80% of what?

I should be in my garden planting things that should have been planted weeks ago but the weather’s looking a bit dicey (what, again?) and I only garden in the sun so here I am instead, feeling slightly guilty for not getting on with one job and rather pleased with myself for substituting another rather than curling up with a book. You are lucky the tennis hasn’t started yet – blogging does not stand a chance against goggling at people walloping a ball back and forth and over and into a net. (And this in spite of the dearth of heart-throbby types. Where are all the pretty boys? Someone needs to start picking potential world-beaters on the basis of their facial features – the bodies look after themselves, after all...)

Too much from one old enough to be (quite a young) grandmother? Possibly. But we all like something nice to look at, don’t we?

Arno mentioned on Wednesday evening that the blogs seem to be getting longer – I think they are and perhaps they shouldn’t be. I go on about myself a good deal, don’t I? See – there’s the flaw in the blogospherical world. Who is going to bother except egocentric types who imagine they have something worthwhile to broadcast about their lives when really they are no more interesting or articulate than anyone else. Quite possibly less so. Almost definitely less so. Well, I’m not going to promise to change my ways. Not when I’m so marvellous and fascinating.

We were sadly down on numbers – again – this week. Douglas is still having to rest his eye, Kay is still on holiday, Heather is still getting married. How long does it take to get hitched these days? For goodness sake! Put on a pretty dress, show off a bit, say “I do” a few times and Bob’s yerunc, Fanny’s yer aunt and you are a Mrs Whoosit. Easy!

As for the others, Luke is no longer recovering from the root-canal work (one hopes) but is being over-worked, as is Christopher. Poor lambs. I have no idea how that feels though I hear about it a lot from my husband. No idea about the rest of the absentees. Hope they’re OK and not in the ranks of the OW’ed as well. Congratulations to Marie-Claire who turned up even though she is doing her (medic) finals and after a not particularly pleasant exam and Anna Lauren who came for a while but had to go home early through tiredness (I think). Hope you’re feeling better, AL. Take it easy whenever possible, that’s my advice. (To everyone – pregnant or not!)

This week we were mostly working on Leonardo. Used Nobis Datus as a warm-up and spent some time perfecting blended vowels which proved to be wasted effort as we had to do it all again when we got to Leo and his machine. “I don’t think you’re stupid,” says our Lord and Master, “You just can’t be bothered to remember”. Well, either stupid or lazy. Take your pick. One way or the other we need to be reminded to an extent which must put oLaM in danger of ulcers. And consider the number of people who were absent... he will have to start reminding all over again next week.!

No change there then.

We are getting the hang of this piece, gradually. Working on a section here, a few bars there, it is beginning to come together. We might even try it out in our next concert. Harriet is going to be the only Sop 1 who knows what is going on and even she-who-is-nearly-perfect found herself going wrong and "trying to follow the tenors". What? Why? I think we’d all agree that this is absolutely no way to go to get things right. [heeeeyyyyy!] Harriet must be aware of this now. The hilarity which followed her admission would be enough to convince anyone that they’d made a fundamental misjudgement. The tenors never know what they are doing, this is accepted fact. Never, ever follow a tenor. Even if – especially if – you are another tenor. [oh okay, fair point.]

Back to the dodgy vowels and, asks Sebastian, “Should I be hearing ‘pisses and writes’?” Well, no. Not ideally. The word is ‘paces’. He is pacing and writing – is he pacing back and forth to his desk, writing a bit then moving on or is he carrying a notepad and a quill with him? Alas! We will never know–he is pacing and writing and not, as someone suggested, causing the candles to burn low by practising his aim. (To such depths, I’m afraid, do your innocent choristers descend from time to time).

Once we’d finished singing someone asked to know what we’re supposed to be singing on June 25th. Ollie said it would be 80% of the London programme. “80% of each song?” asked Robin. “No, we leave four people out each time,” suggested Sebastian. I have no idea if the maths of that notion is correct or not but which is the right answer?

Jenny was quite remarkably quiet this week. Apart, that is, from some muttering during and after bar 90 of the above song (a question of grammar or sentence construction or somesuch – basically no comma where our Jen thinks there should be one); and no, one cannot sing and mutter at the same time but we have 3 bars rest after the problem area and she put these to good use. She told me she’d had no coffee all day and that she’d had some tea before leaving the house (being English, at first I thought she meant a cuppa then realised that she, being from Yorkshire, was referring to dinner). Thus was she in a stable frame of mind. No, no, no, Jenny. Don’t be boring. Drink an ocean of coffee on an empty stomach next Wednesday and come and amuse us properly, please.

Delicious Spanish biscuits, courtesy of John and Susan, at coffee time which meant that I ate far too many and indeed, as a result, more or less lived off biscuits on Wednesday having eaten very little else except for biscuits (homemade and very healthy... hmmm) earlier in the day. Bad me. Some be-wailing of the aging process with Susan and Anne (the latter being much more accepting of it than either Susan or me) over a cup of tea and all those cookies (which are not going to help maintain a healthy, youthful glow now are they?) and time to go home. Jenny offered me a lift, as usual; I accepted, as usual, even though I should have run home as fast as little, fat legs could scamper in order to mitigate effects of appalling diet.

...and I only made the biscuits for the decorators but they don’t seem to eat biscuits and so who’s going to carry on consuming biscuits until they’re all gone...?