Liz Going On

I’ve been at choir tonight.  And I was there last night.  And we’ve got a concert tomorrow.  Faure’s Requiem.  Mmmmm. Its lovely.  I’ve never performed it before, so am really enjoying it even though classic FM have stolen it and play bits of it to death.

A few weeks ago I had my choir vocal assessment.  I passed, whee, so am in the choir for another two years (big relief) and am rather pleased that I’m allowed to stay in my current section.  You see, I’m currently a second alto (the lowest female section) but in my assessment I sang the high notes really well, but the low ones were a bit rubbish.  Anyway, at the time I could tell the choral director was thinking about moving me to a different section (the first altos) but I pleaded to stay a second. And it worked.  So tonight I had the chance to thank the choral director for not moving me.  And he said nice things about my voice and the assessment, which made me very happy.

Singing makes me happy.  I should remember this more often when I’m getting grumpy for no reason.  And I recommend you people out there to try it too.

Do all cyclists have a death wish?

I’ve just driven home from Chorlton along Wilbraham Road.  I encountered three cyclists.  

All three had no lights and weren’t wearing helmets (its dark outside…)

All three swerved around the road.

All three completely ignored red lights and almost ended up on a car bonnet. 

And even though I fear I’m turning into my Mother, I worried for their safety. 

Seem to have loads to write about today. 

Friday I finished work early so went to the gym.  And I went on thursday too, but this wasn’t enough to avert a disaster at fat club.  But I had eaten cheese and wine and chocolate for two weeks (and enjoyed every calorie) so I deserved it. For some reason I’ve been super efficient this week and my house is very clean.  I even vacuumed the inside of my car.  Which is all rather unlike me.  But I am enjoying being surrounded by cleanliness!

Then Andrew came round and we went to the cinema.  I saw ‘The Inside man’ a Denzel Washington film about a bank holdup.  It had moments which were really inspired and rather clever, but lots of implausable shite too.  Overall it was average.

I keep trying to write this and getting disturbed by phone calls, chat and emails.  Aargh!!!  Anyway, I shall continue.

On saturday I went here with Andrew and some of his friends.  I really liked it. Port sunlight was rather pretty, but I’m not sure I’d want to live there! (but maybe cos its in the Wirral!!!).  The gallery is free and interesting, not too big so it kept my attention and had a good collection of stuff. 

Saturday night we headed to Nawaab for a curry.  Its the massive place on the A6, near my house that used to be a bingo hall and cinema.  I’d been there a few times and thought it was quite good, but last night I wasn’t so impressed.  I think it may have changed hands as the atmosphere is different and its lost its alcohol liscence (and curry without beer is like Christmas without turkey in my mind).  The food was tasty and quite spicy, but the currys were rather sloppy and watery, the lamb ones particularly seemed to be a complete pile of bones and no meat, yum!  And the collection of ice cream was rather disturbing.  Blue bubble gum flavour and grey black jack flavour! Eeugh!

This morning I had yet another water dripping from kitchen ceiling situation which vexes me every few months.  I wish I could explain it, but despite thorougher searching I fail to find a cause.  Hmmm.  Currently I am ignoring it as it happens once every 4 months and isn’t that bad.  I may live to regret this.. 

Today Miranda, Steve, Debbie, Paula, Patrick, Cass, Joe, Andy and I went to Lyme park (fed up of hyperlinks now, sorry guys!).  It was ace!!!  Andy walked all the way from CassHouse (well done Andy!) and Cass and Joe risked thier lives on bicycles.  We wandered. Pat flew his kite and we ate cake.  Hurrah for Cake.  Lyme park does a really good selection of cake.  Then we wandered some more, avoided mud and saw deer.  Then we headed onto a nice pub and sat outside, drank beer, talked mostly rubbish and ate lunch.  Yes, we did have afternoon tea at lunchtime and lunch at teatime, but it was a genius plan.  Cos we missed the rush at both places!

Now its sunday evening and I’ve played on the interwebnet for a few hours and I’m ignoring the fact that its Monday tomorrow. 

… but enjoying it nevertheless.

For the past two days I’ve been searching my soul for something profound to say and I’ve unfortunatly not found it.  So i’ll tell you about new things in my life.

I have an ace blanket box, thanks to my mum.  I was going to put it in me bedroom, but its actually looking pretty swish in my dining room. I’ve retrieved my hockey sticks, tennis rackets and babminton rackets from Chez Mom and I’m hoping to use them soon.  Actually I’m rubbish at tennis, but have promised someone I’ll play (I think my fear of tennis has something to do with the time I knocked myself out with the net when I was trying play at school,  it was rather embarrasing to say the least!).

Last night I went to see Rachel.  She lives in Kendal, so we meet near Preston in a pub for a natter.  I’ve known Rachel since first year of uni and its always really nice to see her and to catch up.  We both spent a lot of time talking about how nice life is at the moment, which makes a change (for me especially as I normally have numerous traumas to recount to her!).

I’ve been away for Easter.  It was lovely.  I went Borth (a village 10 miles north of Aberystwyth) with mum,  we’ve had a holiday home there since before I was born.  We went for walks, drank wine, ate chocolate (argued, a little bit) and other nice things.  And I’ve managed to put my photos in albums from 1998 to 2003.  I was hoping to get up to date, but I forgot the last 3 years worth of pics!  It was really fun and quite theraputic to sory out my pics, and I was amazed about how many I threw away.

What else?  A couple of night shifts.  So it feels like ages since I last slept in my own bed.

I don’t feel I’m doing very well at this blogging thing at the moment.  Maybe I should wait for inspiration to hit… Hmmm….. 

