Singing to Different Tunes

 

Last night I almost got to bed early.*  I was lying comfortably in the bath reading something that will probably make an appearance here on this blog some day.  And then there was a faint, ominous popping noise and . . . all the lights went out. 

            Fortunately it's a small house, I've lived there six years, and I know where the fuse box is even in the dark.**  It is a very odd sensation, doing familiar things you don't actually need to see in the dark, like towelling off and putting your dressing gown on.  Getting out of the bath was negotiated very carefully as was going down my 180° twirl of slippery carpeted stairs.  My ancient fuse box with the early 19th century circuit breaker converted in 1923 from gas*** creaked over with a faint smell of dragon, and . . . some of the lights came back on.  Joy.  And no, I don't have five replacement bulbs on hand:  who needs five in the same day?†  Arrrgh.

            Meanwhile of course my computer early-warning defense system was shrieking its head off.  Its Rottweiler imitation isn't necessary often enough for me to get accustomed to the shut-down protocol and I always end up shrieking back at it.  By the time I could go to bed I wasn't in the mood.†† 

            And then Computer Archangel Raphael was due to come today and sort out a very long laundry-list of problems††† written in Pooka shorthand which I think I can still deciper‡ but he rang while I was still asleep to say that he had the lurgi‡‡ and wouldn't be coming . . . so I went back to bed and had the nightmares I always have if I am sleeping too late after I've been too thoroughly woken up, in which fire and destruction usually figure in a very unrestful way.‡‡‡  So when I finally did get up it was terribly, terribly late and I had to race around like fury cursing myself for my slothful habits§ . . .

            One of the things Raphael was supposed to do was bring me a new flummoxer for my frelling printer/copier, which stopped working a fortnight or so ago, except for the petulant declaration on its screen that it wants a new flummoxer if I'm absent-minded enough to turn it on.  And one of the immediate reasons I wanted it is because I need to be able to make copies of what I'm singing for Nadia.  Arrrgh.  So I had to go off to my voice lesson copyless.  Arrrrrrgh.§§  I've been playing with my new Benjamin Britten folk song book and as an alternative to mangling The Minstrel Boy, which I've hammered pretty flat [sic] over the last few weeks, Nadia said I could sing The Ash Grove for her.§§§  I suggested that she have the music and I'll just sing—vocalise—without the words, which has worked rather well on the Minstrel Boy, who seems to be rather overburdened with large angular English consonants that get tangled up around my teeth somehow, and she said no, she had a better idea, she'd give us the starting note on the piano and then she'd harmonise with me while I sang.

            Eeeeeeeeep.

            Okay, here's the news, you guys, hold onto your seats.  This was fun.  Singing with my voice teacher was fun.  It was not exactly a thing of beauty and glory on my end—especially the don't-think-about-it-just-GO-NOW beginning—but it was FUN.

            . . . And then bell practise tonight was in Colin's garage, with his frelling overturned-flower-pot frelling mini-ring frelling bells, where the ropes keep trying to jump out of my hands like frightened rabbits,  ARRRRRRGH.  I think I'll take up knitting. . . . 

* * *

* Earlier.     

** Fuses never explode when there's ever some residual daylight or (ahem) the remote beginnings of dawn.  No, they hold it in till a blanket of perfect tenebrosity enshrouds the area about to lose its electricity. 

*** Making it contemporary with the local phone lines.  We received a your-town-councillors-working-hard-for-you mailing this week where we're supposed to tick off the three issues we consider the most crucial from a list of things like recycling, parking, support for the elderly/disabled and so on.  One of the items is 'high speed broadband'.  Pardon me while I fall down laughing.  

† Is anyone else having way too many problems with modern supposedly ecologically-friendly light bulbs?  We're being forced to shift over soon to eco-bulbs and I shifted early because I thought this was enlightened (so to speak) and responsible.  But there are waaaaaaay too many bad ones and I'm pretty tired of it.  Although this is the first time I've had one blow out five.  Which is certainly one way to guarantee future business for light-bulb manufacturers, at some cost to positive customer relations.    

†† Which is just as well, since hellhounds were not in the mood for their final snack either.   Although I'm always glad to have dogs around during a blackout because they so manifestly couldn't care less.  What's important?  Food (sort of)^ and walks.  And watching their sacred person carefully for any sign of immediate interaction with worshippers.  And sleep.  Especially sleep.  Electricity?  Feh.  

^ Although you never saw anything more attentive than hellhounds when a roast chicken comes out of the oven.  

††† And possibly tell me something exciting about the iPad 2.  

‡ I am not totally a fan of the iPhone keyboard 

‡‡ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurgy#The_dreaded_lurgi 

‡‡‡ There's a scene in ALBION that is straight out of one of these nightmares.  Or anyway I think so.  I won't know for sure till I write it. 

§ Which pleased hellhounds very much.  You know your day is not going well when taking hellhounds for a hurtle is calming.  

§§ I have spent some time recently poking around google and elsewhere for information about Local Singing Groups.  It wouldn't hurt to start getting some experience while I'm waiting for Oisin to create the New Arcadia Singers which of course he is going to do, it's just these things take a little time.  The problem is that the no-audition groups tend to sing a lot of stuff I would not voluntarily touch with a barge pole.  It's a rough go being a low-talent, no-time musical snob.  Nadia said, there, there, you can always give something a try and quit if you can't bear it.  And (she said) a lot of cheesy choral crap is actually a lot of fun to sing, even if you hate yourself in the morning. 

§§§ Speaking of the very high proportion of folk songs being about death.  The other one I've been looking at is O Waly Waly in which she's still alive, she's just miserable.  I should move on to the Miller of Dee, except it's the Beethoven version^ I love, which requires hanging around on your top G kind of a lot.  I can do this at home when I'm having an especially wild and free day, but the idea of singing it for Nadia makes me yelp piercingly, like a hellhound who thinks his harness isn't being put on fast enough.  

 ^ It's the Beethoven Minstrel Boy too