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radegundIt just didn't stop.
Friday: The minute work finished I galloped to the Ladies, flung on my concert gear and raced out the door. Paid the TV licence (because that's just the sort of fecky administrative task that's been eluding us recently), bought anti-histamine tablets (the chemist kindly supplied me with a glass of water so I could take one), ate dinner and made it to Christ Church in time to Do My Face before the pre-concert rehearsal began at 6:15. Go turbo-me.
(The anti-histamine thing: I suffer nastily from hay fever. I hate taking anti-histamines, but I wasn't keen on doing a gig with the wheezing and the snuffling and the pink-eyed puffing and itching that had been entertaining me all week - eased greatly by Nelson's Pollenna, but not to the extent that I don't need to blow my nose a few times an hour. By half way through the first piece, however, I remembered why I don't take anti-histamines: the bloody thing had dried me out so thoroughly that I could barely sing. Sore throat, dry tongue, nothing in my top register but airy squeaks. Must not make this mistake again. Snuffles are better than chapped nostrils.)
The concert (despite the squeaking on my part) went really well and was enormous fun. Christ Church is a brilliant venue, and we got a good audience. Afterwards we (choir and friends) repaired to the diminutive smoke-hole that is the Lord Edward (upstairs), where I had many excellent conversations, which grew more slurred as the evening progressed. When the pub closed we went to the conductor's flat for much wine (or, in my case, water - I'd been drinking Guinness; mixing is Baaaaad) and more expansive and generously lubricated talk. My friend and I took a taxi home at 4:00 (she to avail of our sofa), as dawn was beginning to think about breaking.
Saturday: Slept like a baby until 12:30. Showered, breakfasted, sat in the garden with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glitzfrau (joined at intervals by niallm). The sofa-availing friend arrived back from her house, whither she had gone at 7:00 for various complicated reasons. Then my three choral passengers arrived and we set off (shortly after 2:00) for Cavan town. I would far rather have spent such a flawless afternoon outdoors, but you can't have everything. (Where would you put it?*)
All went like clockwork. Very little traffic, and we arrived in good time for the rehearsal. We were singing in St Patrick's College, a very imposing nineteenth-century building where one of our tenors went to school. We rehearsed, then ate in double-quick time at an Italian restaurant in the town, then went back to the school and gave a really good concert. The audience was ... small but perfectly formed. About thirty people. But they liked us.
The Special Olympics flame had arrived in Cavan that day, so the bar we went to after the concert was full of bronzed, mustachioed, big-elbowed Americans and wiry Irishmen, all in "Athens to Ireland: Final Stage" T-shirts. Some of the choir was staying the night, but after a judicious orange juice I rounded up my two remaining passengers and headed home, on the way astonished by a vast golden moon, which floated inches above the hedges for what seemed like forever.
* Steven Wright
Sunday: Back to normal now,glitzfrau and I got up for choir in the morning. The service went well - a momentary lapse of tenor in the Benedictus was made up for by a really beautiful Byrd anthem with solo by Glitz (whose fine, clear voice particularly suits English Baroque). Plans for a choir trip to Brussels seem to be moving out of the realm of fantasy, too, which is really great.
After coffee and chocolate with the choir I swung home again to pick upniallm and head out to my grandmother's house. She usually goes to my parents on Sundays, but they're up to their eyes at the moment, so my sister, my cousin, Niall and myself descended on her kitchen and produced, if I say it myself, a rather creditable lunch, consisting of two kinds of soup (spinach and mushroom / carrot and celery) prepared earlier by Soup Queen Radzer, a leek-mushroom-cheddar omelette, a salad with baby plum tomatoes and blue cheese, and ice-cream for dessert. It was most pleasant, and although my grandmother complained about any number of things you could tell she was just doing this out of habit and was enjoying it really.
Niall has been going round with a long face for the past few days, referring to himself as a choir widow - and with considerable justification, I might add. When we got home from lunch there was time for a brief "how are you anyway?" conversation before we set out again, Niall to take some photographs and I to ... well, to rehearse with yet another choir - this time the octet I'll be singing with in a concert at the end of the month. We're doing a Bach cantata and some motets, and they're all just glorious.
By the time I got home I was good for absolutely nothing. I looked at Niall's photographs, ate the dinner he kindly put in front of me, and was in bed by ten.
I didn't touch my 'puter all weekend, so I've quite a bit of catching up to do...