When I bought my house over two years ago lots of people thought I was mad buying in the area I bought.  I have to admit its not got the best reputation, but I’d got friends living around here and it fitted my buget.  All the time I’ve been here I’ve not had any problems, or even heard of anyone having any trouble (ie, no break-ins, no car damage, no muggings) and I’ve actually felt rather safe. (And I’ve even done dense things like leave my back door unlocked for a week!).

But last night that all changed.  I happened to catch ‘North West Tonight’ on the telly while at work.  In the past couple of months there has been 15 attacks by what appears to be two people.  The first series (of 8 attacks) have inculded rape and robberies and have occured late at night on and around my street.  I don’t do anything foolish, but I do walk back from the bus when pissed on a fairly regular basis. And I know I’ve done it in the last two months when the attacks have been happening. But I won’t anymore.

If you want to read all the details then the Greater Manchester Police have details on their website.  

I decided that I wanted to try yoga yesterday.  I’ve done a class called ‘body balance’ before which claims to be a mixture of Yoga, Tai Chi and Pilates and I really like it, but with work and choir I can’t often make the class.

I think I picked the wrong class.  The teacher was your typical stereotype lady in her 50s, small and spritely.  And the class was very heavily orientated to looking at your 7 chakras.  And there were lots of bells.  And headstands.  And I struggled to keep a straight face when she was talking about the base chakra , which was a red colour (and I bet you could guess where that hides…) glowing brightly.

Quite enjoyed the crazy stretches though, I’m rather flexible! Think I’ll stick with the body balance in future.

On another tack, but it could be slightly related. I think my pet rabbit has a problem with her red chakra.  She appears to have a mild case of arse rot.  Ok I’m sure you won’t want all the details, but I may have a trip to the vet ahead.  But at the moment she’s not bothered by it and still prances round the yard like its her kindgom so I’m not too worried. 

I seem to have been singing a lot recently.  I guess that’s cos we had a choir concert last night and there were reherasals friday night and saturday.  I had my doubts that I wasn’t going to enjoy the concert (as I’m not a massive fan of Tallis and co), but it went really well and I sang quite well and didn’t make too many mistakes. 

After the concert Paula, Patrick, Andrew, Paul (Andrew’s friend) and I proceeded to get rather drunk.  A lot of rubbish was talked about.  And I hurt today.  But a fried breakfast at my local greasy spoon helped a lot.

This afternoon I saw Rentaghost the Musical.  It was ace and fab!  Lots of nice little magic tricks and silly songs.

And now I can’t be bothered to write any more.  Must be the hangover still plaguing me! 

Today was my biennial choir exam (or vocal assessment as its properly called).  They are scary and horrid and if you don’t do well enough you can be asked to re-audition and be thrown out.  The worst bit is the sight reading, which is hated by everyone (ok, nearly everyone, I don’t think Jocelyn hates it quite as much as the rest of us) and is normally rather tricky.

It went ok I think.  My piece was fine, I even quite enjoyed singing it.  The sight reading was average at best.  I managed to stay in the right place, but it was slightly my own improvisation and not quite what was written.  My exercises (vocal, not physical!) were ok too, except I know my low notes weren’t as good as they usually are.  I think that the chorus master (Jamie) is considering moving me to the first altos….  He asked which part I sing at present, and then I pleaded not to be moved (I tried to make reasonable reasons!).  Will have to wait and see what the report says.  Fingers crossed I don’t have to move, that would make me grumpy and I’d constantly get lost and sing the wrong note!

This morning I was very productive.  I collected mum’s Chinese visa, gave blood, went shopping (and got very frustrated in Argos with inept people) then met Paula and Suzanne for a Bridesmaid frock measuring event.  After being measured and deciding what size to buy we went to Zinc for lunch.  Mmmmm.  It was really yummy, but not cheap.  12.5% service was added to the bill, which we though was a bit cheeky, so we only paid 10%.  But we had to justify it to the waiter.  He seemed reasonable, which was nice.  Not like at my birthday meal when we only put 7% service in as the service wasn’t that great.  The waiters made us list the reasons why we didn’t want to pay the full amount, and weren’t nice at all.  Service charge is optional!  Pah!  I’m really not a big fan of tipping (and I’m rubbish at it!).  I wish everywhere was like Samoa, where wages are fair and tipping isn’t allowed. 

Well three days have passed since my first/last post. I guess that time flies when you’re having fun. So what fun have I been having?…

Monday I had a day off.  I had a trip to the Chinese consulate, as my mum is soon to visit my brother (who lives in China) and needs a visa.  Its a strange place (the consulate), it kinda feels just like China (with lots of Chinese people pushing, being rude and staring) and there’s not much love around (there were lots of people who had issues with reading and following instructions).  But I queued, handed over my paperwork and left.

I went to the dentist.  I love my dentist, he’s fab!  And did lots of chores.  I went round to Alsion’s and she fed me tea, but we failed to fix her broardband.

Tuesday night Cass popped round with my birthday present.  8 lovely glasses, which were cleverly wrapped in a dancemat box. I’m glad it wasn’t a dancemat as I don’t have anything to plug it into (and I don’t particularly want a playstation either!).  Andrew was here too.  He’s lovely!  (That’s the most exciting thing that’s happened since I stopped blogging, I appear to have acquired a boyfriend, and its all very pleasant!)

Tonight I’ve been to choir, it was ok.  I’ve got my bi-annual choir exam tomorrow.  They’re horrible things with really nasty sight reading and the prospect of the shame of being thrown out of choir if you’re not good enough.  Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen to me!

By the way, I’m still playing with the settings on this blog, so things may change/comments may take a while to appear.  Please bear with me!  Cheers!