While the cat's away...

Have you ever wondered what might happen to the sweet Rudsambee-lets if both Maestro Boy and Esteemed Leader Anne went away on their jolly holidays? Well last night this was our lot. King Editor valiantly led us while jazz man Sebastian beat the rhythms out. However, the Rudsambee-lets were for some reason on our worst behaviour and I felt both our supply teacher leaders were remarkably patient with us. So hilarity was the name of the game, started by the aforementioned jazz man who showed us some jolly beats that meant fervently beating our chests. Honestly some of our number have so little rhythm! Douglas' face was so confused that by the end of the ditty I was almost crying with laughter.

We rehearsed quite a bit of Tormis which sounded dreadful at first... and still sounded dreadful at the end - I joke, I joke! Tormis is a little like Marmite (other yeast-based spreads available), and I do not like Marmite very much. Despite the general misbehaviour (I would like to blame A-L for much of this naughtiness - don't be taken in by her innocent facade. She completely cracks me up!) we did manage to sing through Sleep which we remembered quite well, and Dark Eyed Sailor which sounded a little scary the first time through (the ladies have a tendency to shout the line "Oh welcome William, I've lands and gold" - in fact if someone welcomed me back from the dead in such a manner I might well have dived straight back into the ocean) but less scary with dynamics in the second.

We also sang Tourdion which is a terrific little piece. Once we'd worked out the general logistics of this, it sounded pretty good. Very quick! The speed continued with Jede Sedlak which we can now rattle out without folders at a tremendous tempo.

So how best to conclude a night of increasing mirth? Well, it began with A-L's mime of 'playing a very small keyboard'. Unfortunately it looked like she was pretending to be a small rodent. This led to one of the funniest and most ridiculous conversations I have embarked upon for some considerable time. Robin (who is, as we all know, going to train to be a teacher and, judging by his linguistic knowledge, will single-handedly reform our ailing education system) referred to such an action as murine e.g. like a mouse. Mrs Wexler did her best Susy Dent impression with dictionary open and ready to discover other animal-themed descriptive words, for example 'bovine', 'avine', 'feline' (for a full list check out this magnificent link - http://www.dnafrequencies.com/dp/terms.shtml). However, the Rudsambee-lets, as they are, decided that this could be pushed a little further and came up with 'beeline', 'borderline', 'conga line', 'pantyline', 'Serpentine', 'clothesline', 'Stenna line' and, my current favourite, 'fraulein'. Goodness how we laughed - thanks to Robin, Rach, A-L, and Susan for contributing to this one. Any others, please do add them via the comment function.

And on that ridiculous note I bid you farewell. Despite the general merriment that took over this evening's proceedings we will be ready for York in a week and a bit - promise!

CSW