A Little Night Music

This clip from Utube of Beati Quorum Via by Stamford is how our anthem last Sunday should have sounded.

Needless to say, it did not.

Well (perhaps too well) rehearsed, it went smoothly at the Friday evening choir practise, but less so on the early Sunday morning run-through.  Possibly due to the numbers being halved.

This is a common and very irritating phenomena in our choir at St Mary's.

We get a splendid turnout and the balance of sound is pretty well perfect in rehearsal, then, on the day at least a half dozen or so fail to show.

With something as ambitious as this lovely piece every voice is essential to  the finished performance.

Getting everyone to accept this, is nearly impossible.

Those of us who are truly dedicated to the choir find it very frustrating but are quite powerless to change this attitude of the less dedicated.

From my own point of view a committment to the choir means attending every rehearsal and every service unless illness strikes.

The reason for this latest diatribe is that I went to bed with the music running round my brain on a loop, was just dropping off to sleep when a blood-curdling scream outside shattered the peace of the close.

After the 2nd and third shrieks it was obvious that the foxes were out on the railway embankment giving a recital.

Once all hope of sleep had vanished I thought I'd take my bad temper out in a blog post.

Well I have to vent my spleen somehow.

Oh and please do listen to this recording if you have time.  It really is rather lovely.

Insomniac's Corner

Yet another gritty-eyed night, bored, sleepless, too hot (radiators blazing). rain slashing at windows.

February!

British Gas maintenance annual checkup today appears to have made no difference whatever to the list of problems I presented the engineer.

Pipes banging radiators too hot to touch despite thermostat being set at 15 degrees.

Water in taps boiling despite switch turned off.

I give up.

As it is Winter and was very cold last week I suppose I should be glad to be warm, but there's warm and there's bloomin' 'ot!

A day spent doing nothing much but hang about waiting for the engineer is not a good way to use up energy and I find myself full of the stuff just when i  need it least.

Tomorrow at St. M's I will be pale-faced and baggy-eyed as a result. 

Why is it that when you are hoping to climb into smooth sheets and sink into blissful oblivion the said sheets appear to have been covered in grit and pillows filled with lumps of clay?

Apart from the intermittant rain the only sound from outside is the occasional doleful wail from a cat complaining about being shut out.

Have just walked up and down the stairs 3 times just to see if my feet still work, unlike my brain they do.

Think I'll read,  Night!  No, Morning!

Experiment

Last week I had a phone call on my landline.  It was an automated call and the voice was American and female.

It told me that as from 2nd February my internet was  being cut off.

The call then cut off.

I did what I usually do about such calls and completely ignored it.

A couple of days ago a message was flashed up on my lap-top screen telling me my Google Account was to be closed down. this also disappeared before completion.

Last night I was told (lap-top again) that as from tomorrow (now today) my Google account would no longer be valid.  No more information was offered.

This time I switched off the computer unplugging it completely and went to bed.

Today having switched everything back on the only thing which appears to have happened is that my gmail account is not operating.  (It is, however, working on my Ipad).

If this blog is published I will assume the whole thing is yet another mindless prank.

If anyone knows more about this please enlighten me.