More on this later...

I am going to yoga now so there is no knowing just when ‘later’ might be... you may wonder why I have made a start on this with so little time in which to finish it but I think I have explained before that carrying on is much easier than beginning and, with even so few sentences set down as this, there is more hope of a completed blog winging its cyber-path to Christopher in a timely fashion than if I put off writing anything at all until I have time to write everything.

Oof – yoga was TOUGH. I am all stretched and strengthened and absolutely exhausted...

Choir practice. Nikos was supposed to be doing the warm-up but Nikos has gone. How sad is that? I will tell you more anon. Ol warmed us up instead, brains too by teaching us some little ditty-ish, round-ish thing in a language which was never established, (as far as I could gather, anyway). Having got our minds and bodies into some sort of working order Ollie moved on to rehearsing us in just two things: The Seal Lullaby, for those new to the choir and therefore the song and She Moved Through the Fair, which was a small-group piece originally so, really, only well known by a very few of us – in fact, most of the erstwhile singers of this have gone and left us. I was one of the originals but you’d never have thought it. This was a piece I could sing off-by-heart once upon a time but I couldn’t remember at all where I’d changed parts, which bits I’d sung, what the pesky notes were. Disaster. Poor Heather was singing with me and, confused enough as it was with having to sing alto sometimes and tenor at others, she also had to stand next to me and hear me dithering. She needs to have the courage of her convictions in these circumstances. Stick ta yer guns, Heather, old girl. You’re far more likely to be right than am I!

When it came to The Seal Lullaby there were only one or two little mistakes (as far as I could tell) and plenty good enough for us to sing along to. I’m not sure we sang it very well but Sarah and anyone else who’d never sung it before (was there anyone else who’d never sung it before?) will have some idea, at least, of how it is supposed to sound.

These two songs are two of the choices for our CD. Ollie is going to ‘insist’ Anne comes along to play piano for us on recording day. I do hope she does. Seems fitting.

So then... Nikos. He has gone back to Greece in order, I believe, to work on his... on his what? Can’t remember what qualification he is working towards but it involves composing and his librettist is in Greece as are his family and friends and I gather he is struggling a little financially here and prefers to be at home while he is trying to complete his work. Who can blame him? He has said he would like to return to us in September and I, for one, hope he does. Strange to think that will probably be up to our new leader... In the meantime he has left us with Brodmann Area 47 and would love us to record it if we can manage to do so. How encouraging to know he trusts that we can do it justice (or perhaps the Scottish weather has driven him crazy. He was mighty discombobulated by the appearance of SNOW in April. We tried to explain that the soaring temperatures of the days before were far more to be wondered at but he still seemed at a complete loss to understand what was going on).

There y’are then. I’m sure I had something else to say but it has gone – poof. Off into the ether whither this blog will follow. But this blog, unlike whatever it was I had to tell you, will re-appear, miraculously at some point (it is miraculous, isn’t it, like it or not – all this technology?).

See you next week.

xx

Chris liked my last blog...

... which is great (“Felt like I was there,” he said) but the fact that he commented at all makes me question what he has thought of all the ones I’ve submitted before [honestly, nobody can take praise these days without finding fault]. However, at his suggestion, I am going to become more positive – I am going to pretend I remember everything that happens of an evening and I am not going to admit to my musical mistakes ever, ever again.

Ha!

Last night was another good rehearsal, though still down on numbers. The altos made a strong showing again, there being four of us; all the tenors turned up (three, that is, a somewhat pathetic number) and of sopranos there were also three - I suppose it is still the Easter holiday and I guess Kay is off with the family gallivanting somewhere pleasant for the duration; Harriet, I’m sure, is working hard on her PhD thesis and Tamsin, so busy, is taking some time out (but will be returning one day, I’m glad to say). Luckily, Marie-Claire, in the diary as an absentee, had managed to change shifts and came along unexpectedly which was, no doubt, a good thing for the sanity of Susan and Rachael – especially when we came to the singing of Nikos’s Brodmann area 47 when all possible strength of mind is required even to look at the music. We had three basses, too. The three who were away last week. Can’t really be termed consistent, can we?

We began with a warm-up orchestrated by Douglas. Had it been a piece of music it would have been of the ponderous and slightly perplexing variety but our brains were given a bit of a work-out, which is never a bad thing, especially when it comes to the singing of Brodmann area 47, as I think I have mentioned before.

