Now we are five

[venta]

Goodness me, it's a hotbed of activity on this journal this evening, isn't it ? Fear not, I shall lapse into my usual semi-stupor again shortly.

On Friday night I cantered down the M20 to Canterbury for a weekend of Boojum debauchery. As it turned out, I was sadly disappointed. Everyone (me included) was still shattered from bombing about over Christmas and New Year, so we had one of the most subdued weekends in a long time. Even by this morning I don't think we had enough empty wine bottles for a decent game of skittles.

Still, we practised in the lovely pub in Bridge. The Plough & Harrow very generously lets us use their upstairs room for nowt. And has a resident cat (called Thomas) which curls up very tidily. Bridge, incidentally, doesn't really have any bridge to speak of. It's one of those historical wossnames.

Saturday night saw a rather swift tour of five pubs, during which I became increasingly clumsly and kicked a lot of furniture. The lovely ebee came out to play with us, bringing the charming ranalf_lj along on the promise of "pirates and swords". Fortunately, he didn't seem to mind the swords turning out to be strangely blunt and unswordy (the pirates were nothing to do with us. Sadly). And she brought cake, too. Mmm... cake.

We had our own cake, as well. Boojum was five yesterday, so we had a cake. With candles. To match our kit, it was black. Mmm... black cake.

I always enjoy Boojum weekends in Canterbury, because of the lovely atmosphere in the house we stay in. Trefor and Rhiannon live in a largeish semi, which is completely packed full of books and hospitality. Walls lined with books always make me happy, and arriving on Friday after a chilly drive to enticing smells of garlic and cheese breads wafting around in the warmth was just great.

You can also always rely on a fairly hefty dose of surreal. Trefor is a clogmaker (which explains the deeply odd 1920s clog-propaganda posters in the toilet), but has done a variety of strange jobs. He also just seems to attract weird stuff. For the first time in ages, he has a clogmaking apprentice (two, in fact). One of the apprentices is, of course, a molecatcher.

We were halfway through a conversation about Terry the Molecatcher before anyone thought to say... what? A molecatcher?

Yes, in the 21st century there is still a guy in Canterbury making a living out of catching moles. Apparently, he works mostly for the landed gentry in the area and as a result (according to Trefor's theory) dresses "the part", the local gentry being snobbish types who wouldn't dream of employing a molecatcher who didn't wear woolly breeches and a flat cap.

And that was before we got onto the conversation about how the best way to eat seagull is to curry it. Which is apparently the kind of thing you do if you're an RSPB warden in the extreme north of the Shetlands.

Accordingly, Trefor is my Designated Hero of the Week. Just because I'm really glad people like him exist. And he's completely rebuilt my knackered leather jacket for me.

Actually, further to my comment several paragraphs back, I should say that I always enjoy Boojum weekends in other places, too. I've just blathered about that endlessly before :)

Tonight, I went to something the like of which I've not attended before. St Mary's in Iffley was putting on Handel's Messiah. Sort of.

Some thoughtful soul had provided an orchestra, a conductor, and four soloists. Which, of course, means that they were still missing a chorus. People who bought tickets were welcome to come along and listen, but were encouraged to grab a score on the way in and seat themselves in the appropriate quadrant of church.

I arrived in (I thought) plenty of time, but only just managed to grab the last seat in the front half of the south side of the church, where altos were packing in four to a pew.

I have a feeling that these things are really aimed at people who are very familiar with the work in question, which I'm not (or not from a singing point of view). The choir I used to sing with occasionally sang excerpts, but I've never sung the whole thing through. However, I figured that I could mung through it. And, if necessary, shut up if things got really hairy. As it turned out, I did both. Alternately :)

Messiah mostly isn't too tricky. There are, however, pages which would prompt my friend AndyY to say that he wanted a clean copy because there was ant shit all over this one[*]. They're largely passages of melismata (ie one syllable, sustained over lots of notes), too, which means that someone with only a hazy idea of what they're aiming for sounds vaguely like they're gargling. I did suffer from a constant fear that the person in front of me would turn round and beat me to death with their hardback score.

My real trouble was that I found the conductor difficult to follow. I don't know why - maybe it was just a conducting style I'm unused to - but it seemed as if she was merely waving her arms about vaguely instead of actually conducting. Still, things only fell apart hideously a couple of times :)

Singing big fat choral works is fun. I must keep my eye out for other places offering sing-throughs. Though I might do my homework a bit more thoroughly next time.

[*] That is to say, there are lots and lots and lots of notes per bar, thus meaning the music is covered with little black blobs.

Grr. I should be asleep. But my conjunctivitis has flared up, and my eyeball's gone all weird and blobby again. And shutting my eye currently hurts :(

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly good at it, or anything. I just enjoy doing it, especially where the Messiah is concerned. I shall be going along to a similar sing-a-long day to do Vivaldi's Gloria and Fauré's Requiem in Birmingham on the 5th Feb, which I'm really looking forward to.