Childrens books 20

Finishing the year long series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up, but you'll be pleased to know this is the final one!

Childrens books 19

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 18

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Arrrrr!

It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day again, me hearties!  Yarrrrr!

Childrens books 17

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 16

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 15

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 14

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 13

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 12

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 11

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 10

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 9

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Tenor vacancies

The following is from Frikki Walker, Director of Music at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow:

Please could folks share and/or send this to anyone who might have an interest? Thanks.

The famous choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow has vacancies for TWO TENORS.

Requirements are: a good voice, some choral experience, a reasonable standard of musicianship and a sense of humour!

Coming up in the next few months is a week’s residency at Lincoln Cathedral, a Choir Concert, and the recording of a CD of music written for St Mary’s.

We are a voluntary choir currently comprising 20 choristers (boys and girls) and about 30 or so adults. We sing two services on Sundays and have a rehearsal on Thursday evenings. Music covers a huge range, from Medieval to present day, and we do regular broadcasts, concerts and recordings, all to a very high standard.

We are also a very sociable group, and there is much merriment and socialising to be had, too!

Recently we have had several young singers going on to study music at University, many gaining Choral Scholarships to Cambridge, Durham, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow Universities, and others have gained places to Music College or Conservatoires.

You can read more about the choir and the cathedral on our web-site: www.thecathedral.org.uk

Anyone interested is asked to email the Director of Music, Frikki Walker on music AT thecathedral.org.uk

Childrens books 8

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 7

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 6

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 5

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Many happy returns!

Childrens books 4

Continuing the series of inappropriate kids books.  I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 3

Number three in the series of kids books you might not have spotted before

I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 2

The second in a series of childrens books you might not find in your local bookstore!

I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

Childrens books 1

Number one in a short series of posts containing heart warming children's books you might not find in the shops ...

I can't remember where I obtained the image, it's been on my hard drive for years and I came across it when doing some tidying up.

It's 2014

Nedivity scene

Happy Christmas folks!

Wedding day singing

I haven't been posting much here for a while and the last thing I wrote was in relation to singing at the funeral of friend and fellow cathedral choir member Alistair Fulton, so it's only right and proper that I should now mention that today finds the other end of the spectrum and I will be singing at the wedding of friends and fellow cathedral choir members Fraser Pearce and Jane Gibson!

All life is here.

Choir music today, and there is lots of it, will include pieces by Louis Vierne, Charles Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Henry Walford Davies, Howard Goodall, and Eric Whitacre (and more but that's all I can remember).

Alistair Fulton

I'll be singing at the funeral of my friend Alistair Fulton today, in the choir of St Mary's Cathedral where he also sang (standing right next to me for a reasonable chunk of that time).

Singing in such a choir you get to attend more than your fair share of weddings and funerals, and even though you mostly don't know the happy couple or the deceased person (delete as applicable) they are usually emotional occasions so that's when, despite it being a choir of amateurs (in the true sense of that word), the professionalism kicks in and emotions are put to one side in order to get the job done. That job of course being to be a part of the team (clergy, servers, organist, conductor, choir, etc) who make the event happen and facilitate whatever spirituality or other feelings the people in the congregation are having. Whether the individual choir members feel that spirituality too is secondary, but discussion of that is for another time.

Much is made of the fact we sometimes sing on the radio ('Scotland's most broadcast choir' is the phrase regularly bandied around) but that stuff's just icing, today is the real thing.

Today will be difficult, but it will be done because Alistair was not only our friend, but he was one of us, and it'll be done because it's our job.

Review of 2012

It occurs to me that I didn't post a review of 2011 a year ago. Perhaps at the time I was suffering from the trauma of my approaching 50th birthday, but no matter the reason for last year's aberration it's now time for a review of my 2012. I didn't post here much during the year so, although some of what I'm about to mention has already been aired publically, more trivia than usual might be new. That newness doesn't necessarily make it interesting, of course, and since this Blog is probably more designed as a vehicle for me to get things off my chest occasionally, this latest in my series of year reviews is a chance for me to sit, think, and remember what the preceding 12 months held for me, so I apologise if this post holds no interest and if that's the case please feel free to surf to somewhere else more interesting for the moment!

As ever what follows is a bit of a stream of consciousness, in no particular order other than as things occur to me while I type. And doubtless I'll have missed things which, if they involved you, I apologise for not mentioning. It doesn't mean they were any less enjoyable or important, it's just that my memory is a bit suspect sometimes!

Going back a bit beyond the 12 months, towards the end of 2011 I got my beloved motorcycle back on the road after a year and a half and my big plan, possibly THE big plan of 2012, was to do a grand tour of the UK on it, partly visiting friends around the country in the process, including (in absolutely no order of precedence, just roughly clockwise round the island) Elgin, Turriff, Morpeth, Newcastle upon Tyne, Ripon, York, Lincoln, Cambridge, London, Reading, Salisbury, Portsmouth, Wells, and the Lake District. So how many did I manage to visit? Well, just York if the truth be told, and that was only because I was singing in the Minster as a representative of RSCM Scottish Voices at a service there! Maybe next year I'll get round a few more of the others. That's not to say I wasn't using the bike, I did use it to to and from York, and managed to get private secure parking in the Minster Yard while I was there - it's not what you know it's who you know - and used it pretty much year round to and from work and for a few trips around Ayrshire and Argyll.