Then we sang our new Tormis piece from last week – Bridge of Song. It has lots of unexpected repeats in confusing places and we also have to deal with both Finnish and Estonian (ex-Rudsambeeite, Sari, is to be called upon to give a hand with the Finnish as there were, as per, differing ideas (‘convictions’ would not be too strong a word) as to pronunciation of the Finnish, at least) but it is coming on really rather remarkably quickly. The altos and basses are not allowed to breathe very much which is a bit of a problem for yours truly but if I think about it in advance and stand up straight I can do it. Thinking and not slouching are tricky things to do at the end of a busy day... my mother thinks I have wonderful posture and says she stands up straighter when I’m around (I think she does that only because she is rather small and wishes to look me in the face when pretending I’m still five years old – it must make the pretence that much easier if she’s not having to look up at me) but I’m really pretty sloppy most of the time, to be honest.

A short discussion was held mid-rehearsal as to what we might include on the CD we will record in May. The discussion was lively, several suggestions being crushed before they’d even finished leaving the suggestors mouth. Robin put in a request for an odious thing called Son ar Chistr which, you will gather, I can’t stand. Breton. Horrid. Unfortunately it is quite popular amongst the longer-standing choir members – Kay, for instance, loves it – and I have a terrible feeling that anyone who knows it will be expected to join, joyfully, in its recording. Hear this, folks: I am one who knows it. I will probably have to join in. I won’t do it joyfully.

We moved on to a little piece called The Ox Climbed a Fir Tree. A few of us have more than one copy of this already, indicative of the fact that Ol has tried to get us to sing it several times before. It is by Tormis, again and is really an amusing, though somewhat discordant, offering so I’m not sure why we’ve never yet got it up to performance standard but Ollie, obviously, has no intention of giving up on his dream... We worked on this avec piano – did it help? I remembered most of it from last time but a first note’s always useful. Especially when the alto part is written above the soprano’s and the basses above the tenor’s. Why? Is he just trying to be awkward?

Then the aforementioned (what? More than once?) Brodmann’s area. I amuse myself with the thought that Nikos wrote this piece for us to sing. For us. And he’s given the tenors really, really difficult things to do. What was he thinking??? We altos have a really rather melodic line which makes it all much easier but oh! the counting that is required. Very few notes are where one would (reasonably) expect them to be and they all seem to rely heavily on other parts being exactly where they should be at all times. This is Rudsambee, for Heaven’s sake! But no one can deny that it is fun – in a masochistic sort of a way – and very, very good for us indeed.

I am doing notes as well as this this week so I suppose I’d better get on with those now. Or perhaps not. Maybe I’ll go out and spend money instead... hmmm... notes/pretty new things, notes/pretty new things, notes/pretty new things?

“I’ve never heard a falling bodhran.”

That last word should have Gaelic stylie accents on, I think, but if this computer don’t recognise French it aint goin’ to manage Gaelic, now is it?

‘Twas Robin who spake as above the above and I have to agree with him. Me neither. And it’s not all that exciting, sadly. A woody, drummy sort of a sound with a slide to it. Much as you’d expect, really. But now we can say that we have heard a falling bodhran as can all ten choir members who made it to rehearsal this week.

Yes, ten. A rather pathetic turn-out but I think Ollie had had apologies of one sort or another from all the absentees. He seemed prepared for the eventuality. To the point that he’d decided in advance that there was little point singing at all as there was little we could do with such small numbers. “We’ll have tea and chat,” he announced, “and maybe have a talk with Nikos about a guitar. I’ll go and put the kettle on.” He did.

So, there we were, drinking tea and chatting when Kirsty rushed in, somewhat breathless, eyebrows ahoist and atwist, the apologies on the tip of her tongue frozen there in consternation at the sight that met her eyes. “What’s this?” she demanded. “I feel like I’ve gone through the looking-glass, I’m upside down. Looking at things through the wrong end of a tele-thingy.” Rather mixed images. You will agree but she was extremely confused and who can blame her? Tea and chat happens at the end of the evening. She must have wondered just how late she was and what had happened to the missing 90 minutes. “We’re not going to sing tonight,” someone explained. “Why ever not?” asks K, increasingly put-out. “There’s not enough of us.” “Of course there is. We must sing. I have had such a day. I need to sing.”

So we sang.

