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Redux, various
I WANT MY WOLFGANG. WAAAAAAH.
The good news is that Peter got out of Scotland about thirty seconds before they closed the border.* He came home this afternoon and instantly began reorganising my life.** This included ringing up the garage which, to my amazement, seems to think we can have Wolfgang back tomorrow morning. Fourteen year old cars and MOT tests are not usually a happy merger and I’ve been bracing myself for the conversation about the new car again.*** Even if we manage to limbo under the government bar however and get our sticker I imagine there will be a little list.†
Meanwhile today would be the day that I started to get out of bed and the ME sighed and stretched luxuriously and said, are you sure that’s what you want to do? Oh. Frell. You again. Well, yes, I do want to get up. I have hellhounds to hurtle and a piano lesson this afternoon and bell tower practise this evening.†† And no car.
I know we did this trooping up and down main street thing during the snow, but I’m not in the mood when I’m trying to hold it together with the ME riding me like a bulldogger with spurs. I am also reminded of how forcefully I object to walking anywhere without the hellhounds in attendance—two hours a day of hurtling is enough of the shanks’ mare option. Hey! It’s ten minutes to walk to Oisin’s from the cottage and back . . . having been back and forth to the mews to pick up my music and have a bit of a go at the piano.
Anyone who is paying the wrong kind of attention will have ascertained by now that I’m not posting the lullaby to PEGASUS this Friday either. I finally managed to get the freller printed off so that Oisin could actually see what he was playing . . . and he made several Small But Excellent suggestions††† that I now want to incorporate and I still have to relearn how to make dynamic markings on dranglefabbing Finale and then I will finally post it here. No, really. It exists.‡ It even sounds reasonably lullaby-ish. In fact I like it well enough that I’m going to ask Peter if he wants to write another verse so I can compose some variations.
I felt fairly dire while I was with Oisin although as I said to him I was expecting to feel suddenly a great deal better as soon as I left and any danger of my having to sing was past till next week. Sigh. I sometimes think I got into composing as a way not to have to perform.‡‡
I had already had an email exchange with Niall about tomorrow‡‡‡ and had warned him that I was feeling like something that ought to be pickled in formaldehyde in a jar on a mad scientist’s shelf but that I’d probably just about make it to tower practise, since we’re usually short handed these days and I ought to be able to manage rounds and call changes for our beginners. And then we had a funny band—three beginners and six hot bananas.§ And me. I was helping hold up one of the walls in a semi-comatose state while one of the beginners wrestled with ringing rounds on four, five and six §§ bells and then Niall made one of his passes round the room as a good ringing master will do and when he got to me he said, Are you ready to ring Cambridge?
Am I frelling what? No I am frelling not frelling ready to frelling ring frelling Cambridge. Am I clear?
Okay, said Niall. You can have a few minutes to look at the line.
Ah, adrenaline. What would I do without it. You know that’s one of the working definitions of ME? Exhausted adrenals? Yes. Well. At this point—Niall having passed on to fresh victims—I could feel my eyeballs throbbing to my suddenly heightened blood pressure. So I got out my diagram book and began staring at Cambridge while it went all glmxxxxxx on the page. Anthea came over to be supportive—two of our hot bananas tonight were Colin and his wife Anthea, who is one of my favourite people. You look at her face and you know It’s Going to Be All Right. Possibly Even When It Includes Ringing Cambridge. She is also a completely brilliant minder, which is a significant gift. Just because you can ring something doesn’t mean you can boost somebody else through it—especially boost them in a way that they learn something rather than merely collapsing into blindly doing what they’re told, which is probably more demoralising than breaking down. Anthea got me through my first couple of goes at Kent and it’s a lot of thanks to her that it began making sense to me as soon as it did.
I really did think that Cambridge was a bridge too far however. You don’t ring your first surprise method after a couple of sudden unexpected ten-minute cramming sessions because your ringing master(s) is/are wholly effing mad and your adrenals aren’t quite exhausted. Roger on the five was complaining that he didn’t feel like ringing Cambridge tonight and I said, don’t worry, this won’t last long, and Colin on the three, next to me on the two said, oh, yes it will.
