Are you as confused as I am?

So, here I am once more - having been forced to leave you to Jenny’s tender mercies last week due to yet another internet malfunction. I have said it before – and here I go again (and it won’t be the last time either) – technology is pants. Quite why pants are used as an object of odium I don’t know, I’m sure; darned useful things they are and we’d be lost without them. Or coldish around the nether regions for far too many months of the year, anyway. And, if American, forced to live amongst men in skirts – which, as we well know, faced with some of the be-kilted monstrosities to be seen hinginaboot the streets and byways of Scotchland, can be an unsavoury experience to say the least.

Thank you, Jenny, for your contribution – much shorter and to the point than anything I seem able to produce; but I was sorry you did a me and forgot the funny thing(s) I said. I can remember them extremely clearly (there’s a wonder) but it’s too late now to repeat them (sob) and my wit is lost to the wider world (that’s you, Dear solitary Reader) forever (sigh).

Well, I’d better get a move on while the internet-sticky-thingy deigns to do its job so here goes:

Last night. Thought I was running late but arrived to find nearly everyone congregated in the hall – something of a squash – in no particular hurry to move and get on despite our Lord and Master having been quite stern on the subject of tardiness at last week’s meeting and at one or two rehearsals earlier in the year. However the L&M was also rather sloth-like and, dawdling from the basement regions some minutes behind time himself, proceeded to engage my attention with tales of a wedding attended last weekend (of which more later) instead of chivvying us through to start practising.

Eventually we were gathered in the correct place, missing a few notables: Douglas, recovering from a detached retina (eek); Luke, recovering from root-canal work (yuck); Kay, John and Susan on holiday (grrr) and Heather, getting married soon (aah). Anna Lauren was back and recovered from foot-failure (yey), (tentative diagnosis, tendonitis) and looking every inch the blooming mother-to-be but, she says, feeling like the chap in Alien just before the gruesome bit.
Robin was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Bert and whoosit on it (help, please, Christopher – can’t remember the other one’s name [It's Ernie]). “Ahh, is that you and Gordon?” asks Jenny. “Ur.. um.. no.. yes,” answers Robin (that’s clear then). “I always thought Bert and Ernie were brothers,” offers Behm. “Oh, no. No oh no,” say Robin, Chris and Ollie. “Perhaps I had a strange relationship with my brothers then,” Behm suggests. Perhaps he did.

We began by trying something new – Nobis Datus by Victoria. I don’t remember why Jenny was fussing but I do remember that Christopher guffawed far too loudly and quite unnecessarily when Ollie said to her (with only a small touch of equally superfluous irony and a large grin), ‘Nevermind, just follow Claire’. Now, as you will witness, I am always willing to admit my failings when it comes to sight-reading (and counting and singing in tune) but I am not a complete numpty and actually – apart from the counting – this was not at all a difficult piece to sight-read and I did it perfectly well. And our Jenny had got some literary notionette into her head and spent the whole evening trying to get her thoughts down on paper, scribbling away on a tiny scrap of something that resembled a crumpled old receipt from an ancient shopping trip, so that her mind was entirely elsewhere. When we moved on to Leonardo I can safely submit that I was upholding the Alto 2's honour pretty much all by myself even in the impossible parts. So there, Mr Editor. There have been rehearsals when Jen has been absent – not many, but she does go off on holiday now and again – and I know I can make a bit of a fuss about singing on my own if there is a new piece or something we’ve not done much but this is only because I do not like, never have liked and never will like, making a fool of myself. I am full of admiration for people who get on with the job and get it wrong and ask for assistance but I like to get things right (and first time if at all possible) – which is silly, I know but can’t be helped. But at these Jenny-less rehearsals, I am not entirely lost and it should not be presumed that I am, thank you very much.

That told ‘em.

Yes, we spent a fair amount of time on old Leo which is good. I, for one, am quite a bit clearer on what happens where and I actually managed to sing and count (not much watching Ollie but you can’t have it all at once) all the way through to the end before the evening was over. We still didn’t practise the beginning, which has been sadly neglected, but I am sure that will come and Anne assures me that our part isn’t too difficult [The first page isn't hard, it's just loud and high]. I don’t remember and can’t tell from just glancing at it but I’m sure she’s right. (!) Once we’d finished Ollie was telling us which bits we’d rehearse in detail next week. He told the tenors to look at page 6. I suggested they might like to look at the music on page 6 as well. Nikos asked if the basses could work on page 5, “Particularly bar 21... And 22... and 23, and – up to 26, actually.” “Perhaps we could start at bar one”, Sebastian added. I think we all know how they feel.
Afterwards we gave Rachael a very late birthday card – a first and very feeble offering from yours truly. She should have had one a couple of weeks ago but Douglas has been off (see above) and so Natalie asked me last week if I could arrange something instead. Well, I thought I’d have lots of time at work to make something worth giving her but I didn’t as it turned out so, sorry, Rachael – perhaps next year. A raucous rendition of the birthday song may have made up for the poor quality of the card itself. I hope so.

During the coffee-and-tea-drinking session that inevitably follows rehearsals we heard more about Ollie’s wedding. Well, not his – God forbid! – but the one he went to. Old school friend marrying into the Greek community this was one big, fat Greek wedding. 500 guests. £27,000 pinned to or draped over the happy couple. Ol said he was embarrassed to offer his meagre £20 when others had made necklaces of £50 notes so it went back in his pocket! I think £20 is a generous offering myself but perhaps under the circumstances and in such a public arena... But then – imagine – he went to sign the Guest Book only to discover they were charging £25 for the privilege. Hmm... Have we non-Greeks been getting things seriously wrong all these years? Either I need to find my girls Greek husbands (Nikos? One of the sopranos (????) thinks he has “a... captivating voice” – there’s no way of doing justice to the way it was said - and he seems like a lovely young man) or I need to start a new way of doing things. (In Scotland? Amongst the Scots? Is it likely to take off?)

And speaking of new ways of doing things we decided that Marie Claire, once qualified as a doctor, should set about making hospitals more like those of Holby City and Casualty. Living personal crises out on the wards to enliven things. Forgetting about the patients while emoting about yer love-life. That sort of mullarkey.Much more fun. During this conversation I suffered the thoroughly-deserved intervention of the karmic: “So, you’ll be a real doctor soon,” says Robin during discussion about the horrors of final exams. “If she passes”, I say (why?) and kick over a glass the contents of which merrily take off in an unstoppable stream across the carpet (the room must slope). I ran to the kitchen for mopping paraphernalia while Robin and Marie Claire laughed heartily at my misfortune. At least it was just water. The gods must know I really didn’t mean to be mean.

Ollie was causing great hilarity in the kitchen but I was in the wrong place saying the wrong thing so I’ve no idea what he was talking about. Regaling his appreciative audience with more wedding stories, I believe. Chris was cooking Ollie’s dinner and a very delicious pancake was shoved into my hands and pretty quickly after that into my mouth. Yum. And there was more later, of a sweet variety and bang went the smug feeling I’d been experiencing due to having consumed slightly fewer-than-recommended calories during the day. Ah well! Skinny quite often = scrawny at my age and is scrawny a good look? Is it? I think you all know what I want you to say...

Bye-bye, Lovelies.