Should Kirsty apply for Ollie’s job? She’d certainly whip us into shape, as someone pointed out.

We were given a new piece to look at. A new (to us) Tormis piece, no less. It’s quite some time since we had one of those. Not sure what it’s called because I kindly let Heather retain our shared copy but it had something to do with a bridge [it's called Bridge of Song]. A musical bridge: starts quietly, gets louder and louder, decrescendos. Starts low, gets higher and higher, makes its way back down. You get the picture. The words are in Finnish and Estonian – two for the price of one for those language counters who frequent our concerts – and translate into something rather lovely. Will fill you in on that when I get my own music. It wasn’t hard to sight-read. And it was fun.

Really.



Then we sang the new Lully piece so that Nikos could have a look at the guitar part and that was when the bodhran fell down.

We sang the other two Lully Entrées and I think that was all we did. But we did it well and our small-group status proved that small can, indeed, be beautiful. I suggested we keep the new Tormis for ourselves. Long time since we’ve had an official Small Group number. ‘bout time we got that going again methinks.

So – the reason you didn’t hear from me last week was because I wasn’t there. Or here, for that matter. I missed lots of exciting things. Working on Nikos’s composition for a start, which we haven’t done for ages. Unfortunately I think there were several people missing last week too and this included all the altos, aside from new Sarah. (I know where I was and why but what about the others eh? Eh??)

Ol’s last concert with us will not be until we sing at St Giles in August. Instead of a concert in May we will be recording a new CD – quite a short one like "A Flea in the Ear" – which Helen will come and engineer. We can put on it things we have loved singing with Ollie and we are to be encouraged to make suggestions as to what might be included. Cool, eh?

Happy Easter, everyone. May the Bunny be good to you.

Chocolate, ho!

New faces

A new choir member; Sarah, alto, keen to return (hooray!). It was a really lovely rehearsal. Great atmosphere.

Kirsty did a rather good warm-up, just silly enough and very useful and then we got down to business. Firstly we sang Fog, beautiful work by Arno as always and Harriet did the wail-y bit all by herself and very effectively. Ollie then suggested we should sing something else we know quite well and, looking at the last concert programme, gave us a choice between O Lux Beatissima and the last verse of Une Puce. O Lux... is pretty straightforward but as for The Flea, only a very few of us are more than vaguely acquainted with its final pesky little stanza. Sebastian was heard to put in a word for Abendlied which we can hardly be said to know at all. Am I missing something? Is my interpretation of the words ‘know quite well’ different from other people’s? Having given us the choice the Boy Wonder then took it away again and insisted on Une Puce, which I happen to know very well indeed so could manage without looking at my music which was just as well as the BW had no copy (no Fog either; what does he do with all his music?) and I had to act as music stand for the duration. We sang verse one and the chorus-y bit through once to give those who’d never sung it before some idea of how it goes and then we went over verse four several times until people had almost got the words right and managed to fit them to the music. Progress indeed.

We sang the Lully pieces from the last concert. At this point Ol was to be seen nodding and winking (well, maybe not) at Nikos who was, at first, determinedly ignoring him and then pulled a questioning, and slightly triumphant face, as he cottoned on to what was required. He wasn’t going to get away with whatever it was, though, “There’s one in the other room,” said Ollie, grinning. Nikos visibly drooped. “He’s had a hard day,” explained our Lord and Master, grinning even more while Nikos, dejectedly, went off to find the guitar he really didn’t seem to want to play. But play it he did and with some verve and vigour for one who was doing it so reluctantly. Having sung through these pieces and worked at refining one of them we moved on to a third - the fourth. Still in Nonsense (yet another language we can claim familiarity with now) and as short and silly as the other two, it is also as much fun to sing and was delightfully easy to sight-read (page turns excepted). I actually had my specs with me and perched on the end of my nose instead of residing in my coat pocket – no doubt this helped.
More fun with Mateusz for the girlers and Zikr for the boysies – oh, ours is a struggle but ever so slowly we are making progress. It is two steps forward and one back because we can’t seem to remember week to week what we are doing but, as I say, there is a dim little light at the end of the tunnel towards which we are inching. The men returned to perform Zikr for us and it is sounding brilliant [miraculously!]. Full to the brim of brio and pizzazz. Nikos has a very high bit to sing and does it so well and they all look as though they’re having a whale of a time so it’s very amusing to watch. Good work, Lads. Must try harder, Lassies. There’s a turn-around.

