The News From Hayford Village

Another week in the wee village of Hayford Mills, and we’re down to odds and ends without homes, and only the library still needing to be thoroughly unpacked. We’re settling into something of a routine in the evening, as D. comes home from work, supper is finished (T. is trying out her Martha Stewart chops and actually, you know, cooking), and then there’s a great sprawl of reading and tinkering until bedtime, or watching old episodes of Columbo or Agatha Christie, to assist T. in her quest to learn the plotting tricks of mysteries. Our routine is indeed pretty tame, although we’re still traveling to Glasgow at least once a week to go to choir practice, so it’s not like we’re hiding out in the country all of the time.

Have we said how much we enjoy the new house? And how enjoyable it is to sit and stare out the windows endlessly? This past weekend we finally cleared some of the oddly waxy gunk building up on the glass and got out and enjoyed the balcony (and really ticked off all the orb spiders who happily make attractively round webs for us each day). Yes, it looks out over cars and things, but still, we find the sky and the old mill buildings quite an attractive view, and much enjoy soaking up late afternoon sun (when it’s there – surprisingly more often than expected) and watching the rather ordinary activities of our neighbors (and their dogs).

Of course, we would have accomplished far more in terms of R&R and finishing that last bit of organizing if we hadn’t had our first choir concert this past weekend: we hopped on the train at noon to arrive at our afternoon rehearsal from 1:30 to 5:30, had our performance from 7:30 to 10:00, and then caught a slow train home and arrived at close to 11:30. A truly long day, and not the most enjoyable performance, either. We were singing with several other choirs, and the program was … well, extremely eclectic. The director wasn’t ours (thankfully), but she had what we’ll call great force of personality. She definitely had Ideas about how the program was to go, and chivvied and bossed the other directors into making things work as she wanted. She directed her group to snap their fingers, clap their hands, and do all kinds of jazz-hands lift-y things on some songs, and urged the rest of us to “have a go!” and “join in!” Her choir even linked arms and sashayed at one point — which was just a bit terrifying, as there were well over three-hundred and fifty of us on makeshift wooden risers, and we all felt the tremendous vibration from their cheery little dance. The jazz hands, in the same program as Handel’s Zadoc the Priest, Faure’s Requiem, and The Hallelujah Chorus, was pretty weird liturgically, not to mention just plain weird. The day was simply FILLED with little incidents which our chorus will remember and giggle over for weeks to come. No matter how we fuss about our own repertoire, it at least does not involve pieces which require clapping, snapping, or swaying.

And for the record, we did not “give it a go.”

We’re back on the road this coming Sunday, to take part in the National Police Memorial service. We’ll supposedly glimpse some royalty and hope that there’s not a whole bunch of rigmarole surrounding getting into and out of the venue. We’ve asked about this, but apparently it’s not seen as a big deal, here, for members of the royal family to just … show up somewhere. We’ve tried to relate it to something like having a state senator show up or something, and can’t fathom there not being helicopters, sharpshooters, and creepy people with mirrored sunglasses and black suits all over the place for the event. We’ll see. Perhaps we’ll even sneak some pictures, but likely not, as we’ll be rather obvious, on stage and all. Plus, it’s a Memorial Service… not that this will stop other people snapping pictures, but our Mamas raised us better.

There’s wildlife in the country, and T. finally is feeling just a LITTLE less insane, as D. has located the massive, child-stealing spider she’s been swearing up and down has been galloping rampant through the house at all hours. He took a picture of it next to a battery for size comparison. Please note that we will not be displaying picture here, but D. now admits that, “Okay, yeah, that was pretty big.” T. would like to put the word out to any arachnids that her moment of Zen is over, and all comers on her territory may end up as grease spots. She’s really trying to evolve past the atavistic urge to shriek and throw things at anything with more than four legs, but it is truly hard going.

In other wildlife news, we believe that we have had a sighting of a Scottish Wildcat. Over breakfast the other morning, we saw a pigeon behaving oddly, and being stalked – in a desultory, casual fashion – by a very large, muscular looking brown and black cat. Its speed and size gave us a clue — and its general skittishness when D. moved toward the window and went to open it — it may indeed have been one of the wild bunch that was spotted in this area. T. has the big camera sitting beside her desk, in the hopes that she’ll be able to catch pictures of this Rare Wee Beastie. If we can confirm a sighting, we’ll be happy, as they’re endangered, and there are left, by last count, only about four hundred of them in the wild. On the other hand, some of them may simply not want to be counted…

There are two pans of cranberry orange bread cooling on the stovetop, the temps are in the low fifties, and our breath smokes in the air in the clear, bright mornings. Autumn is arriving this week, and indeed may be coming in a little early. Time to take out the gloves and scarves, and get this leaf-turning show on the road.

Hope all is well with you and yours. That’s our news from Cambusbarron-by-Hayford Mills, where the spiders are muscular, the sheep are ridiculously loud, and the chickens occasionally compete and try to drown them out. Happy Autumn.

-D & T