And it did. We got through an entire plain course of Cambridge. I do wish to emphasize that this is absolutely due to Anthea’s crack minding . . . but I’ve been here before, learning something with Anthea at my elbow. We got through it. And I knew what I was trying to do even when I wasn’t seeing the bells to do it with.
I can do this. I am going to learn Cambridge.
Maybe I’ll even sing for Oisin next Friday.§§
* * *
*Joke. But apparently it’s pretty vicious up there. Our lot still have electricity and can feel their way through the snowdrifts, but a lot of people don’t and can’t. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/7325843/Wintry-weather-sweeps-Scotland.html
And then of course there’s New York. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119564§ionid=3510203
And I was complaining earlier about being pummelled by a little hail. I’m such a wuss. But look what came in the post for me today from Hannah (in NYC):
I’m trying. Clearly my solar capacity isn’t quite up to 3500 miles.
(Yes. That’s what you think it is, underneath, on the table. I’ll give you a better view one of these days. I know, you can hardly wait.)
The thing that amuses me even more about this item however is the tag: 
Post consumer material???
** It’s shocking how much disorganization can creep up on you in a mere day and a half.
*** No. But I admit if we have two winters in a row like this one, this time next year I will be thinking hard about a new four-wheel drive car. With waterproof locks.
† Frushipergug rods and bistamudze belt need replacing. Gradundabble connections should be tightened. The whimmerwhammer needs realigning. And while you’re at it you need a new engine, four new tyres, and a CD player.
†† And a novel to write.
††† I asked him if he wanted credit and he said no, no, no, just keep writing the stuff.
‡ So do the little flute piece I promised Jodi and the truly tiny violin piece I promised violinknitter. I’m just . . . a horrible coward. And I keep thinking I want to twiddle them a little more. . . .
‡‡ I wonder if it would work with Blondel. . . . I am such a hopeless case. I’m afraid to sing for Oisin, and I’m afraid to take one of my songs to Blondel. What do I think is going to happen? The end of the world?
‡‡‡ The other reason the ME was kind enough to come back today, aside from not singing for Oisin, is being able to say no I am not going handbell ringing Saturday morning. Although . . . sigh. I would like to ring with Titus and Rupert.
§ So to speak.
§§ One of the reasons ringing seems, when you’re first learning, to be coming at you from all directions is that the eenie weenie difference in timing and rhythm between, say, four and six bells, which when you’re learning to handle you have no sense of, makes a drastic practical difference in keeping your place.
§§§ Or take one of my songs in to Blondel. Maybe I could get him to sing the lullaby.
Short* NASTY Monday
I got up what passes in my case for betimes today because I was having an early lunch with Penelope and wanted to have hellhounds well hurtled beforehand.
Except that it was raining. Not just raining: RAINING. Rain on a mission to dissolve planet Earth and leave a large muddy spreading splodge in the solar system.**
While I was waiting for either a break in the downpour or the void to open at my feet when both the road and the ground underneath were washed away*** I discovered that I had a dead phone. I had a dead phone because a hellhound had chewed through one of the wires.
Eighteen kinds of panic at this point. He’s eating WIRES???? I know who it is—Darkness, usually my better behaved, more mature hellhound. He does get into random acts of mastication occasionally.† He actually chewed the spines off a couple of books, and the fact that he’s still alive since I discovered this proves what a soft option I really am. I’d caught him having a go at the phone wire a few weeks ago, lectured him SEVERELY and, as I thought, tidied the wire out of reach. But tidied is not really a concept that applies to the cottage and obviously . . . it didn’t stay where it was put. Very like the hellhounds themselves.
BUT . . . HE’S EATING WIRES?!?
We finally got out on our walk. What with rain, wind and appropriate headgear I don’t hear too well and at one point we were slopping along a farm track and I whirled around, convinced that we were about to be run down by one of those tractors with tyres so tall the driver wouldn’t be able to see a woman and two hellhounds down at ground level, especially in this weather . . . and I dropped one of my pink suede gloves and TROD on it.††
It’s barely worth mentioning that the hellhounds shook themselves violently the moment we got indoors again.††† This is not really the best means by which to have your house plants misted.‡ One of the reasons the carpets don’t get hoovered often enough is because I spend so much time mopping the kitchen floor. And walls. And cabinet fronts. And snarling.‡‡
Lunch was a bright spot. Obviously I was under Penelope’s protective aegis for the duration.
