I am writing this the day before our next concert so will probably hold off sending it to the troll postman until I’ve added a report on how we get on at the Scottish Poetry Library tomorrow evening. As we are going out for a farewell-to-Natalie meal/drinkies straight afterwards we will have to hope that I am in a fit state to type something comprehensible at some point on Sunday.
You may have noticed that I failed to blog last week. I’m not sure why. I think it was lack of enthusiasm brought on by the realisation that all my ‘jokes’ about my sole reader are more true than I would like to have believed. Hardly anyone ever looks at this, you know. And it takes me ages. Rustle up some friends and get them to, at the very least, look us up and then I will feel more like making the effort in future.
Wednesday, then and a new alto in the familiar shape of my friend, Kirsty, who is joining us until Christmas and may stay after that depending on the situation regarding numbers. Somehow, even sans such notables as Harriet, Anna Lauren Luke and Nicos, the room felt very full on Wednesday evening. And Kirsty is only very small so it can’t have been due to her presence. Oh and how could I forget???? Mrs Fardell was absent too due to sick child (sick whilst at school and fine once home; that sort of creature, known and loved by parents the world over). That is a lot of missing persons and yet... the room seemed very full. Are we all beginning to gain the extra winter pounds already? Perhaps it was just that the chairs were distributed in an unfamiliar manner. Quite enough to confuse and overwhelm your poor blogetteer’s aging brain cells.
We sang through most of the stuff for tomorrow’s concert; Kirsty manfully (well, she IS an alto) sight-reading lots of things she may never sing again (if she’s lucky). Tamsin was playing Anne’s harp in accompaniment to several of the Scottish pieces and my! Once she had (nearly) mastered the tuning – Anne tunes the Scottish way and Tamsin doesn’t so it took her a while to get her head around what should be where – she played like one possessed. Never have any of us seen this gentle and elegant instrument played with such vigour and pizzazz. I now understand Anne’s reluctance to play when we have a Tamsin to do it instead. The girl’s a genius. I think I will almost enjoy singing the Gaelic songs now. Tamsin will have her own harp tomorrow so the quick key changes should be smoother and lord alone knows what she will be playing once she’s had a chance to look at the pieces properly. Hold onto your hats. It’s all really rather exciting!
Ollie has given new members permission not to join in our old Gaelic set – four songs sung in a row which a fair few of us have been singing on and off for ages and have done by heart in the past. He reckons there are enough of us to do them justice without giving people the headache of learning the tricksy wordage. Both Marie Claire and Heather have opted to join us regardless. Mad. Why? I have given my music to Heather so that she can copy down my attempts at nothing-at-all-like phonetic renditions of said tricksiness but whether or not she will be able to make head or tail of it, I don’t know. Whenever I look at other people’s efforts I find myself completely foxed, with no idea at all what is expected of me pronunciation-wise. It will be interesting – and possibly extremely amusing - to listen in to Heather’s chirruping tomorrow.
There will be no harp during Fog Elna Khel (shame) so Tamsin has taken over the lofty waily bit at the end previously sung by Harriet and A-L. She also has to lift her voice to the heavens in Steal Away – once again all alone. I imagine she will be delighted to have Miss Helen Miles to give some support at Christmas concert time, (Saturday 10th December, Roslin Chapel and Sunday 11th St Giles Cathedral, btw), though it has to be said that she seems to be managing very well on her own. One of these pesky talented people that Rudsambee will keep on turning up.
Heather is now our administrator and, in an extraordinary display of efficiency, brought along to the rehearsal a pile of printed Google maps to help us all reach the Poetry Library tomorrow. What this says about her opinion of Rudsambee intelligence I’m not sure but I took a map because I could and I punched holes in it and put it in the front of my folder. No way I’m getting lost now. Yey.
That’ll do for now, I think. I have to get ready for my daughter’s first event night – A Night in the 1940s – I’m going as a land girl. I was going to make a pinny and construct a cigarette with a bit of ash hanging perilously off the end and go as the cleaner so I could prod people with a mop and wipe up spills with a grimace but sadly I have failed to prepare myself for this. I shall have to try again for the 60s – or, indeed, the 50s, 70s, 80s. Whatever. I could wear a tabard once we get to the 70s. Always enjoyed a tabard.
Perhaps I’ll get this sent off. It will make a nonsense of my first paragraph but – hey. What’s new? More on Sunday. Maybe.
I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.
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