HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

 

Hottest day in seven years.  Okay, that’s not going to go down in the history books BUT IT’S STILL VERY HOT.  VERY.  HOT.  And I want it to go away.  And it’s not going to.  Well, we may get some thunderstorms tonight.  They will (a) not provide a useful amount of rain* and (b) they will lower the temperature less than, in terms of human suffering, they will raise the humidity.  Moan.

Despite a certain slippage of hellhound digestive stability it’s been a splendid weekend.  Those visitors I’ve been whinging about last week were blog mod Ithilien and her husband Faramir and they were lovely.**  When we were first arranging this visit I said that I could blow off church on Sunday but I was going to the monks Saturday night.  I’ll show you where the grocery stores are and Third House has a perfectly good kitchen, see you Sunday.  Ithilien said briskly, That’s fine.  Give me SHADOWS and go away.  So we were all happy.***

Sunday, partly due to Chaos dragging me all over Hampshire in the small hours, did not go quite as planned, but we did manage to go into Mauncester for the McKinley Walking Tour of the old city, including a thrilling climb up a gatehouse tower for an exciting VIEW OF THE CITY!! as promised at the foot of the stairs and which proved on arrival to be mainly 1960s apartment blocks and a glimpse of the high street.  Hmm.  Faramir spotted the sign.  I know I’ve been up there but not in yonks upon yonks and I’d forgotten all about it.  This may be why.  But it was a pretty nice hot summer day on Sunday:  not the brain-destroying torridity of the last week.  And again today.  Gaaah.  Sunday night we had dinner at The Questing Beast where they’d already sold out of all their real food—tourists, feh—and so we had starters and hamburgers because that’s what was left.  But the company was good.  Better yet when Southdowner† arrived for mod solidarity.

So I put Ithilien and Faramir back on the train this morning, siiiiigh, and the temperature immediately rose by twenty degrees.  Come back!  All is forgiven!  They’re going to Greenland or some damn place that’s cold.  I am SO JEALOUS.

The funny thing is that my voice lesson today was rather good.  Possibly being too hot to think has a positive effect on someone who is always making up detailed and extensive lists of what’s wrong.  I was writing to a musical friend tonight that I swear I do my best home singing not practising at the piano with the music instructively in front of me, but out hurtling with creatures where I’m just singing.  Feh.  Also gah.  At one point today Nadia said, that’s quite a good sound.  Now, we’re going to sing that again and this time you’re going to listen.  I listened.  She said:  that’s a much nicer sound.  Even I could hear that some of the edge was gone:  that there was more softness and warmth and less blood-letting blade.  Nadia said, that’s a kinder sound.  Be kind to yourself. . . .

Sigh.  Not that Nadia is all sweetness and light.  She’s still making me get on with this frelling German thing.  Although singing in a foreign language has its advantages.  You need to know what the words mean, of course, to sing them with some attempt at suitable dynamics, but I like the literal translations—when you are given what the words mean rather than some tidied-up and frequently CLUNKING English ‘poem’—although either will serve to disguise whether the original Italian/German/White Ruthenian poem or lyric was diabolically awful or not.  For example.  Linden Lea.  I adore Linden Lea and I’m thrilled to be singing it.  But the original words?  Who is this bozo W Barnes who wrote them?  THE LYRICS ARE TERRIBLE.  I was vaguely aware of this of course, long before I started to learn it, but I love Vaughan Williams anyway and Linden Lea is such an icon.  I could hold at arm’s length any frissons of unease about the text . . . I continued to manage this trick even when I did start to learn to sing it . . . but memorizing the thing has proved too much for my suspension of critical disbelief.  GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.  Maybe I should memorise it in French.  Or White Ruthenian.

I still love the song.  And since over-intellectualising is bad for my singing anyway it’s good practise shutting my brain off.

* * *

* Earlier they were saying we were going to get two feet in half an hour (or so) and it would cause total flooding because, of course, the ground is brick-hard and that’s a lot of rain.  However at present they’ve changed their minds and we’re going to get almost no rain.^  But they could change their minds back.  It’s happened before.

^ Just enough to knock down my dahlias.  The ones I’ve managed to tie up will snap at string level.  The delphiniums are over, but a truly engaged storm will be creative:  it could crush my snapdragons and rip my clematis off the walls and stomp them.

** Also, they brought me champagne.  That’s a really excellent enhancement of any natural loveliness.

*** I’m not sure what poor Faramir did.  Peter was playing bridge.

† She claimed to have come for Ithilien and Faramir, but I know better.  She came for Pavlova.  Whom she spent twenty minutes or so being ravished by while I took hellhounds out for a late-night catch-up-while-it’s-relatively-cool hurtle.  Having invited her into the cottage, thrust a hyperactivated Pav at her and bolted out, I spent the twenty minutes worrying about all the TERRIBLE HABITS Pav has developed after ten months with me that she was demonstrating in all their appalling glory. . . . I got back and came cringing into the kitchen where, as I recall, Pav was dancing on Southdowner’s head, Southdowner cooperatively sitting on the floor to make the process easier.  Southdowner said, she’s lovely, you’ve done very well with her.^

::hellgoddess beams::

She’s also beautiful, continued Southdowner.  You must show her.

Hellgoddess stops beaming.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.^^

^ Have I told you about the builder over the road who has a full-size bull terrier and disapproves of Pav whom he considers TOO WELL MANNERED FOR A BULL TERRIER?  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

^^ I can hear Olivia laughing like a drain from here.  Olivia has been through the showing thing with Southdowner.  Southdowner is relentless.  Maybe Pav could develop a squint or an irresistible compulsion to bite judges’ ankles or something?