We nearly all stayed for tea and coffee which has become rather unusual for some reason. Perhaps it was because I had made brownies????? They were a bit weird having been made with three different kinds of chocolate (one with ginger in it, one with fruits of the forest and one flavoured with rose water!) but they went down a treat and were complimented fulsomely. Unfortunately, I will never have just that combination of chocolate in my cupboard again so they were a real one-off (quite honestly, most of the things I cook are because I make them up as I go along) – I think that might be a bit of a disappointment to one or two choir members... sorry, mes amies. I had made brownies because both Ollie and Chris had had birthdays during the week. We howled at them in extraordinary style.
Today I had a terrible experience which I am going to share with you before I finish because I will never get over it and yet here I am making the time and effort, amidst my suffering, to write this blog and I feel you should appreciate it... I went to get passport photos taken.

OMG.

I have torn them up. I know perfectly well that I am never going to get a good passport photo. I know there is no such thing – especially as one is no longer allowed to smile (my only hope) but I am sure that someone or some machine somewhere can take one of me in which I look a little, tiny bit like ME and not some ‘orrible old crone of at least 65, with no shape to the head (where had the top of my head gone? I know it’s there) and a saggy, saggy, saggy face. Do all those people who tell me I don’t look my age really mean that I look much older than I am? I think they must.

I have spent far too much time since I got home checking my visage in various mirrors around the house. In some I look very old indeed and in others not. Which of them do I believe? Which should be sent charity-shopwards? When should I book in for surgery?

And when will I have the courage to try again?

Still waiting

We were a smallish group again on Wednesday, the Boy Wonder having failed in wondrousness and yet to audition the remaining Rudsambee possibilities. I think he has another four or five people to see – but I am hardly one to complain about procrastination, so I will presume that his duty is being done (or, maybe, has been done since Wednesday) and that we will see some new faces and hear some new voices next week. That’ll liven the blogging up. I hope.

I have to clear something up and thanks to John for the hint. The Colour Poems are not by Gesualdo at all but by Richard Nye. There is a distance in time of several centuries between the compositions. The Gesualdo we have been working on is called Io tacero (there should be an accent on the second ‘o’ [what sort!?]) which are the first words of the piece. I did think that 'Colour Poems’ was a remarkably modern concept for someone of Gesualdo’s vintage.

Io tacero is coming on – we did lots of work on it. I nearly know what I’m singing. Kirsty was away but Heather was back and once or twice I found myself singing the right thing while she sang the wrong which was great fun and very life-affirming. The sad fact is that Douglas and Chris still believed I was struggling. I do pull some bad faces but I also chortled gleefully and punched the air a few times so you’d think they might have cottoned on.

Once again we separated to practise girl and boy things – how did you do, boys? [we were fabulous as ever, of course!] We were appalling – no idea at all, suddenly, how Mateusz was supposed to sound. We made a bit of effort to get it right but, having pretty much failed entirely, we gave up and gossiped instead. Those men went on for ages. Eventually, at 9.45pm, we had to go in and tell them to stop. Tea and coffee and beds were calling and our girlish enthusiasm had waned long before.

Rudsambee sang a traditional Happy Birthday to me. It started off incredibly tunefully. I was getting ready to be seriously disappointed but then, led by Susan with wickedly glinting eye, the howling began and things fell apart in the most ear-splitting fashion imaginable. A real classic and most gratifying. I received a lovely card and someone posted a jar of yummy chocolate-y pot au chocolat (should that ‘o’ have a hat on?) scrumminess into my coat pocket so I went home a happy bunny indeed.

Ta-rah. Ooo – you should see my new bathroom btw. It’s fab.

I was robbed, Guv!

Well, I suppose it’s my fault for being so slow again. Kirsty got there first. Anyone who has access to Rudsambee weekly notes will have read everything I had to say, already – and written quite as amusingly as I could/would have done it, too (if that doesn’t sound over-presumptuous!) (that’s a hard word to spell – had to resort to the dictionary; a paper one at that, having no idea at all how to spell-check on this – or any other – computer. Having said that, I doubt this, or any other, computer would have been able to identify the word I was trying to spell, so woeful were my efforts) so I am wondering if there is any point in my continuing with this...

HOWEVER – let us presume that there is an odd reader, here or there... no, let’s be realistic and pretend that there is an odd reader, here or there, who has no access to said notes and would like to hear about this (last) week’s rehearsal and let’s carry on.