And then back to RATPEGASUSBAG. Maybe I’ll just email everybody the ending. You don’t really need all the details, do you?
And because I haven’t had a good practise ring in long enough to feel my fragile grip on [name any method here] slipping I decided I was going to go to Colin’s tower practise tonight. And Niall was even going to come along quietly.‡‡ I was already standing out at the end of the long mews driveway wondering what was taking Niall so long when there was a small breathless voice behind me and Peter had come pelting down the same long driveway to tell me that Niall had just rung to say that Colin had just rung to say that they couldn’t start practise till eight.
So I frelling cancelled. EXTENSIVE AND CREATIVE RUDE GESTURES HERE. I know I don’t go to bed till most people are thinking about getting up, but most of that late time is spent doing stuff. RATPEG or blog or something torturous with the piano, and I don’t dare be out too late or my brain refuses to go back to work. It’s late! it says. I’m not supposed to have to work this late! I’ll have the union on you! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!
And speaking of something tortuous with the piano, I have a voice lesson tomorrow. I haven’t got Evening Hymn anything like learnt, I’ve been so busy trying to learn the wretched thing I’ve not got any further on It Was a Lover AND I committed the CARDINAL ERROR of taping myself singing last night. JEEEEEZUM. What the hell was I thinking of?
* * *
* FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL I AM SPENDING WAAAAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THE BLOG STILL AGAIN ETERNALLY ETC ARRRRGH.
** In all the dystopian returning-to-a-changed-Earth-after-years/generations/centuries SF I’ve read I don’t recall anyone exploiting the large muddy spreading splodge denouement.
*** Hey! Stop that! I have roses to plant!
† Although it was Chaos—I’m sure I’ve told you this story, but it remains vividly etched in my mind—who bit through the cable plugging my electric keyboard into the wall at the cottage. UNGLEBLARG GLURP. Cheez. I was at my desk, and there was this funny sharp alarming noise, and . . . there was a half-grown hellpuppy smiling at me with the two halves of the severed cable lying over his paws. Why he didn’t electrocute himself I have no idea.
†† It’s actually not ruined. I think. It’s pretty handsomely waterproofed or I wouldn’t be wearing it in this weather in the first place, and the mud is cracking nicely, like Death Valley in August. I think it’s going to brush off. What is really miraculous however is that . . . this being a farm track and all . . . it seems to have fallen in honest mud rather than slurry.
Oh, and no, there was no tractor.
††† Raincoats have no effect on this behaviour. They still shake, and they still irrigate the vicinity.
‡ Maybe the reason I’ve still got a little of a certain three-week-old bouquet left is because it is regularly misted by hellhounds.
‡‡ Relatively quietly. He did tell me that Titus’ wife loves dogs and does not love handbells, that he had told her my flimsy excuse for declining Saturday morning handbells and her response was that if I wanted to bring the hellhounds some Saturday morning she would walk them while I rang bells. I asked Niall how large she is and if she has shoulders like a football player. I am not sure I was satisfied with his answer.
How do I . . .
. . . get myself into these things.* Or at least if I have to get into things, couldn’t I get into ones that aren’t going to cause other aspects of my personality to stab me repeatedly with sharp pointed panic? I really should have taken up knitting.** Nobody watches you while you knit.***
I told you that Blondel gave me Purcell’s Evening Hymn for next week. He played and sang it through for me before I took it away and while I was entirely riveted by the eighty-seven bar one-breath Hallelujahs, the time signature itself didn’t impress itself upon me as being too bizarre or anything.† Because I am lazy and irresponsible and doing twenty-seven other things on Wednesday, I didn’t get the hymn out to look at by myself till yesterday. And discovered the freller is in 3/2. Not 3/4 or 6/8 or 3/8 or 2/4 or anything remotely normal. Three two? How the bleeding dranglefab do I count 3/2?††
So I spent a little while confusing myself badly and then thought I’ll take it to Oisin. Which was very sensible of me. Unfortunately I didn’t stop there. I have no idea how I got from this sensible decision to the manifestly lunatic one of bringing my Finzi along too and asking if Oisin can play It Was a Lover and His Lass. I mean, of course he can. He’s an accompanist. It’s one of the things he does. His first love is playing the organ, but he also runs a choir, teaches piano and half a dozen other instruments†††, plays duets and . . . accompanies people. Including singers. So, why would I want him to play It Was? Please remember that I’m the person who was about to indulge in a nervous collapse Tuesday afternoon when it looked like Blondel and I were on our way to the cathedral’s practise room, because it might not be soundproof enough. Or someone might come in while we were there. Yesterday my 3/2-addled brain was groping along some path of non-thought to do with the fact that Blondel struggles with the piano for It Was—he doesn’t struggle nearly as much as I do with the singing, but he’s not having a totally good time—and . . . uh. . . . This is where the breakdown in logic occurred.
