The Rest Of The Week

Well, after the very packed weekend, the last thing I wanted on Monday was a Chorus rehearsal. Normally we don’t rehearse on the Monday following a show, but we have another show in a fortnight which we need to prepare for. We’re singing in Cardiff’s St. David’s Hall, doing a revamp of our Anniversary show from April, so there are a couple of new songs to be perfected and plenty of old ones to be revised again.

To be honest I don’t think anyone was really up for it and the whole rehearsal lacked energy. I was clock-watching almost from the moment I got there!

Brett was rushing round getting signatures on his nomination to stand for the Steering Committee again. I was not impressed, I thought I'd reasoned him out of it as it takes up too much of his time; time that he will need in the next six months to improve his skillset and find another job, but he insists that there are things he needs to see through so who am I to argue? I signed his form, but he knows that there are caveats to that signature; I start using strong-arm tactics if Chorus politics begins to distract him from the real world!

With the heat we’ve been having I didn’t sleep too well on Monday night either, so was a grumpy zombie all Tuesday. Rosie had arranged us tickets to watch a West Wing quiz being filmed for Channel 4 on Tuesday evening though. I did my best to be cheery and companionable.

In the end though, I didn’t have to try too hard as, once the initial waiting around was over, it was actually quite good fun. Rory Bremner was hosting and David Tennant was one of the contestants. All the contestants were entertaining enough, although the audience definitely knew the show better than any of them, albeit David Tennant and the LibDem MP, Mark Oaten, both made a good showing.

When I go to the theatre, I’m always the one checking out the technology which runs the show, so with my newly revived interest in the televisual arts, it was interesting to see how they filmed it almost live to tape. I’ll be even more interested to watch the finished product (E4, 29^th July, The Ultimate West Wing Quiz) to see how slickly they’ve edited the gaffes out.

Wednesday night was spent tracking down a Highland B&B and an Edinburgh Hotel to use in our whistlestop tour of Scotland with Brett’s dad.

Thursday at work was pretty much a write-off as I was bizarrely excited about Jim (Brett’s dad) arriving: Probably something to do with having to dust off my old Tour Manager skills. He’d originally be scheduled to arrive this morning, but his inbound connection from Dallas was delayed so he missed his transatlantic flight. The next one wasn’t for another twelve hours so, rather than arriving this morning he arrived tonight around 8pm. He actually got to the airport before we did, but it made the pickup nice and smooth.

Having not got much sleep last night and resisted the urge (been unable!) to sleep on the plane over, he was fairly tired, so after a tour of the flat and some chat he retired to bed. Hopefully that will see him past the worst of any jet-lag and he’ll be in good shape for tomorrow.

Apparently back home he goes out for a twenty-mile bike ride at six o’clock every morning. Brett offered to ride with him before he found this out. Brett hasn’t ridden his bike in nearly a year but I think some Freudian/machismo thing kicked in to stop him backing out of the deal.

I look forward to seeing him at (a post-ride) breakfast tomorrow…