My Weekend: Singing and Eating

It’s been quite a weekend. Yesterday was a very full day.

It opened with me dithering over what to do about hurting someone’s feelings. Rich C had copied my comments on the Small Group gig at the Theatre Museum last week to the group’s internal mailing list by way of saying ‘look how well we did.’ Unfortunately Ron D took my failing to laud his performance as meaning that I thought he had performed badly and had a bit of a fit about it, needing lots of subsequent TLC from the rest of the group. I was in two minds whether to write to him and explain what the particular passage meant but in the end I decided against it; if he still has a problem on Monday, he can come and tell me about it and we’ll work it out from there.

Other consequences from the wider-than-usual readership is that Simon R now thinks he has a stalker (but I haven’t received a restraining order yet, so I’m assuming he’s taking it in good humour) and John M was a bit miffed that I totally failed to mention his song (which was very good!) but his self-confidence is robust enough that when I saw him later in the day he was fine about it. No word from Raman though on the cannibal/psycho references…

Monday’s rehearsal should be rather interesting, I think!

Anyway, after a breakfast we were heading into town as the Chorus had a gig in Leicester Square as part of West End Live, a kind of mini-festival sponsored by the West End theatres. We had a half-hour slot at which maybe a third of the Chorus were on stage trolling through seven songs that we hadn’t really revised enough since we did the concert in April. As ever we got a selection of feedback both good and bad but, even though the audience were enthusiastic, I really don’t think we sparkled that much; it was a mundane performance.

Afterwards we had a few shandies with the boys. There were a selection of options for what to do for the evening; in the end we tubed up to Regent’s Park for a food festival called A Taste of London which my sister had recommended. When we got there though, all the tickets had already sold out, so we left her to it, grabbed a less haute-cuisine bite to eat in one of the Park Cafés and strolled along to the second-choice option; the Pink Singers’ summer concert.

In the end, it was a blessing because the hall was air-conditioned. The show was pleasant enough and well sung; although personally I think their arrangements lack inspiration. Then again, I think we are particularly lucky with the quality of the Chorus’ music team – we have some really quite good composers both on staff and in the membership. Anyway, we enjoyed the music and had a few drinks in the bar, but didn’t hang around after the performance as we were both flagging a little bit, what with the heat and still carrying around a full chorus costume each in our day sacks.

I hadn’t brought my book with me, so sitting on the Tube home, I spent my time observing the world around me and grabbed a few photographs which you can see here.

Today (Sunday) was a comparatively quiet day (for me at least.) Brett was up early to get to a sing-through of our planned Christmas repertoire; some kind of pantomime-type show which he is not keen on and which, the more I hear about it, the more I think sounds just naff. Well, I probably wasn’t going to sing this Christmas anyway!

So after Brett had set off for darkest North London, I strolled up into the Village for a late brunch at Café Rouge. Being on my own I took a book to read and spent a pleasant hour or so over orange juice, a full-english and some coffee. When the ambiance-setting French accordion music progressed into some French lyrics to the tune of Mack The Knife though, I decided it was time to get on with my day…

…Which meant laundry, computer stuff and then a bike ride down to PC World and Sainsburys (Kill-joy comments about World Cup Mania can be found here.)

By the time that was all finished, Brett was home again, so we had an early dinner and then went over to spend the evening with my sister. She and Andy are separating and he has moved out. While it all seems to be relatively amicable, I don’t think she is enjoying the experience any and is feeling rather lonely on her own. We hung around until about 10pm, eating take-out and watching the Desperate Housewives season finale, and then came home.

She is back at work tomorrow for the first time since her operation – which all seems so long ago now, although I can still clearly remember the lunch we had when she told me she was pregnant. Hopefully all will be well, although I really think she needs to get involved in something socially; in Hull she had her choir and even while she was down here on sabbatical she seemed to have quite an active social life but she hasn’t seemed to pick up those threads so much now that she is down here permanently.