I’m pretty sure I told you I’d asked Oisin . . . quite a while ago now, if he’d play for me to sing to some time and he agreed much too readily. I wasn’t planning on getting to this point however for . . . oh, years yet. Years and years.‡ But I think I’ve painted myself into the corner. I think I have to come to my next . . . er . . . music lesson with Oisin prepared to sing.‡‡ Hey, we could have a crack at Fear No More while we’re at it. AAAAAAAUGH.‡‡‡
Meanwhile I think the lullaby from PEGASUS is more or less finished. My printer is giving me gyp but I need to get it printed out since scrolling down and across your computer screen while you’re trying to play the piano is not ideal and even Oisin is slightly confounded. I want to test out the playability of the accompaniment (!) on me before I release it to a semi-waiting world. Maybe next Friday.
* * *
* No dabble setting is how. I’ve told you this story, haven’t I? Except I can no longer remember if it was Hannah or Merrilee who first came up with the ‘no dabble setting’ as the explanation of my personality. I do remember that whoever it was promptly told the other one and Peter and they’ve all been quoting it at each other and laughing like drains for fifteen years or so. VERY FRELLING FUNNY. HA HA HA. So what’s wrong with being enthusiastic about the stuff you do? Maybe slightly too much stuff? Maybe slightly too enthusiastic? It’s the sign of a lively and wide-reaching intelligence that you have bookshelves on all your walls^, subscribe to 1,000,000,000 magazines and journals on 1,000,000 topics, and never get to bed till at least mmmph o’clock in the morning because you can’t tear yourself away from one or twelve of them any sooner. This last possibly exacerbated by your having been out pursuing one (or twelve) of them earlier in the day.
I suppose deliberately gaining possession of two puppies who could be expected to grow up to require two hours of hurtling a day—when you live in town—might also be the result of a dabble-free personality. Three and a half years ago I didn’t know just how bad the menopause/calorie situation was going to become. I’m glad I didn’t decide on goldfish. Although dabble-free goldfish would probably require excessive struggling with large heavy aquaria etc. But I imagine hurtling is a more efficient calorie-burner.
^ I’ve even managed to put together an entire shelf of books on change ringing. This takes some effort. There aren’t a lot of bell ringing writers.+
+ Yes. Hmmm. THE BELLS OF MAZAHAN is probably after ALBION which is probably after PEG II. But don’t count on it.
** Note past tense. It’s too late. Yes it is. Although I got another Ehrman’s catalogue a few days ago. Remember Ehrman? http://www.ehrmantapestry.com/ Sigh.
*** Or if they do you can tell them to stop because they’re being weird.
† Actually I did notice on Tuesday as I was watching over Blondel’s shoulder that while the notes themselves looked all right there seemed to be kind of funny collections of them between bar lines. But I was busy being riveted by the hallelujahs, and I tend to go into a trance when Blondel sings anyway.
†† I keep telling you I’m not musical. I just like the noise. And I like clubbing myself senseless with unsuitable challenges.
††† If he ever replaces his flute, I’m first in line to nail the old one. For my copious free time.
‡ So, I was wrong. Enthusiasm is bad for you.
‡‡ The rest of the day I’ve been hallucinating with bitter and harrowing vividness that moment some months ago when I had to come in for the first time on a note all by myself in He Was Despised while the piano—and the pianist—just sat there. It’s going to be like that but worse.
