What I've been up to
Dec. 6th, 2017 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornNot journaling, obviously.
A few days after the last entry, mid-October, I was in the Rhoen for a few days, for hiking. Liked it a lot, it's a park-like country, lots of open space, dotted with small woods. I was very lucky with the weather, two-and-a-half days of late summer. Only the last day was rainy, so I went home after breakfast.
October 31st was a holiday this year, because it's been 500 years since Luther made his theses known. Flederkatz and I cooked a nice dinner for a few friends: Fennel bread with cheese and apple-rosemary chutney, beef filled with dried prunes in a sauce of red wine, port, and quince jam, and mousse with pears and blackberry sauce. I was not too happy with the frozen blackberries I bought, they still had their inner stems and were chewy. The rest was very good.
November brought Flederkatz' next move, which we all had dreaded. To make things even more interesting, two days before I was sick as a dog. Felt like the mother of all hangovers and lasted from 6 in the morning to 9 in the evening. Not that I had drunk a drop of alcohol or done anything even vaguely unhealthy (except, maybe, worry too much), so that was unfair as well as unpleasant.
However, on Saturday I was OK and on Sunday I felt quite able to face the move of doom. Which turned out to be the fastest and least complicated move since the times when we were young university students and could easily fit our stuff into a station wagon. The rental company gave me a larger car than I ordered (so, only one tour needed), there were 10 helpers, I picked up the car at 11, returned it at half past 2, and at 3 p.m. we were sitting in the new flat at the dinner table eating pizza.
Two weeks later (was it only two weeks?) the even-more-dreaded advent concerto loomed. There is never enough time to practise as much as we need. I was panicked about the possibility of getting a cold, and even more about the possibility of Ceridwen getting a cold, because we were singing (most of) the solos in Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Although those were only the smaller part of the headache: There was one of the other songs I still could not make head or tail of (2nd soprano switching between 6/8 and 3/4 pattern in counterpoint to lead), another where we always lost the beat and drifted apart, one with a seemingly simple but difficult mix of a large sixth up and then the harmony down, which always ends up too low... you name it.
Because there was still so much left to do (as always) we did a last-minute rehearsal marathon (as always), 4 hours (after a full work day) on Friday on the cold stone floor in the barely heated church, 3 hours on Saturday afternoon, then one hour break, and then the performance. It's a miracle that had the energy left to hit any of the high notes.
And then it was done, the audience was very impressed, and Ceridwen, Gwydion and I went home and drank hot chocolate with rum, because we had earned it.
Sunday it was snowing. I slept until half past 10, and after noon met with Ceridwen to tour the local Christmas markets. Which I planned not to so this year since I do not like crowds, but it was high time to do something utterly useless and get out of self-imposed quarantine. Snow fell the whole day, and the whole night, turning into sleet an hour before sunrise.
I do not expect much in the way of holiday stress for December. I don't have the energy left to be stressed, worried, or anything.
A few days after the last entry, mid-October, I was in the Rhoen for a few days, for hiking. Liked it a lot, it's a park-like country, lots of open space, dotted with small woods. I was very lucky with the weather, two-and-a-half days of late summer. Only the last day was rainy, so I went home after breakfast.
October 31st was a holiday this year, because it's been 500 years since Luther made his theses known. Flederkatz and I cooked a nice dinner for a few friends: Fennel bread with cheese and apple-rosemary chutney, beef filled with dried prunes in a sauce of red wine, port, and quince jam, and mousse with pears and blackberry sauce. I was not too happy with the frozen blackberries I bought, they still had their inner stems and were chewy. The rest was very good.
November brought Flederkatz' next move, which we all had dreaded. To make things even more interesting, two days before I was sick as a dog. Felt like the mother of all hangovers and lasted from 6 in the morning to 9 in the evening. Not that I had drunk a drop of alcohol or done anything even vaguely unhealthy (except, maybe, worry too much), so that was unfair as well as unpleasant.
However, on Saturday I was OK and on Sunday I felt quite able to face the move of doom. Which turned out to be the fastest and least complicated move since the times when we were young university students and could easily fit our stuff into a station wagon. The rental company gave me a larger car than I ordered (so, only one tour needed), there were 10 helpers, I picked up the car at 11, returned it at half past 2, and at 3 p.m. we were sitting in the new flat at the dinner table eating pizza.
Two weeks later (was it only two weeks?) the even-more-dreaded advent concerto loomed. There is never enough time to practise as much as we need. I was panicked about the possibility of getting a cold, and even more about the possibility of Ceridwen getting a cold, because we were singing (most of) the solos in Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Although those were only the smaller part of the headache: There was one of the other songs I still could not make head or tail of (2nd soprano switching between 6/8 and 3/4 pattern in counterpoint to lead), another where we always lost the beat and drifted apart, one with a seemingly simple but difficult mix of a large sixth up and then the harmony down, which always ends up too low... you name it.
Because there was still so much left to do (as always) we did a last-minute rehearsal marathon (as always), 4 hours (after a full work day) on Friday on the cold stone floor in the barely heated church, 3 hours on Saturday afternoon, then one hour break, and then the performance. It's a miracle that had the energy left to hit any of the high notes.
And then it was done, the audience was very impressed, and Ceridwen, Gwydion and I went home and drank hot chocolate with rum, because we had earned it.
Sunday it was snowing. I slept until half past 10, and after noon met with Ceridwen to tour the local Christmas markets. Which I planned not to so this year since I do not like crowds, but it was high time to do something utterly useless and get out of self-imposed quarantine. Snow fell the whole day, and the whole night, turning into sleet an hour before sunrise.
I do not expect much in the way of holiday stress for December. I don't have the energy left to be stressed, worried, or anything.
