…must come to an end. Sigh. The car is coming for Van at …three a.m., and soon the house will be empty of anyone to finagle into taking sides in an argument, or to beat us in Scrabble (badly. Laura, we’re in need of practice; he wiped the board with us twice), or to snicker at us and tell us we have accents. (PLEASE NOTE: WE DON’T. No matter what Van says. We don’t. No, seriously. What a glaiket idea.)
Other than napping, castle-hunting, walking, shopping, and learning Gaelic insults, Van additionally participated in yet another classic Glaswegian tradition — he drank some Irn Bru. “Made from Girders” is the marketing line. Contains ammonium ferric citrate … which would be …girders. Van says it tastes like rust…
It’s been a quiet last two days. The weather turned downright nasty on Friday with fifty-five mile per hour winds and freezing rain, so other than making a quick trip out to pick up a few last minute gifts (the man must shop for all of you back home, after all), Van declared himself all sightseeing-ed out. We stayed in and played Scrabble, made French bread, ate one last meal of haggis and mushroom tatties, and talked ourselves hoarse.
Today, while D&T attended a three hour orchestral rehearsal in the afternoon, Van did a bit more shopping… more shopping than he intended, but the University Gift Shop is a flat out dangerous place to be if you’re left on your own for three hours. Van did a bit of solo museum-ing, making it to The Museum of Transport, a place which D&T haven’t yet seen. Together again, we got soaked flagging a cab, got home for a quick bite, and came back to the University for our concert…
…which was just… amazing. It was flat out gorgeous music, wonderfully live acoustics (no electronic assistance with that, yet again) and wonderful vocalists. There is nothing like singing the music of John Rutter, for those musicians in the group — seriously, nothing. The requiem we sang was one of the most requested for memorials after the attacks in New York in 2001, which gives you some idea of the beauty of the music and the depth of emotion in the text.
T. was standing in shoes that pinched, and D. kept getting whacked in the head with the score of an over-enthused bass singer behind him, but in the end, the heavenly music made the earthly concerns of aching feet, sore backs and hoarse throats subside. This is the end of the Choral Society’s season, and it hardly seems possible; these eight weeks have just flown by. (We can’t wait for next year; it looks like Bach and Mendelssohn, stay tuned…)
Van’s visit has flown by as well, and in four hours, the car will come for him. Despite the Scrabble catastrophes (he does try for those little red squares, but it’s just not noble to play for points, is it??), it’s been so much fun castle-hunting and haggis-eating and dragging our friend from pillar to post. Looking forward to doing it again when the rest of you visit.
Cheers,
– D & T
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Glad that your visit was enjoyed by all. And that the concert went well.
As for Irn Bru, I am afraid that I missed trying out that one. There are some things that I just can’t force myself to do!
I tried the Irn Bru…I had it with lots of ice. It was much too sweet, heck, I was thirsty okay?