‡‡‡ Maybe I keep doing stuff like this to myself because it makes such good blog material? But the thing is . . . I really enjoy messing with music. I love playing the piano. I love composing. I even . . . well . . . I even love singing. Somehow or other I have got to get over this crippling sick-making stage fright nonsense. I’m not asking to be Marilyn Horne or Maddy Prior^. Or Angela Hewitt.^^ I’m just trying to have some fun. I do this for FUN.
You are used to really bad singers, aren’t you? I said skittishly to Oisin. Oh, absolutely, he said, way too cheerily.
^ Or Bernarda Fink, whose album of Schubert lieder I’m listening to as I write. Mmmmmm.
^^ Or Hildegard of Bingen. Or Amy Beach.
Complete Sentences Optional
Majorly knackered here. Fridays are always a bit of a sprint because I have both piano lesson and home tower bell practise.* This week there has been the additional drain on resources of trying to relearn how to use Finale.** I am totally glad to have composing software and, since Finale is what Oisin uses, I’m very glad to have what he can bail me out of. But . . . oh . . . gods.*** I didn’t get nearly as much shoved and rammed into the computer as I meant to because I wasted so much time over the ‘make me’ arbitration.
But it is extremely pleasing to be composing again, even if perhaps only briefly, till the waters of PEG II close over my head.† And I had enough more of Frost and Fire and Ice to take in today for Oisin to complain more bitterly—last week he had the perfect excuse of failing to read my handwriting—and furthermore with this song the vocal line has become seriously detached from the piano accompaniment so trying to play all three at once is like trying to pat your head, rub your stomach and tie your shoelaces. Obviously one of us should sing. No.††
Oisin said, I don’t want to put you off or anything, but this is slightly more diatonic than sometimes with you.†††
It’s probably the voice lessons, I said, wincing as he pointed out a few of the rather dramatic leaps my vocalist must get round. I have this gruesome idea that if you give someone a rest, you can do anything to them after it, because they’ve had time to pull themselves together. Oisin suggested, smiling evilly, that I should practise singing it, that picking up those perilous notes after the rests will do wonders for my development of relative pitch. I forgive him, however, because he also said that it sounded a little like late Vaughan Williams, after he’d got the English-pastoral out of his system. Beam.‡
Then I had to come home and hurtle hellhounds before bell practise. Tired person. Fortunately going hand-over-hand up a ladder such as the one into our ringing chamber is considered normal, and a lot of people tend to slump in corners on Friday evenings anyway. But we had enough of a turn-out that I got to ring triples. Yaay. I even managed to claw enough still-semi-responsive brain cells together to remember to keep counting places‡‡ to seven (triples) rather than five (doubles) or six (minor). I can’t say that my Grandsire Triples were a delight to the ear, but I did get through . . . and then we rang Stedman Triples and there were actually two of us who weren’t quite sure what we were doing and we still got through it so this is Very Good.
Right at the moment we’ve got the holidays and weather from hell as an excuse for some fairly thin on the ground practise nights as well as the ones that have been outright cancelled, but I’m mournfully aware that I am now squarely into that murky midrange area where it’s no longer a given that simply turning up for practise regularly will get me much farther: the stuff I want to learn requires a good band, not just any old band—and I still only learn anything by grind. I do not want, five more years from now, still to be saying ‘well I managed to get through a plain course of Stedman Triples tonight, I wonder how long it’s been since the last time I had the opportunity?’
However. Tonight is tonight, I rang Stedman Triples and my piano teacher says he can hear some late Vaughan Williams in the piece I’m trying to write, and the snow is melting. ‡‡‡
And I wonder if I can stay awake long enough to walk back to the cottage.§
* * *
* Once upon a time I had my piano lesson on Thursday. Oisin moved me to Friday because it worked better for him^ and I always meant to negotiate about moving back . . . and then Thursday became handbell practise. Oops.
^ His most entertaining students for Friday afternoons?
