It is Friday night...

... and this is all I am going to write.

Until tomorrow.

Tomorrow 11.04am

So, a little late again but with GOOD excuses. The younger sproglette had another wee job for STV – a Christmas craft session for the website! – and we had to work flat out to get everything ready for the recording yesterday. Usually I am furious when I see Christmas decorations out in the shops before Halloween but this last week I have been equally angry that no one local seems to have got their Christmas act together yet. And it’s the second week of September, for heaven’s sake – WHERE ARE THE BAUBLES??? She only got the ‘spend money’ go ahead on Monday and, believe you me, preparing for these things takes hours and hours so hours and hours is what we had to spend over the next few days whenever possible, leaving me precious little time for anything else. So hopefully in a month or two there will be a Christmas Crafts with Bella McDonald section on the STV website and if you want a few hints on how to keep the kids occupied with decoration-making (classy stuff!?) that will be the place to go.

Back to Wednesday evening, then and apart from a rather teeny soprano section and an Anne with hardly any voice we were pretty much back up to a group that closely resembled Rudsambee. It was a fairly relaxed evening. Ollie spent the first fifteen minutes or so collating music and handing it around and then we had a look at a couple of old pieces which we will be singing at the Scottish Poetry Library in November – obviously they want some poetical things and some Scottish things and preferably, of course, Scottishly poetical things so we revisited old stalwarts such as Sang and a Gaelic piece the name of which I can’t remember and if I could I wouldn’t be able to spell [but which most people know as the Eriskay Love Lilt]. Ae Fond Kiss was handed out also but we didn’t sing that one this week. Now, I do hate to admit this (well, I don’t really, it appears, as I admit it all the time and bore people to distraction with my opinion) but I find most of these Scottish songs really tedious to sing. They are very pretty and lovely to listen to, I’m sure, but they are not exciting to perform. As Ollie was handing out one or other of them he started to say ‘Now, this song is really...’ – madness to hesitate at this point - ‘...boring’ I supplied. People laughed. Ollie seemed not to have heard. Oh, but he had. ‘I heard that,’ he said. To Jenny. Had I got away with it? No, no. ‘It wasn’t me, it was her!’ exclaimed snitchy, clypey Mrs F. So I poked her in the ribs. She must be a glorious subject to tickle. One gentle prod and she was reduced to a jelly of hysterical giggles and splutterings which, it seemed, would never be brought under control. The temptation to re-administer a subtle jab or two whenever she began to calm down was so great you can hardly imagine the self-control I had to exert for the rest of the evening.

We sang Sang and we sangGrabh Whooseydiddlewot and then we went through to the piano room to have a go at a third Michael Tippet Negro spiritual By and By (and, by-the-by, Harry-you-know-who-you-are, if you’re reading this, I neber hab my thdongue im my tsheek whem I’m writdhin). By and By is much jollier than the other two and therefore caused me a problem or ten in the sight-reading dept. However, I am delighted to say that it was not me this time but Jenny Fardell who protested about the speed at which we were supposed to be singing entirely unfamiliar music. Yey! I didn’t have to feel like a complete numpty all alone. Anne joined us with what she had of a voice as she didn’t feel she should be singing the higher notes of the alto 1 part and, actually, once she had set us on the right path, it wasn’t at all bad. Susan, on her own on soprano 2, had a very awkward bit of unexpectedly dotted note-age to sing but she managed very well indeed. The same cannot be said of the tenor 2s who have the same nastiness in their part but I think they were getting the hang of it by the time we moved on. Why I ever worry about making an idiot of myself when we have a tenor section I don’t know. (Love you, boysies).

We then went over Steal Away and Go Down, Moses. The first isn’t too difficult but I did catch Anne giving me an old-fashioned look at one point so I think I must have been on the wrong note – I don’t think it at all, I KNOW I was on the wrong note. We were singing “Ah-ha-ha-ha” at the time and I should have been singing an E to an F# but was probably on a C or something. Who knows? Well, Anne would know. Anne always knows. That’s why I was subjected to one of her OFLs. Quite scary they are, btw. Go Down, Moses isn’t too bad until the alto 2s have a little joiny-up bit here and there. Jen and I were going down too low. Once someone had pointed out that we were supposed to be singing the same thing as the basses (told you we were manly, you had no idea just how manly, had you?) it was a little easier. Ah, well! It was only week two on these things. All will be well...

...eventually.

Coffee time and Arno was telling us about a show he’d been to see at the weekend (in Holland? I think so) which was about the Dutch contribution to the resistance movement during WWII. It took place in a huge hangar (the play, not the Dutch resistance movement) and the audience sat on a moving platform so the action took place all around them and they were turned to watch it instead of the stage revolving. Clever stuff, eh? At the end an actual plane taxied in through the doors (bringing the queen home) and then someone (the queen? Perhaps not) jumped on a motorbike and sped away up the runway. Sounds great, doesn’t it? A spectacle and a half, I’d guess. I was in a play at Edinburgh Airport a few years ago but we didn’t get to use a plane. Or a motorbike. Tsk.

Better stop now and get meself dressed. It is not a very nice day and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it (hubby was supposed to be coming home but now cannot do so); however I suppose I should at least go and buy some comestibles. Morningside calls. Ooo, and I have two pairs of shoes to get re-heeled. Things are looking up.

Au revoir, mes petits choux.