Amend Last Weeks Title to: "Return of The Idiot, The Fool, The Half-wit"

What can she mean? I hear you cry. How dare our erudite and multi-talented Blogetteer refer to herself in such disparaging terms? Woe and alack-a-day! What has upset the delicate balance of her sensibilities and led to this – surely unjustifiable? - self-censure?

(You get the picture…)

Well, I wrote the blog in good time last week – honest I did – as evidenced therein by the word ‘tomorrow’ i.e. Sunday, which I would only use if I were doing a Saturday report, wouldn’t I? Unless, of course, I was being very sneaky and trying to trick you into thinking I was writing on Saturday when really it was Monday which would explain why the blog did not appear until Tuesday. Still with me? Actually what happened was that I did indeed get me blogging done on Saturday but then I emailed Chris (who does the posting) and, blow me down! forgot to send the relevant attachment. (What he made of an email merely announcing that I was off to write introductions, I have no idea. Perhaps he thought I thought he’d be interested in such minutiae?) It wasn’t until Tuesday when our erstwhile replacement blogstress, Jenny, sent me an email entitled "Where is it?" that I realised my mistake. (Thank you, Jen. Good work. Someone is reading these, it seems!) Chris, being well used to my inefficiency and long past making polite inquiries as to the whereabouts of my weekly (!?) words of wisdom, did not make any polite inquiries into my weekly WoW so they might have remained written but unread – a crime against great literary endeavour if ever there was one – had it not been for The Vigilance of Mrs Fardell (oooo, there’s a good book-title).

So you see why I feel it necessary to castigate myself. I did give Christopher permission to write rude things about me as a footnote to my last week’s effort but it appears he has displayed remarkable restraint and decided against it. Either that or he was too busy to bother. Whatever the reason, I feel obliged to do the job for him. Job done.

None of which enlightens you as to the recent activities of your favourite choristers.

Sunday was an interesting experiment. I feel the time of day was a little unfortunate. 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning nearly proved the undoing of the Boy Wonder – he made it for 9.55 but the rest of us had been there as per instructions (from TBW) since 9.15 or earlier. Something about a forgotten alarm... However, at least he got there which is more than can be said for Helen, who didn’t - this being the time of unsleeping dissertation hell. Which left some interesting Helen-shaped holes in things, some of which could be filled by Anna-Lauren or the massed voices of the soprani but one of which was more of a Helen-shaped chasm and had poor Elaine battling all alone through the 2nd choir verses of Une Puce while the 1st choir boasted no less than four of the heavenly high-voiced (an imbalance I can’t explain as it would have been only marginally improved by Helen’s attendance. There must have been another absent soprano, mustn’t there? But whom...? I apologise to whoever it was if it was anybody. Imagine forgetting you! [perhaps Rachael?])

Anyway, the audience were a bit thin on the ground when we began and only a little thicker when we finished but set fair to be considerably larger for those who followed us as by then the sun was out and people had actually got out of bed. However, we sang some songs and collected some money (for Water Aid and St Columba’s Hospice) and had some photos taken, the latter activity providing some fair amusement for passers-by, one of whom took some pictures of us taking pictures of ourselves (timer on Chris’s posh camera) as if he thought we were famous... or something.




On to last night where we, rather than the audience, were rather thin on the ground and remained that way. Robin was busy preparing for his first day as a grown-up, teaching Chemistry in Dunfermline (Good luck, kiddo. You’ll be brilliant, I’m sure!). Chris was absent, Arno was absent, Natalie2 was absent, Helen... and so on. We warmed up by singing the beginning of This Marriage and working on blending so it sounded gorgeous (will it last??) then sang through the Five Hebrew Love Songs which we’re hoping to perform at St Giles on the 29th. Luke has never sung these before so was delighted to get a chance, I’m sure, but no doubt feels he needs much more practise – which he will get on the 29th! Once this was done Ollie sent the boys away. They could actually have gone home at this point but decided to stay and work amongst themselves which shows commendable dedication. No idea what they did but perhaps Luke got to spend more time on the 5HLSs after all. Meanwhile we ladies had a hard old time trying to get our heads round the Abbie Betinis caravan song we started some weeks ago. Now, I don’t know how much time was spent on this while I was away but I didn’t feel I was floundering more than anyone else so maybe not much or maybe it is just horribly difficult. The notes are awkward and the rhythms are impossible! Well, no. Not impossible, but the concentration required! No doubt one day (very, very soon I hope) we’ll be laughing at how hard we found it but at the moment the learning of it is not a pleasant experience. This is the one with several solos and Jenny’s very loud big moment, remember? And last night Natalie1 actually offered to do one of the solos. Is the girl mad? I think it’s the only offer Ollie will get. Anna Lauren has to do one because it goes really high but nobody else seems keen to catch the Maestro’s eye when he starts mentioning the ‘s’ word for this one. Will Natalie get her heart’s desire? Watch this space. Or come to the concert.

Really that was it, though at the risk of mentioning Jenny’s name too often there were two amusing incidents last night involving She Of The Capacious Lungs. First I found her in a trance whilst contemplating a pencil held delicately upright at nose level between forefinger and thumb – as if it were a thing of great beauty or engineering of extraordinary complexity. I think she should have been singing at the time but obviously this pencil had captured her imagination far more than the song. Secondly, at the end of the rehearsal, for no apparent reason, she pulled on an old Victorian-style nightdress adorned with sea-themed doodads in which she swung about in what seemed to be a proud display of her invention and ability to sew. Why? You may well ask! It turned out she’s off to a family get-together down south this weekend during which there will be a fancy dress party with - yes, you’ve guessed it! - a sea theme, and she wanted to try her costume out in front of a sympathetic – if somewhat puzzled – audience. Natalie, once she’d recovered from her jaw-dropped confusion, suggested Jen should string some shells round her neck and I thought I had a shell-bedecked piece of string at home from one of the girl’s long-ago mermaid costumes which I offered to lend in return for a lift home. I got the lift but she didn’t get the necklace. Having emptied in vain the dressing-up box (which is at the back of a very dark cupboard) I came to the conclusion I must have dismantled or lost it years ago. A shame. But the nightie speaks for itself.

See you next week.

Maybe.