** &^%$£”!!!!!!!!!†††+={@????<++*#~‡!!§§!!!!!!!!!! etc. Who designed the ugleblarging thing? Mad wombats?
*** And speaking of troubling deaf heaven^ with one’s bootless cries, Oisin has an almost unbearably thrilling new toy. He’s got a whole sound studio in his attic already but apparently organ software has recently taken a giant leap forward and he’s just bought the digitalised version of some prodigious French organ the size of two or three Lockheed C-141 StarLifter Heavy Transport planes.^^ Although a somewhat different shape, and with less crew and more keyboards. Anyway, never mind what the thing sounds like—he hasn’t loaded it yet so I can’t tell you—it’s beautiful. I want one. I just . . . want it.^^^ Want. I guarantee that I would find its company very inspirational.^^^^ Meanwhile . . . Oisin says he needs a new computer to run it properly. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The old ‘new computer’ scam.
I did tell^^^^^ him (again, with feeling) that if in his travels he comes up with any better playback options than Finale’s basic, which furthermore do not involve taking an advanced degree in Musical Instrument Digital Interface Protocol, I would be grateful to be told. And I’ll worry about the inevitable ‘new computer’ wheeze later.
^ Ie the Finale help files
^^ I love google. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/transport-m/c141/ And . . . ‘StarLifter’? Whose idea was that? I think some military mind had been reading too much space opera.
^^^ As previously observed, what I want is to be 13 years old and talented, and I’d be all over organ lessons.
^^^^ And it seems to me large gorgeous pipe organs are seriously underrepresented in fantasy literature.+
+ Phantom of the Opera does not count.
^^^^^ ‘Whimper’ might be more accurate
† I’m too tired to try to describe how composing is just like word-writing only different. Some day I want a chat with a professional, earns-a-living-at-it music composer who also writes occasional word-stories. I want to know how much of the apparent difference is only the result of what you’re used to.
†† It’s true. It’s for mezzo.
††† I like creeping around chromatically. What can I tell you.
‡ Mind you, I adore Vaughan Williams’ English pastoral. But I also remember, many years ago, when I was first making small tentative forays into classical music beyond Verdi, smacking into one of Vaughan Williams’ later symphonies. Whooa! Yeep! Bring me Greensleeves! Bring me more Larks Ascending! Yeep!
‡‡ Where I am in the row. Remember that every bell has to ring once before any bell can ring a second time. All x number of bells having rung once is a row.
‡‡‡ Although as I reported slightly hysterically on Twitter a few hours ago, we’re supposed to get gales, torrential rain and flash floods tomorrow. Maybe I’ll just sleep all day. If I let the hellhounds on the bed, they’d probably go for this.
§ Unless the torrential rain has started. Latter half of the night, they said. Which is . . . er . . .
More Winter
By the time hellhounds and I have walked home tonight I’ll have spent nearly three hours traipsing around in the snow and the skin-peeling cold.* Life as a pedestrian. Give me my howdah.** It hasn’t snowed any more, although both the meteorologists and the sky keep threatening otherwise. The latter keeps dropping the occasional snowflake just to watch whoever it lands on jump. Aaaugh. That cold fluffy white stuff—it’s happening again.
And I keep putting my coat back on and going outdoors and providing another moving target. First, last and always there are hellhounds to be hurtled. I’m getting increasingly creative about our local options and yaktrax*** permits this. Hells, there are even one or two local footpaths that are improved by being frozen solid after knee-deep mud in November.
Then there was my piano lesson. At least I had one. It’s been forever.† I miss my cups of tea with Oisin while I beat my forehead with the heels of my hands and howl about life, publishing and everything . . . I mean the close textual and interpretive study of Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum††. And I did have the beginnings of a setting of Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice to demonstrate that I haven’t entirely given up music for hard-selling yaktrax to total strangers for 0% net.†††
Then there was more hellhound hurtling.
Then there was tower practise. Yes, we managed to have tower practise this week‡: we had eight ringers, only two of which were beginners ‡‡ which meant we could actually ring something and in my case slam a couple of chocks under the wheels of my ringing competence, which otherwise has a strong native resemblance to a downhill runaway. I even got to ring a whole series of the Evil Three-Four Down Dodge Single in bob minor, which I haven’t rung in so long I’ve forgotten. Although I’d mentioned this at the beginning of practise and Edward got around to offering me the chance at the end of practise, when I was starting to think rather fixedly about supper.‡‡‡ Never mind. I cobbled together a few brain cells that didn’t get out of the way fast enough and ploughed through.§
And now we have to walk back to the cottage. And it’s about 20 degrees (F) out there. And dark. And crunchy. When is April again?
