The more things change, the more they stay the same!
Choral rehearsals are pretty much the same here as they were at home. We both look forward to them, and dread all the work and bad notes. The sopranos snark about how screechy they sound, the tenors roll their eyes when the conductor stops them, the altos hate their part, the conductor climbs up on a box and complains that no one is watching her, and on any run where one has to both count and do a complicated sequence of notes in time, everyone loses their place at least once.
Singing Haydn’s The Creation this time has one difference that has nothing to do with being in Scotland — at least not in this century. We are singing the Anne Hunter version, as first written for English-speaking audiences in eighteen-something-or-other after the English-language premiere when Haydn visited these shores. Everyone is having an equally hard time replacing familiar words —‘The Heavens are telling the glory of God/ The wonder of his work displays the firmament‘ with the tongue-twisting, strangely scanning and counterintuitive ‘The heavens are displaying the Glory of God/ Those fires never ceasing he placed into the sky…‘ But we’ll get there eventually. Our performance is December 2nd, and the tickets are already almost sold out.
A list of small things for which to be thankful: one, the the reminder that we have much for which to be thankful – for instance, we have electricity! And two, that though the oven isn’t fixed, tomorrow, it will be …replaced. Whatever mysterious ailment that made the convection fan vibrate like a badly tuned aircraft was apparently a manufacturer’s problem (and apparently the flat owner’s daughter Moira didn’t cook much — else how could she stand that noise?!), and we will be back to baking healthy and nutritious foods to combat the cold and wet weather. And it didn’t pour on us on the way back from choir rehearsal, there was a gorgeous pink/purple/blue sunset, and we got to see the museum all lit up at night; also, we found out that the Strathclyde PD rides white horses at night — (that must be seen to be believed!); and, our favorite grocer sent us home with candied apples (reminding us that we need to find an orchard and try out this tasty looking recipe for oven-roasted apple butter).
We sent an email to the shipping company, and it bounced…(!) But, other than that, it’s been a pretty good day, thank God.
– D & T
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Speaking of wet, we have heavy rain forecast for today to the tune of 50mm. That would be about two inches in my books. Wet. Wet. Wet.
Yay for replaced ovens! 🙂 It’s been pretty rainy here too over the past few days, which has been nice, but today was gorgeous and sunny and in the 70s…which is nice, too.
thanks for the applesauce/apple butter link. i love both applesauce and apple butter so this is quite the treat.