Friday: The minute work finished I galloped to the Ladies, flung on my concert gear and raced out the door. Paid the TV licence (because that's just the sort of fecky administrative task that's been eluding us recently), bought anti-histamine tablets (the chemist kindly supplied me with a glass of water so I could take one), ate dinner and made it to Christ Church in time to Do My Face before the pre-concert rehearsal began at 6:15. Go turbo-me.
(The anti-histamine thing: I suffer nastily from hay fever. I hate taking anti-histamines, but I wasn't keen on doing a gig with the wheezing and the snuffling and the pink-eyed puffing and itching that had been entertaining me all week - eased greatly by Nelson's Pollenna, but not to the extent that I don't need to blow my nose a few times an hour. By half way through the first piece, however, I remembered why I don't take anti-histamines: the bloody thing had dried me out so thoroughly that I could barely sing. Sore throat, dry tongue, nothing in my top register but airy squeaks. Must not make this mistake again. Snuffles are better than chapped nostrils.)
The concert (despite the squeaking on my part) went really well and was enormous fun. Christ Church is a brilliant venue, and we got a good audience. Afterwards we (choir and friends) repaired to the diminutive smoke-hole that is the Lord Edward (upstairs), where I had many excellent conversations, which grew more slurred as the evening progressed. When the pub closed we went to the conductor's flat for much wine (or, in my case, water - I'd been drinking Guinness; mixing is Baaaaad) and more expansive and generously lubricated talk. My friend and I took a taxi home at 4:00 (she to avail of our sofa), as dawn was beginning to think about breaking.
Saturday: Slept like a baby until 12:30. Showered, breakfasted, sat in the garden with
glitzfrau (joined at intervals by niallm). The sofa-availing friend arrived back from her house, whither she had gone at 7:00 for various complicated reasons. Then my three choral passengers arrived and we set off (shortly after 2:00) for Cavan town. I would far rather have spent such a flawless afternoon outdoors, but you can't have everything. (Where would you put it?*)All went like clockwork. Very little traffic, and we arrived in good time for the rehearsal. We were singing in St Patrick's College, a very imposing nineteenth-century building where one of our tenors went to school. We rehearsed, then ate in double-quick time at an Italian restaurant in the town, then went back to the school and gave a really good concert. The audience was ... small but perfectly formed. About thirty people. But they liked us.
The Special Olympics flame had arrived in Cavan that day, so the bar we went to after the concert was full of bronzed, mustachioed, big-elbowed Americans and wiry Irishmen, all in "Athens to Ireland: Final Stage" T-shirts. Some of the choir was staying the night, but after a judicious orange juice I rounded up my two remaining passengers and headed home, on the way astonished by a vast golden moon, which floated inches above the hedges for what seemed like forever.
* Steven Wright
Sunday: Back to normal now,
glitzfrau and I got up for choir in the morning. The service went well - a momentary lapse of tenor in the Benedictus was made up for by a really beautiful Byrd anthem with solo by Glitz (whose fine, clear voice particularly suits English Baroque). Plans for a choir trip to Brussels seem to be moving out of the realm of fantasy, too, which is really great.After coffee and chocolate with the choir I swung home again to pick up
niallm and head out to my grandmother's house. She usually goes to my parents on Sundays, but they're up to their eyes at the moment, so my sister, my cousin, Niall and myself descended on her kitchen and produced, if I say it myself, a rather creditable lunch, consisting of two kinds of soup (spinach and mushroom / carrot and celery) prepared earlier by Soup Queen Radzer, a leek-mushroom-cheddar omelette, a salad with baby plum tomatoes and blue cheese, and ice-cream for dessert. It was most pleasant, and although my grandmother complained about any number of things you could tell she was just doing this out of habit and was enjoying it really.Niall has been going round with a long face for the past few days, referring to himself as a choir widow - and with considerable justification, I might add. When we got home from lunch there was time for a brief "how are you anyway?" conversation before we set out again, Niall to take some photographs and I to ... well, to rehearse with yet another choir - this time the octet I'll be singing with in a concert at the end of the month. We're doing a Bach cantata and some motets, and they're all just glorious.
By the time I got home I was good for absolutely nothing. I looked at Niall's photographs, ate the dinner he kindly put in front of me, and was in bed by ten.
I didn't touch my 'puter all weekend, so I've quite a bit of catching up to do...