We had no new members to meet as Ol still hadn’t got round to seeing them all. He auditioned a few last week, I believe and this few included a tenor who proved to be a bit of a disappointment. “He wasn’t very good,” said the Boy Wonder to the bijou gathering of Robin, Susan and myself, early arrivals (well, Robin and I were early; Susan was simply at home as usual). “And he was a tenor? Blimey, he must have been bad,” offers yours truly, mistress of tact and diplomacy. Poor Robin looked a little jaundiced while agreeing with my sentiments, whereupon Susan and I felt it necessary to spend several minutes bolstering his (really quite recently gained and now sadly-) undermined confidence. Later, once all who were going to arrive had done so, this same topic of conversation resurfaced. Now there were Three Tenors to discombobulate. To my shame (!), I repeated my unkind observation. Quite bad enough, this repetition, but Kay provided the final nail, the straw that broke... “He must have been completely tone deaf,” says she, guffawing. Protests were heard, unsurprisingly, from Tenor Corner, “Now you’ve gone too far,” complained a re-crushed Robin and even Chris appeared to have his head in his hands (though he may just have been catching a catnap, being somewhat over-worked at present). Yes, well, poor tenors, how mean we were. They are really very good once they know what they’re doing. They’re just a little slow, a little tentative with the sight-reading. Does this sound familiar. “Pot,” you could say. “Kettle.” Fair. Entirely fair.

As to what we sang... we began with a new piece, Colour Poem IV, by Gesualdo (I think). Kirsty and I took the Alto 2 part and some of the sopranos the Alto 1. I was glad to have company; you know me and the sight-reading (though I was standing next to the tentative tenors so I might have been OK by myself – less pressure when you know you’re not the only one going wrong!) [AHEM!] and there was some tricky old timing in this. Looked easy. Deceptive. But we did quite well in the end. I wasn’t in complete despair and that’s always a bonus. And Kirsty is a much better SR-er than me but, very kindly, didn’t make me feel like a fool, pulling enough faces and sighing often enough to give me the impression she wasn’t as on top of things as, otherwise, I might well have imagined she was.

I have some notes scribbled on this music but have forgotten what they were supposed to help me remember. That happens SO often, doesn’t it? There is something here about avoiding horrible Clannad-like, Gaelic breathiness such as was evident, for example, in the theme tune to Robin of Sherwood, TV series of yesteryear (?) [see below]. At this point Kirsty, who was either not listening or was displaying quite astonishing ignorance, asked, “Clannad? Was I in that one?” Explanations had to be given, amidst hysteria. I don’t know – perhaps she was living in Germany at the time of the hoody-man. I’m not sure Sebastian or Arno, or any of the young things, knew what we were talking about either.



After this the girlies went off to Polish [oh very punny] our new song, Mateusz. It still needs a deal of buffing but Ollie has transcribed the music for us which makes it all much easier. Ha! Rubbish. It makes it much clearer – and we have parts. End of. It’s great fun, though. We sang it to the men later, (no idea, again, what they were up to while we did our thang but I’m sure they worked hard – they must have done because, when we returned to them, Rachael was heard to comment, “This room smells of boy.” and it did.); Douglas said, “That’s definitely a women’s song,” (????????) and then asked if it was African. He wasn’t the only one who wondered that. You see, we were right with the reggae stuff last week – and we must be doing it some sort of justice if the men picked up on it, n’est-ce pas?



We had a sing through of the Lully pieces for a bit of fun et c’est tout,
as far as I can remember.

Tad boring. Apologies. Will try harder next time. But it’s ‘ard when someone’s ‘alf-inched all yer best lines, innit?

Lu-urve.

Reggae a la Poles

Please imagine an accent on that ‘a’. I really must learn to put them on myself.

So – an apology is fidgeting away at my conscience but I am ignoring it, manfully. This edition is very late indeed (in case you hadn’t noticed). It is Monday evening (night) and I am only just settling down to write. Now, sometimes these blogs are not posted until Monday anyway, even if I have written them considerably earlier. This all depends on Christopher’s other activities. As I have said before, he is a very busy lad. I am not complaining. Not at all. Honestly. No, really, please believe me. If I must rely on a very busy lad then I have to take my turn. It may be that this is not posted until Wednesday or Thursday. It may be that it is not finished ‘til Wednesday or Thursday but I will try extremely hard to stay awake long enough to get it done. There is not very much to say, after all.

