You will have noticed that I missed a week... I had my reasons. Not good ones but reasons all the same. I was going to wait until after our concert on Saturday, which seemed like a sensible plan, but then I was very busy on Sunday – I started putting books back on shelves when tennis was cancelled (too windy, apparently! They can’t make that excuse at Wimbledon, can they? Where’s the commitment?), and once one starts a job like that – especially when everything must be in alphabetical order – it is almost impossible to stop. I went on so long that I didn’t start getting ready to go to Anne’s (60th – no, surely not) birthday party until almost the time I was supposed to be at John and Susan’s getting a lift. You will have gathered that I was at a party on Sunday afternoon (a great party, thank you, Anne and Dick) – no chance to blog there – and once I got home not only did I find a daughter in residence on the sofa expecting attention but I also HAD to finish the re-shelving. Over a thousand books later I’d done everything but the ones the girls and/or I used to love when they were little which I can’t possibly throw out and some mysterious tomes belonging to my husband which will probably have to go as he’s not here to stop me chucking them out. Sunday gone. Monday I had to work, then I went to Pilates, then I did the kiddies books. Monday gone. Today it’s Tuesday and Tuesday is nearly gone but anyway it’s too late for last week’s news now because there will be more tomorrow. Probably.
Until tomorrow, then. Or rather Thursday. But my next few days are shaping up to be extremely busy as well, so – oh dear!... you may have a long wait.
And you have had. It is now the evening of the Monday following the one mentioned above. Ooops. Perhaps I should use the ‘s’ word? I have avoided it very effectively for quite a while. Maybe it should make an appearance here. Or maybe not. Life gets in the way of many things and blogging is one of them. Life has included an inordinate amount of cleaning recently due to the necessity of hosting weekend houseguests – very lovely to have them and SO very lovely to have a spotless dwelling but not good for my duties as blogetteer. I even cleaned windows which is unheard of around here. It is so pleasant to be able to see out into the garden again though unfortunately, apart from sweeping the front path and removing a large pile of busily rotting garden waste from the (laughingly named) patio (i.e. a number of very ugly paving slabs rather carelessly laid – yet another job waiting... and waiting... and... to be done), the garden I am looking out on did not get tidied along with the rooms from which the windows look out upon it. I am going on holiday on Saturday – imagine the jungle to which I shall return in three weeks’ time.
What do I have to tell you? Great concert at the Reid Hall on June 25th. Lovely audience – and not a bad size, either. We raised a goodly sum for our charities – St Columba’s Hospice and Drake Music, Scotland. I made my bottling speech which must have been well received in spite of its ‘cheekiness’. Cheeky is a polite judgement, I think! Well, it did the trick and if people felt pressured into handing over their cash then I did my job well – and at least I made them laugh while I extorted the dosh. We sang well and (Ollie having decided not to air Leonardo for a practice run) were relaxed and able to enjoy ourselves. I had thought that we should give Leo a go but changed my mind the night before the concert because it would have been too much pressure and the rest of the pieces would probably have suffered from it, so I was delighted when the Boy Wonder announced his decision – and I was far from the only one. We will be singing it in St Giles in August.
Aaaagh!
On Wednesday there was a very small turn-out at rehearsal (happens so often after a concert) so Ollie suggested we sort out some of the tricky passages of the above-mentioned demon of a piece and finish early. I’m not sure if we did finish early in the end but we certainly went some way towards sorting out the tricky passages. And it was fun. Perhaps not everyone there would agree with that last statement but I enjoyed myself – except for when my voice started giving out; it seems not to have recovered fully from the problem before Christmas and I got into a bit of a sulk and a temper with it and announced - sotto voce – to Jenny that I would probably have to give up the choir and give up singing for good very soon. But I won’t. I shall continue screeching and squeaking until they chuck me out with une puce in my oreille. So if you come to a concert in the near future and hear weird and musically inexplicable noises emanating from the alto section I shall be looking innocent and trying to imply, with small grimaces and movements of the shoulder, that the tenors behind me are to blame - but you, Dear Reader(s) will know the shameful truth. Don’t tell, I beg.
Not a very satisfactory effort, this edition. Whomsoever, back in the dim and distant day, coined the word ‘erratic’ did it entirely for the future benefit of your Rudsambee blog, I think, which is nothing if not that. I‘m going to do it... I am... I can feel it coming on... it had to happen sooner or later... all that effort for nothing, dammit –
Sorry.