* * *
* I’m thinking about a ski mask in Hampshire. It’s like imagining the Hellmouth in a small town near Santa Barbara. Years ago I had a gorgeous black leather mad-bomber’s hat lined with rabbit fur.^ It was so totally insouciant Leslie Howard/Michael Redgrave. You could see the Spitfire out of your peripheral vision, slightly fuzzy as it was from the halo of rabbit fur. I gave it away. When was I ever going to need such a hat in Hampshire?
^ Yes. I wear cow skin and rabbit hair. If I’ll eat it—and it’s not endangered—I see no reason not to wear it. Waste not, want not.
** Well, Hannibal got his elephants over the frelling Alps. And I like the idea of underfloor elephant heating.
*** . . . have totally changed my life. I’m not quite to the stage of stopping one in three and holding them with my glittering eye^ as I rant on about yaktrax . . . but close. For the number of people who have written down ‘yaktrax.co.uk’ in my vicinity this week there should be a noticeable blip on yaktrax’ graph of sales in this area. About 80% of my serious-winter claustrophobia has evaporated by the simple expedient of being able to go outside and walk around.^^ This is a hilly little town and as previously observed clearing and sanding the pavements (or for that matter anything but the main roads^^^) is not a priority.^^^^ So I’ve gone from whining with fear as I unlock the front door of the cottage and prepare to essay forth with two fully-loaded hellhounds to nonchalantly shaking my fist at the snow-bellied sky.^^^^^
^ No albatrosses were killed or injured in the making of this blog entry.
^^ Doesn’t do much about the freezing my eyelashes off however.
^^^And don’t count on it there either. Penelope set out for the film society meeting in Mauncester two nights ago, main roads all the way, got as far as the first roundabout on the bypass, went all the way around, and came home again.
^^^^ We started out better after this latest blizzard. I don’t know if it was a council minion or an enraged householder or assortment thereof, but the two worst downtown hills were semi-cleared and semi-sanded. And then we ran out of sand. Which is apparently turning into a national crisis.
^^^^^ I could do this so much better in a mad bomber’s hat.
† There is also, I’m afraid, an aspect to this new year of Before Luke and After Luke.^ I’d had composing plans for the holiday break^^ which were derailed with everything else when the accident happened. And when I finally had a chance to sit down at the piano I found myself wanting to write something For Luke . . . but what came out was . . . well, probably pretty much unplayable, not in a good way, although Oisin has said that if I will run it through Finale so he can frelling read it, he’ll have a go.
^ No particular news. Continued tiny improvements, which are the most we can hope for. And we do hope for them. But that’s all. It’s the old throwing rose petals into the abyss thing, and hoping that in this case the abyss does have a bottom, and if we keep throwing rose petals in, it will eventually fill up again. You’re keeping those candles lit, yes? Thanks.
^^ Plus learning at least one more unassigned aria out of my mezzo book, or possibly another Finzi from the Garland that Fear No More comes from. Which hasn’t happened either.
†† Which is always in the running for ‘most difficult piano piece ever written’ which is approximately all I know about it.
††† I’m a terrible businesswoman, but even I can see this isn’t an intelligent choice.
‡ Although there is Catastrophic News: Edward is retiring as Ringing Master. This probably has something to do with the Blessed Event due next May which will give Louise a sibling. But it’s a disaster for the tower; that leaves only Vicky and Niall as our reliable good ringers. It also means Niall is likely to get shanghaied . . . I mean elected Ringing Master at the tower meeting in a fortnight.
‡‡ But of the remaining six, three of us were Penelope, Leo and me, who are the Wombly Ones, and Niall, Vicky and Edward holding us together . . . demonstrating just how acutely we’re going to miss Edward. Waaaaah.
‡‡‡ And the fact that I was going to have to walk back to the mews to get it.
§ Possibly (evilly) inspired by the fact that we’d rung Stedman a little earlier, with me on an unfamiliar bell because Penelope, who is more out of Stedman practise than I am, wanted the treble. We went wrong rather quickly and everyone looked at me. . . . And it was Edward. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
This is not going to make us miss him any less.
