Quiet confidence

Ahhh this kid. She hasn't been nervous once today. In fact, she's had a fabulous day. She's loved it. We did some gently practice at home. We left for school early and went to see the forget me nots and bluebells. We arrived in good time for school.

I went back to collect her just as they were lining up from morning break. I had an ice lolly in the car for her and drove her to the city. I showed her a message from B, wishing her luck. We parked in free parking (bonus!) right near by and she skipped to music centre. This happy, excited face is BEFORE her exam!

When we got inside, her accompanist appeared and whisked her off, after a quick reminder of the things B had said to her. I heard her practise with Miss G and she sounded good. They were running ahead of time so she went in early. I heard her play the pieces. I didn't much like that I could hear, it made me even more nervous than I already was, but they were great. I heard snatches of her sight reading, that was about all I heard though. It was a few minutes after the sax player following her had started that she appeared. Miss G said she'd been excellent.

Katie skipped off, and we had a wee debrief. The only mess up was that the examiner didn't bother to read her entry sheet and instructed her to play scales (in trinity exams you choose scales or exercises that include the tricky scales and arpeggios). She didn't argue and attempted the scale she hadn't worked on in weeks. It was only after giving her the second that he read her sheet and spotted! She said she made one squeak in one of her exercises and didn't quite stick with her accompanist for one bar of the second piece because she played it differently to how B plays it & katie forgot. That was all that concerned Katie. She seemed happy with it.

We got a message from B saying we could whatsapp call her if she wanted and of course Katie was very enthusiastic. It was lovely to chat to her and hear her travel tales as well as katie being able to chat about the exam. She'd picked sushi as a treat lunch so munched that as she talked!

I dropped her back to school in time for a ten minute run round. They spent the afternoon hunting mini beasts on the field! She was still very very bouncy on the way home. She leaped and twirled and declared how fabulous this morning had been. She said how she couldn't wait to get to dancing. I could feel the energy bursting out of her. When she came out, she was just grinning. And saying over and over what a good day she had. I love this kid.