I have been pretty busy myself, actually. Thursday was a day which involved shopping for various things I will need this week and won’t have time to buy because I am working more than usual. Then yoga. Then food. Then starting to prepare for installation of new bathroom i.e. moving all my stuff into a downstairs bedroom, emptying the hall of furniture, dust-sheeting bookshelves. Then packing. An early start on Friday; a weekend in Munich mit hubby; a late-ish return yesterday and then more preparation for the great works mentioned above which started today. Do you see any opportunity there for blogging???

A new bathroom? I hear you ask. Did the woman not have a new kitchen recently? Has she come into an inheritance/won the lottery/been a-thieving? Yes, a new bathroom. Which is needed as badly as the new kitchen was. I have been ashamed of my bathroom for years – since we moved in here, to be honest and it will be wonderful to show people where to find... ahem... facilities, without feeling either embarrassment or the urge to apologise. I only hope I like it once it’s done tee hee.

Wednesday last was an odd occasion. For a start, I arrived at the almost-end of a Recruitment Committee meeting. Not much interest in the position of Ollie Replacement yet so some hard work to do (not to say desperate measures to take). I put my ha’pence-worth in, of course. I do like to be of assistance if at all possible.

Also, poor Heather was there with a bare foot and a half-empty (-full?) pack of frozen peas resting on her ankle. She had given it a twist when getting off the bus and a fair old wrench it had got judging by the swollen state of it. Eventually she decided to go home as it was causing her such discomfort, so she called her husband to come and get her and bid us goodbye as we headed off to rehearse. We were a very small group because Ollie hadn’t finished auditioning all the potential new members. He would like to get everyone started on the new repertoire (oo, posh) at the same time so is hoping to be able to ask his chosen people along next week. Robin did the warm-up and was very theatrical about it all, wiggling and shaking and then testing us with one of his favourite challenges – he only does this so he can laugh at our feeble efforts. Try it yourselves at home: start by holding one hand up in front of your face. Then lift this hand up and stretch your arm above your head. Do the same thing with the other hand/arm. Once you’ve done this a few times add in another move: after holding your hand in front of your face, move it around to the back of your head before stretching your arm above your head. This is all very straightforward until you try to do it quickly with both arms alternating. Chaos. Like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time only worse. I can manage the pat-ty, rub-by thing (if I concentrate really hard) but this, as above, not at all.

So, once that was, hilariously, out of the way we got down to the little work we did. The ‘we’ in that sentence applies to the women because we split into two groups again and the men worked very hard indeed, it seemed, on Zikr while we began by working hard and ended up doing nothing much at all. I think Ol was expecting to get more done but then, having done some teaching-of-Polish (again), and teaching of (a little tiny bit of) music with us he went off to see how the boys were getting on and didn’t come back for ages by which time it was after 9.30 and time to stop.

[When we left the lads to themselves we returned to the dining-room where the committee-meeting had been taking place. Heather was still there, frozen footed and forlorn, awaiting her husband. Talk about taking his sweet time. And they’ve only been married since the summer. Shocking behaviour. I hope he had a good excuse.]

I have no idea what our new piece is called but I know (sort of) how to pronounce most of the words and what some of them mean (kissing behind the stove has got something to do with it; hot stuff, eh?) and, best of all, how it is supposed to sound. Well! If we can manage that I, for one, will be delighted. Once the BW took off to work with the men, Chris arrived with music for us to listen to – our new song (a Polish folk-song, in case that had slipped past you) as performed by a group called The Warsaw Village Band. Listen to them if you can. “I know they’re Polish,” says Kay, “But are they black?” You will see what she meant if you listen. Their music is a sort of fusion and there is a definite hint of reggae in there. And jazz. It is fantastic. And that harsh, nasal tone Eastern-European voices can manage so brilliantly when required to do so. Wonderful and really rather weird and crazy stuff. Chris put it on a loop and we listened in awe as these girls managed to fit five words into the space two fit in comfortably. We listened many times without working out how to do it and then we gave up and just chatted.

And then Ollie came back and apologised for being away so long and said that would do for the night.

So we went home.

No Jen to give me a lift.

Just as well, really. I have got very lazy about walking home and it only takes about five minutes.

Bedtime. Night-night.