On the downside regarding the bike, last week I returned home very late from a day of socialising in Edinburgh at a friend's 50th birthday lunch/drinks followed by seeing The Hobbit (don't bother, it's shit!), and about 10 minutes after I got into the house, around 1am, having heard a bunch of drunks in the street as I got home, there was a loud bang outside which sounded exactly like an 1100cc BMW motorcycle hitting the deck. Yes, the drunken bastards had kicked my bike over, witnessed by a neighbour, and legged it. The offside mirror is trashed, and since that incorporates the indicator, it's a three figure sum to replace it, so for the moment the bike's been moved to work where it's parked in a secure compound out of danger's way, and I'll get it fixed in due course.

I've already mentioned my 50th birthday and posted about it at length - particularly my thoughts in the lead up to it - so all I'll say now is that I thoroughly enjoyed my party in February, attended as it was by about 100 friends. One thing I've been very slightly disappointed in, I have to confess, is that having invited former school friends, quite a few of whom attended and most of whom are the same age as me, the lack of reciprocal invitations was striking throughout the year. I commented on this in an unrelated email to most of them and one or two replied that they hadn't had 50th birthday parties, but ..........! Inviting people wasn't ever meant as a quid pro quo, but even so it would have been nice to get even one return invitation!

In January I found myself attending a seminar held at Vodafone's HQ in Berkshire, and was quite impressed at the building and particularly at Lewis Hamilton's Formula 1 car on display in the foyer (Vodafone being a main sponsor of the team). I'm going to the 2013 seminar in the same place so I'll see whether it's still there now that he's jumped ship.

Other trips away from home were to Cheltenham for a training course, staying at the Hotel du Vin across from Cheltenham Girls' College (and a very nice hotel it was too), the aforementioned trip to York, and a weekend in Altrincham at the wedding of friends, all of which were very enjoyable.

I continue to sing in Glasgow Chamber Choir, RSCM Scottish Voices and the choir of St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow (who, as I type this, were on BBC Radio 4 this morning singing Morning Worship), and although I didn't join GCC on their weekend trip to sing in Sweden one exceptionally enjoyable singing weekend was spent with the cathedral choir in Beverley Minster in Yorkshire. The music was good, the welcome we received was excellent, the town was lovely, the beer garden across the road was fun, and best of all I renewed a friendship with someone I hadn't seen for years who was unexpectedly there as an extra singer and I'm glad to say we've managed to keep in regular touch since then, largely by text message. In truth, the renewal of that friendship after so long was one of the high spots of my year!  As I get older I realise more and more that friends are exceptionally important parts of our lives, and I count myself lucky to have several very good ones. I won't name names, but you know who you are.

One thing that looked like it would come out of meeting Becca again was a potential reunion of The Marian Consort, the now defunct choir of which we were members back in the 1990's, and to that end I started to try to contact as many former members as I could to see if there was a desire to get together again, even for a one-off social/singing event.  Unfortunately the response amongst those I contacted, although largely positive, fell a bit short of the numbers I'd need to get a viable choir together to sing so I've sort of put it on the back burner for now and will try again soon.  Maybe it'll just be a social event rather than a singing one.

Another real high spot was me getting an iPad, and having had my home PC running virtually 24/7 for a number of years I now find it's only switched on about once a week at most as there's not all that much I can't do on the iPad.  The iPad impressed me as soon as I got it, and I've found no reason to change that opinion.

I've been doing some cycling in the past year, although not as much as I'd like to have done, but in November I bought a cycle carrier for the car so I can now go a bit further afield and find new paths to try so hopefully next year I'll do better.  This was always a plan that my friend Ruth and I had when we got our cycles around the same time as each other, so we've no excuse not to next year!

The reason I bought the carrier was to go on holiday for a week up to Torridon, in the north west Highlands of Scotland, with three friends, Ruth, Kirsty and Al, during which time we cycled, walked, ate, drank, laughed and generally had a good relaxing time.  Plans are already afoot to go back up there somewhere next year around September.

I don't intend breaking my habit of avoiding Blogging about work, and there's no particular reason for that self-imposed rule other than I think it isn't right to do so.  Suffice to say however that although I continue to love what I'm doing, where I'm doing it, and who I'm doing it for, in these financially tight times the organisation for whom I work is about to undertake a merger making a much bigger entity, and at the moment there's a definite air of uncertainty around since no one can be sure where, or indeed if, they'll be working a year from now.  I suspect I'll be safe, but one never knows.  In the meantime I continue to play the National Lottery Euromillions!

Although as I mentioned I still sing in the cathedral choir, in the past year or so I've felt an ongoing decrease in anything I get from services other than the music.  This has gone on to the extent that I now can't quite bring myself to say out loud the spoken parts of the service, although I am in fact thinking them in my head.  I continue to attend and sing at Choral Evensong in the hope that this is temporary, but I don't think I have any control over whether that does turn out to be the case.  I can't explain what's happened, I don't really know myself, and I can only wait and see, and hope that in the meantime my continued presence is accepted.

So, that's a very brief outline of my 2012.  Overall the year was neither particularly good nor outrageously bad, but on the whole it was fine for me with one or two stand out bits such as Torridon and Beverley.  I go into 2013, living here in the cold wet west of Scotland with my cat Elmo, with the twin intentions of keeping in contact with good friends, and trying to stay positive about life.

I wish you everything you'd wish for yourself in 2013 and beyond.