Ol Fixes It so that Opportunity Knocks for New Faces with the R Factor

Yey! We have new people. Four of them, all at once. Imagine!!

Last night I met Ollie round the corner from the Wexler’s house (where we practise) walking in entirely the wrong direction as if he’d forgotten where he was going or had changed his mind about taking the rehearsal. The former would have been more likely. “Where are you off to?” I demanded to know – I am older than him and considerably wiser about most things so I feel entitled to boss him about a little outside of choir (and sometimes in when I’m feeling particularly motherly) – upon which he announced, with a grin and not a little pride, that there were new people to collect from the bus stop and that he would see me later. Not much later, for I had not yet divested myself of coat, scarf, boots and other nippy-weather clothing, when he appeared with Greta and Behm (ignore the ‘h’ when pronouncing – several of us thought he was called Ben to begin with. Some, being a little slow on the uptake, may well still do so). He left them with me as I was the only option available – and then John appeared, thank god, to help with the small chat at which, quite frankly, I suck – and we were still in the hallway nattering away, be-coated and be-shod, when others started to arrive at which point I thought maybe it would be a good idea to take them through into the room we rehearse in, in case they were beginning to think we spent all evening warbling in the confines of the entrance hall. By this time it had been established that Greta sort-of knows Rachael as they both work at EUSA (have I got that right, ladies?), Greta having a student job there and Rachael a proper grown-up one. Greta is American and is studying medicine having already done a degree in English Literature in America with medicine as a subsidiary subject???? Yes, yes – only in the USA. Behm is a friend of our Christopher and I don’t know much more about him than that except that he sang tenor, came along just to try it out and was very friendly. I shall quiz him next week if he turns up.

Later Harriet (the potential kidnapee from last week) and Nicos (lonely Greek man from last week) appeared; the first a soprano as is Greta and the second a bass. Unlike Behm, these three have been auditioned and found to be up to our rigorous standards (!) so, we have a definite two new sops and one new bass and a potential new tenor and therefore (cross fingers) a full compliment of choristers and so, as I said at the start, yey!

Tomorrow I shall write something about our activities during rehearsal – if I can remember anything by then. My mind is already slightly fuzzy and a glass of wine has not helped matters so I think I’d better leave this for now and try again later when a night’s sleep has cleared the fog. We can always hope, eh?

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Well – ‘tis now tomorrow and almost tomorrow again and although the fog had dissipated earlier I did not take advantage of the fact and now it has returned due to a Friday Fizz session at a local hostelry and so, unfortunately I am not, after all, going to get round to telling you any more than I have already done.
Suffice it to say we have started on Christmas songs.

That’ll have to do for now.

Night night.