Water, water everywhere

We did have fun with the aitch-two-oh this week. Quite who was responsible for the first spillage I can’t say but someone got wet – Heather? – as did the table and a fair bit of floor carpet (where else does one have carpet, by the way? Have often wondered. Answers on a postcard, please). I’ll wager Mrs Fardell was the culprit. Susan, Heather and Jenny all set-to to clear up the mess amidst great merriment. I have even less idea of what occurred as people were preparing to leave at the end of the evening because, as usual, I had my back to the action but it involved the same suspect – I mean, suspects. Susan was transporting a glass of water kitchenwards when someone (Mrs F perhaps?) knocked her about a bit (I think) and, yet again, the wet stuff hit the floor. Even greater hilarity ensued – and it appears that everyone except me had their eyes on the action because everyone except moi was laughing fit to burst. Did ever a blogetteer feel so incompetent? (Yes, every week. Every single week). After the first incident Susan was heard to say, “At least it wasn’t the glass of wine I threw over Dick Grindley a few days ago,” (hard to see how it could have been that particular glass of wine, it being soaked into Mr Dick’s trousers...) – red wine, of course, had to be, didn’t it? – which began a conversation about getting red wine out of whatever it’s been spilled on and the choice of cleansing method the Grindley’s may have resorted to; sucking it out was Jen’s suggestion, grubby girl. You may be wondering what was happening on the singing front while all this was going on... not much, as far as the sops and altos were concerned, obviously. The boys may have been practising something or other but I don’t think so.

All in all it was rather a laid back but extremely productive rehearsal. We were really very short of men – only two of each flavour - and there were a couple of sops missing, too (but here we had the pleasure of the company - and voice - of Rachael’s sister, Abbie, to make up for one of them at least) – so we started nothing new but revisited a fair number of last year’s Christmas pieces: Nyathi Onyuol, Jajang, Amuworo, Hey, Hey, Lily (aka Hej, Hej Lelija; Polish – in which shiny language we will be singing it this year), Immanuel oss I natt, Nu Tandas and Det hev ei rose sprunge. Not bad for an evening’s work, eh? Quite some time was spent on the Polish pronunciation with which our extraordinarily erudite and versatile Lord and Master is now very familiar, having become pretty much fluent in French and so moved on to the languages of Eastern Europe. Now, I know how a good deal of it works having read a book once which had bits of Polish in it and a helpful little page of tips on how various letters/combinations of letters should be pronounced so when Ol said, “How do you think the l with a line through it should sound?” I could answer ‘w’ and cz, ‘tch’ and sz, ‘sh’ etc (these are the easy ones) but this was of no help at all when it came to putting the words to the music – in spite of the fact that I was perfectly familiar with the music already. Oh, the strugglings of an ancient brain. And an ancient brain struggling with the onset of a cold-in-the-head, too. And, yet again, the absence of spectacles (except for the spilling of water tee hee)/bad light combination which flaws me every week. You’d think I’d learn.

But you see how hard it is.

At the end of the evening Heather announced that she had had a request for a sea-shanty singing choir to perform at a wedding in June and asked would we be at all interested? The short answer appeared to be ‘no’. The rather longer one was to do with where we would be singing, when, would anyone be listening or would we be singing against chat and the tinkling of glass (really, really hard work and no fun at all), would we have time to learn sea-shanty-type things to sing (Jenny was well away, jigging and climbing the rigging – she was the only one who looked at all keen but her enthusiasm could have made up for the rest of us, no problem) and other such concerns. Heather looked somewhat crushed at what was, to be sure, an astonishingly negative reaction but, as it is her job now to pass on these requests, she should beware of taking personally adverse responses of this nature. There’s no telling what will catch the imagination of Rudsambeeites and if she becomes too selective we might miss the opportunity to warble somewhere really silly in the future.

Alors, mes leetle cabbages, I have done. Hubby is home – has been here since last Saturday – and, what with one thing and another, I’ve hardly seen him so I shall go and make him some luncheon. See you next week.