She doesn’t need luck. But before she performs, she’s got herself a little ritual of “magic performance sparkles”.... mamas perfume and a little touch of glitter to her eyes.

Today was woodwind day at the festival. She was in the first section of the day so we had to leave quite early on account of the rush hour traffic. She had a practice when we got there then had a short warm up with her acccompanist to set their tempos. It was a very mixed ability class and there were a couple of other strong players. She played stunningly (obligatory pre-performance shot in the extras!). That said, it felt to her like the adjudicator didn’t much like her on this occasion. He was a Scot with a very Scottish sense of humour and manner which the kids found hard to read! During the adjudicating, he also criticised a couple of things most adjudicators praise about Katies playing and style. In her second piece, at the beginning as she started he was being really silly so she’d had to fight to maintain her composure through it- he then criticised her for being too straight faced in her playing of that fun piece. So all in all, she’d felt it wasn’t going to go her way this time. It was therefore a fantastic surprise when she got first place with a wonderful mark and on-paper brilliant comments.... he just made her stew for it!

When we got out the hall, Katie received amazing responses from the festival staff. One of the stewards said “I could hear you from out here and looked because it was beautiful.... I couldn’t believe it when I saw how little you are!” That always makes her chuckle! Word has spread about her performances on Saturday so she was congratulated for that a lot too.

It was then off to school.... back to reality after a few truly amazing days. Back to reality with the bump of a spelling test, times tables test and catch up work. But it was entirely worth it. She did at least have school dance class at lunchtime which she of course loved.

I picked her and our little buddy up from school. Katie and he ran the whole way back to car (which was parked right at the top of the hill) and he declared it exhausting. They giggle the entire time they’re together. We dropped him off then went to get Katie some tea & some petrol before going back to school for parents evening.

Her teacher gave us fantastic feedback about how amazing her literacy is, how she works hard at everything and is “a perfect member of the class, who’s bright and bubbly, fun and hardworking”. Maths is her downfall. She struggles in situations where they teach multiple ways of doing the same thing because she then doesn’t know where to start. She does much better in situations where there’s only one way to do it. But she still tries hard so the rest will come. Her literacy continues to be off the charts though... her teacher said “you’re just creative, it’s ok, don’t worry about the maths”. I loved reading all her books and seeing how she’s growing. I had to chuckle at one occasion where she’d been writing about some music she’d done and the teacher had corrected Katies spelling in her description of her aural lesson.... wrongly. Katie said to me “but I told her she was wrong and that I was right”. Katie had then given her teacher an explanation of what aural training is!

It was on to dancing after parents evening. Katie was SO excited to go to class and show her teacher & friends her new dancewear and tell them all about the trip to Move It. She was extra excited because she got to partner one of her favourite big girls in contemporary and also because her teacher has said she wants to use the leotard of Katies set for the contemporary class show costume.

Despite the day she had, it was still hard to get her to sleep tonight. We seem to have hit a change. She’s not going to sleep as early as she used to. I’m taking a bit of getting used to it!

PS - it was 2 years ago today that she played her first ever solo.... a very shy little lady doing her Initial Grade piano pieces, her feet swinging at the stool as she couldn’t reach. Today she played Grade 5 and Grade 6 clarinet pieces.....