Groundhog Day

So today at work wasn’t too bad. Partly spent setting things in motion on a couple of fronts – we’re buying a couple of new print servers and trialling Blackberries. I also managed to track down a problem which has been affecting our email clients ever since we started installing Windows XP Service Pack 2. But enough technobabble…

It was the first Chorus rehearsal of the New Year tonight and there was a certain air of Groundhog Day about it as we rehearsed Christmas Carols. We are still working on the Christmas Repertoire in preparation for three recording sessions between now and early March. We’re going to have a Christmas CD in the shops for next Christmas!

The enjoyment of seeing everyone again after the break was saddened though by the knowledge that Philip Dewdney, one of our Tenors, had died before Christmas. He was our oldest member – although I was amazed when I heard he was seventy, as he was so much more active and alert than many seventy-year olds I met in my time at Saga! He lost a leg a year or two ago and was subsequently confined to a wheelchair. Last year when I was still singing Tenor, for the Chorus’ Eclecsis concerts, I was his ‘pusher’ (His phrase for the chorus member who manoeuvred his chair around on stage.) Of several people I’ve known who were wheelchair-bound, he was the most upbeat about the whole thing. I will remember him as a role model for how I hope to be when I’m seventy. I think it’s going to be a moving experience to sing at his funeral.