Singing and Ringing

 

It's already past midnight AND I HAVEN'T STARTED THE BLOG YET.  Well, oops. 

            I was a little worried about getting out of bed this morning.  Usually when the ME is bad and I do stuff anyway—like, say, ringing a quarter peal on no sleep—it may let me get away with it, but it will probably also come down on me double-strength, or rather double-floppy, the next day.  I couldn't afford to be double-floppy today!  I had my SECOND VOICE LESSON!*

            Her brother came home while I was there again.  Oh, that'll be Robert, she said, as the front door banged and there was a lot of mad jingling:  I can tell by all his keys.  —I really have to do something about the brother.  With my new organizational skills maybe I can arrange for a series of peals . . . not just in London but all over the south of England.**  The Monday Afternoon Peal.  It could be famous.  Soon bell ringers from Australia and America would be organising their ringing holidays around a prized invitation to ring in a particular Monday Afternoon Peal.  The one constant would be the presence of Wild Robert.  Who would be kept out of his mum's house while his sister was giving voice lessons forever. 

            She says 'oh that'll be Robert' in this sprightly, carefree voice.  I have so failed to give her a proper understanding of what a neurotic little git I am.  The problem is that I'm just so happy to be singing again—not that I've exactly stopped in the interim, but voice lessons give you an excuse to go for it, like a ticking crocodile after a one-handed pirate captain.  It's like, don't bother me!  I'll be neurotic later!  Right now I just want to SING!

            This leads to other errors.  So, what do you want to do with your singing? Nadia says bracingly.  You must feel ready to join a choir?  Glurp, I reply.  Well, I am trying to convince Oisin that he really wants to start a nice little local New Arcadia singing group.  What an excellent idea, says Nadia.  I think he'd really enjoy that.  Hmmmm.  If I got Nadia on my side. . . .   Hmmmmmm.

              And a little later, after we'd got to the singing bit, I'd brought Finzi's Let Us Garlands Bring and Purcell's Evening Hymn as well as Che Faro and the folk songs*** as evidence of the great galloping breadth of my vocal industry and she said, oh, Finzi, my husband loves Finzi, all English song really—whereupon I confessed my plan to learn some of Vaughan Williams' settings of Robert Louis Stevenson's Songs of Travel.  You'll have to come out to us some time, she went on in her relentlessly jolly manner† and let my husband accompany you.

              EEEEEEEP.  Well, that's certainly one way to get their top notes out of your students.††

               I then had to pelt home again because the branch of the family containing the bell-ringing Swanhilde is visiting, and I'd offered to take her to tower practise at South Desuetude.  She's, um, second to last year before university†††, and this week is half term‡, and she was remarking on the disconcertingness of holidays, and the way catching up on your sleep makes you tired.  Swanhilde is starting young with the overdoing I'm afraid.  I proceeded to preach my new gospel of Knitting as the Sublime Fidget‡‡, we discussed the evolution of feminism, and agreed that The Great Gatsby is overrated.  And rang some bells.  The South Desuetude bells are not the lightest or the easiest-going in the world but we stayed on the front six ‡‡‡ and valiant grappling was done, and we got through a few courses of Stedman Doubles with Swanhilde bonging behind.§

               And now I will (finally) go to bed, and worry about getting up tomorrow morning, since the ME may be running a tab. . . . 

* * *

* I am so pathetic.  It's half term, and a lot of her students are, you know, students.  She'd made vague noises last week about the possibility that enough of her students wouldn't want lessons today that she might cancel.  No, no! I thought.  Noooooo!  —And then the week has passed without hearing from her and it's like every day the tension rises.  By this morning I was thinking I should really ring and just check.  And I couldn't do it.  What if she said—oh, right, I'm so glad you rang, I'm not giving lessons today.  Like my phone call was going to cause this.  I'm how old and I still haven't got past a six-year-old's magical thinking?  —If nobody notices, I didn't break Mrs Cholmondeley's 500-year-old stained-glass window with the thumbprint of Henry VIII in the corner.^ 

^ Although isn't this a standard philosophical query?  If no one hears the tree fall in the wilderness, did it make a sound?  Unfortunately I think Mrs C will probably make a lot of sounds when she finds her broken window. 

** Although I kind of like the idea of threatening him with duets.  He doesn't have to know I'd tank. 

*** The Minstrel Boy and The Miller of Dee, if you're asking. 

† I'm not sure Nadia Boulanger was ever relentlessly jolly. 

†† Yes, Oisin is also a professional accompanist, but I know him.  He also knows me.  He is not expecting much. 

††† Sixth form.  But I will never learn the English educational system. 

‡ Holiday.  I should have said that before.  But it's too late and I'm too tired to reorganise the footnotes.   Reorganising footnotes is almost enough to make me want . . . a logical mind. 

‡‡ And in fact after we got home again and had dinner and everyone was sitting around chatting . . . I got out my knitting.  There was the standard hilarity at how well tricked out I am after a fortnight, with an assortment of knitting bags and yarn.  I rose above this vulgar heckling.  Hey, I knitted half a square.^ 

^ The Mobile Knitting Unit actually went to my voice lesson.  Well, you never know, right? 

‡‡‡ Also Colin was feeling wimpish because he has another crop of blisters from being given the multi-ton tenor to ring^ for his latest full peal.  Have I mentioned that he's ringing a full peal Friday morning, before our flimsy little practise quarter Friday evening, about which I'm not stressing out YET?  There are people who think I'm a bell junkie.

^ Inside, of course:  none of this feeble tenor-behind business.  Niall has been trying to convince me that the best way for me to learn the rhythm of triples—seven working bells and the tenor behind—is to ring the tenor for a quarter peal.  In someone else's dreams.  I'm so intimidated by our tenor at New Arcadia that while I can ring it for a touch—and it's a perfectly nice, cooperative bell, it's just a little large—I'm a gibbering wreck by the time we stand our bells.  I cannot imagine ringing the thing inside. . . . and Colin commonly rings full peals on working tenors substantially bigger than ours.  I think he's human. 

§ Speaking of peals, Niall was absent tonight:  ringing a handbell peal.  Feh.