First look at our NEW HOUSE!

Happy New Year lovelies!

Here is my first video of the year, and it’s a vlog of Tim and I moving to York. It has been amazing to move into our own house and start settling in – especially as we’ve both been looking forward to it for so long! My mum very kindly shampooed the carpets in the house and Tim and I did so much cleaning in the few days before our furniture arrived! Keep your eyes peeled for the next house-update vlog.

I’m now officially available for harp lessons in York and piano lessons in York so please do drop me an email angelinawarburton@gmail.com or use my contact form to get in touch.

In the meantime, I’ll see you around, all the best from this beautiful city.

A xx

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Countdown to Christmas – 1 week to go!

Another crazy week along the run-up to Christmas. I’m writing this today from a very messy bedroom, half the Christmas presents are wrapped, and they are hidden amongst the piles of wrapping paper, string, labels, tape and scissors on the floor. I’m flying out of the door as soon as I’m ready and umm, I’m moving house soon and haven’t started packing.

You’d think all this would stress me out, but it’s quite hard to feel stressed after this past week. As a birthday treat, my mum took me to the absolutely gorgeous Ragdale Hall in Melton Mowbray for two nights. It’s a full-on health spa complete with room-service breakfasts, a gym (that’s mostly empty), exercises classes, swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), saunas, steam rooms, plus more chill-out space than you can shake a stick at – if you have the energy to shake a stick, that is.

I absolutely adored Ragdale and will definitely be going back once we’ve saved up for another trip. It was just what we needed in amongst the madness of the festive season.

Following our trip, it was time for York’s Annual Community Carol Concert on Sunday. I’ve been attending this concert pretty much every year since I can remember, I performed at there last year with my sister Joanne, but this year I welcomed the chance to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the festivities. The concert raises so much money for wonderful causes and usually sells out so have a look next year if you want to go and get your tickets early.

One last thing to report this week, just a little thing… Tim and I are now homeowners!! We collected the keys on Monday (yesterday) and I went to check it out, electricity was on, water was on, and there were lightbulbs in the fittings – hurray! Keep your eyes on my youtube channel as I’ll be doing a house-tour in the new year and keeping you updated of all the ways in which we plan to make the house our own. We can’t live there until there’s some furniture in – this is happening between Christmas and the New Year – so between now and then we’ll be cleaning, sprucing, and getting seriously excited about having our own little sanctuary, just to ourselves.

So, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.
As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.
See you next week!
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Market Rasen

Last weekend was unusual.  My gig was with Market Rasen Choral Society, over in Lincolnshire.  I had practised the music and was really comfortable with it, I knew parking would be no issue, I was staying overnight with a member of the choir who has a B&B and had already invited me out for an indian meal after the concert.  So there was really nothing to worry about.

This of course made me worry that something truly dreadful would happen.

But no, smooth sailing all the way, there wasn’t so much as a single step to move the harp up or down – perfect!  I also got paid on the night, hurray!!

The repertoire was Delius’ Brigg Fair (I actually drove through the village of Brigg to get to Market Rasen, such a beautiful part of the country) and Rowland Lee’s Requiem.  Rowland was present at the rehearsal and the concert, it’s always a bit nerve-racking when the composer is actually sitting there, score in hand, ready to point out what he’d like doing differently.  But actually, he was lovely and received a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of what turned out to be an unusually long concert.

But it was ok, there was curry to look forward to.  I sat opposite a very interesting man and we spent the evening chatting about where we went to school and things like that.  I didn’t realise it was Ian Hogg – a quick glance at his IMDb page shows that he has been in lots of TV and Shakespeare plays http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0389707/

After dinner it was time to go back to the B&B, which was about seven miles away.  It’s in the middle of the countryside and when you breathe in you can just tell immediately that you’re not in a big city any more.  And you can see the stars!  What a treat.  It was midnight when we got back and, as I was leaving first thing in the morning I decided my harp could sleep in the car.  Midge very kindly provided a nice thick duvet to tuck it in.  I found out later that Midge (Thomas) is a published author.  She wrote a recipe book of jams and preserves for the WI that has sold over 100,000 copies!

So that was that, lovely trip, lovely part of the country that I hadn’t been to before, met some great people, and got paid to do it!  Brilliant.

May is literally jam-packed with gigs (excuse the pun) so lots of posts to come I’m sure!  Watch this space.

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