to be about the ridiculousness of media pressure as well.

In worried anticipation...

...this will be brief but I want to document the butterflies that are worrying a bit in my tummy as the next girls course draws very close. I know there is less to do...and I know we have run it before so there is little stress involved this time round but I fear we have the most bizarre mixture of girls and I do not think that the group dynamic will be sucessful. I am hoping that this will be proved rubbish. Joel told me to worry - we've got girls, we've got a room, a great course and we're being paid - then Holly butted in to remind him 'and they've got Jesus' so yes all of those things are right. I just want it to be GREAT. 3 days to go! 4 possibilities for the last 2 spaces... yikes!

What an achievement!

Well done Rachel - she worked SO hard and today the message arrived. GoldDigger are now a REGISTERED CHARITY number 1120689!

I have another blog

by the way...I really am going to put a link at the side - I thought they would be more linked up than they obviously are - this one will be about mainly work ministry and the other www.importantinvestments.blogspot.com is about my family ministry - only a few posts but they are very long ones!

Anyway...

It is just good to have good friends. This week it's been great as we've had Rachel, Ben and Seb (3 amazing youth workers of Steelroots Ministry) round to have breakfast and pray together every morning before/ starting off work. It was a strange concept to get my head around that we wouldn;t have to eat a proper nice full english or at least a very civilised croissant, orange juice and coffee type of breakfast - no apparently it did not need to be posh...wheetabix all round. There's just something I do find a bit strange about meeting up socially to eat a bowl of sloppy brown cereal - but that's my issue to get over.
It has been really good to get down to the table and get on with praying first thing...and amazingly possible to be able to spend a good chunk of quality time with God even with 2 small children under our feet...and thanks to a brand new ELC garage (happy 1st Birthday Elijah xx)We've been able to share vision and feel stronger and more together as a team. Most importantly of course it was great to have a session of praying for our washing machine...trivial to some it has been the most frustrating of problems. I'm not sure if I have documented beyond the sock blockage and mentioned the squeeky drum and then an ok wash and then another blockage which we could not find but managed to clear itself but not before it had flooded our floor one more time. So it sat there in the corner of the kitchen and got prayed for and now is behaving just fine....THANK YOU GOD
Also and amazingly on Elijah's birthday on Monday we had a system of Elijah tried to open his presents and we let Holly open cards. Amonst all the mess of torn paper on the floor I noticed a little note which said something like 'however you need to spend it' in a friends writing and twigged that lying next to it in all the rubbish was a cheque from 2 of our good freinds. They had just decided to bless us with £200 - they have done that before at one of our horrendous financial times I remember and the amount they gave us paid EXACTLY for a freezer we'd just had to buy even though we couldn't afford it. This month - after a year of being debt free we got into a big financial mess again - the thing that tipped us over was the £120 for the washer to be fixed and £80 (I can not believe it can be this much!) for getting rid of the naughty squirrel who has knawed a hole in our roof just because he would like to stay in our loft :# So this cheque covered these unexpected payments we were crippled by. What an amazing ministry to write cheques that bless people that much! I really felt that this was a sign that God was looking out for us in this but knew that wouldn't totally shift the damage but then last night we recieved another cheque from a friend which specified it was for us and not for GoldDigger - which again just makes me feel safe knowing that God is on our case. I need to remember God DOES know our bank balance - of course he does but sometimes we are just so stupid about remembering that if he knows everything then that includes what remains a secret between me and the call centres of HSBC.
I must write about the day in Top Shop...it was amazing...It will be done shortly...or maybe I have done...I forget