Hi All,
I thought I'd attempt to conquer the way this grey, chilly weather here is making me feel just now by focusing on the frantic week I've got coming instead. It's busy because we are trying to finish an existing art project - more to come one day - and apply for 2 jobs and on top of all this I've got my annual mad week of concerts.
First I've got the last week of the St. Magnus Festival Chorus week ahead of me. We sing a Child of Our Time by Michael Tippet - an amazing piece of music about the holocaust - but with lovely spirituals thrown in to redeem the discordant, very difficult bits. So that's going round in my head on and off.
On Friday the small choir I'm in has been asked to sing at the festival launch and we are doing 4 numbers that the Andrews sisters sang back in the 40s. The latest is Chatanooga Choo Choo which starts with "pardon me boy.. is that the Chatanooga Choo Choo? Track 29? And can you give me a shine?" and it's well lodged in my brain so I go to sleep singing it and wake in the morning humming it. I even go to sleep trying to memorise the words because it sounds and looks so much better if we ignore the sheet music as it's fast and close harmony. We are also singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B and Take the A Train and We'll Meet Again - for which thankfully my first altos have the tune which makes things easier. We aren't dressing up as Andrew's Sisters people as initially suggested but just wearing leisure black but my hair has gone into a sort of mad beehive all by itself lately - I'm using extra conditioner to counteract the MTX making my hair go thinner and wispier.
Then a week after our big performance with the festival chorus - which we sing with one of the UK's top orchestras (RSNO) and a well known conductor and professional soloists - my small choir hosts a big choir of 40 Americans and we join forces in the Cathedral here with local musicians to sing lots of renaissance madrigals. I admit I've hardly given a thought to this last concert but we had a rehearsal with the small, local chamber orchestra on Thursday and I made a mental note that it's no longer okay to sight read this stuff so will have to focus on it as soon as the other stuff's out of the way.
I'm not hosting anyone for the festival or from the 40 Americans because we are full house currently - like a youth center with son's girlfriend always somewhere in a corner with her laptop and the oldest trying to keep her happy (she's very shy - and doesn't seem to like cooking or washing up much?!) between his many shifts doing barwork. Then there's middle son who has his last few weeks of school and is now in 6th year (they go into the year ahead once exams are over here in Scotland) and has a washing up job at a local pub starting next weekend. He's also in a blues/ rock band and they are getting tons of gigs this summer so that keeps him busy and us too - carting him about with cymbals and his huge bass amp - plus other band members.
Finally there's the youngest (15) who has got in with a new crowd, mostly a year older than him, and they seem a lovely bunch who like to walk the dogs for miles in the evenings and attend local events such as the gala in the small town half way across the mainland last night where the middle son was playing with his band. So all boys out last night and all drifted home in the early hours.
We watched the film about Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady - in which Meryl Streep was amazing. Then watched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which was also brilliant although I'm a real wimp about violence and hid under a cushion for quite a few bits until OH said it was over!
That's it from me folks...hardly a mention of RA but sometimes we need to take our minds of the aches and pains and this is my grand attempt!
Crackling and snapping?
back, half dead, but very happy xx
Off Topic - when Dougal met Eric!! 
