Belated Happy Holidays

A bit belated, but Happy Thanksgiving to y'all!

I've had a busy and quite interesting old time over the past wee while.

A new tenor has joined the Cathedral choir, DA, and let's just say he turned a few heads (both male and female I am told) when he arrived a bit late to the rehearsal on Thursday straight from work still wearing his Royal Navy uniform!

On Friday four of us were invited for dinner to the new home of MA (who has been in the choir for a wee while now) and her boyfriend J (just realised I don't know his surname!) who has just moved to Glasgow to join her. He makes an excellent Risotto! A very fine night. Too much wine though! And MA makes the best chocolatey desserty sweetie type things ever!

So Saturday should have been a restful day. Nah. We had to sing at a memorial service for Prof Leslie Alcock OBE, former Archeology Professor at Glasgow University and by all accounts a giant in his field of expertise. Leslie was a member of the Cathedral congregation, and his successor, CM, still sings Bass in the Cathedral choir. It was a well put together service, with all the music being chosen by CM.

So straight after the service there was a buffet lunch including a tray of wonderful carrot cake, then I headed off into town to buy some bits and pieces to take along to the east end of Glasgow joining CH and SH in NG and CG's flat. SH and CG are from the US of A (I trust you're following all this!), and we were about to celebrate, a bit belatedly, my first Thanksgiving (well technically not my first, but the first one I've observed/celebrated!). We had tried to find out what Thanksgiving is all about beforehand. What is the tradition? Should we bring presents, should we dress up, do you play games etc etc, but the story was very much "you eat and drink too much". That's it. So we did. Sadly there is now a photo in existence of two of us sitting happily sleeping on the sofa having pigged out fiercely! But then again if we had remained fully awake we might have been forced to sample the Buckfast CH and CG disappeared off to buy at the local shop on the basis that several people hadn't ever tasted it. Despite dire warnings from those of us who had actually tasted this fortified wine (I've consulted my lawyer so I'm not going to describe it further!) they tried it. Hell mend them! Not a particularly late night, we got taxis home before midnight, but it had been a long day.

This morning we sang EC Bairstow's Let all mortal flesh keep silence, which is an anthem I'm very fond of. I was asked to sing the tenor bit at the end, along with CM who was doing the bass bit. I think it went OK, but to be honest it's so rare that I do solo stuff I've almost lost the skill to judge for myself whether it sounds OK or not! One of the reasons I am fond of the anthem, apart from the fact that it's a good one, is that KY has said she always remembers it from the early 1990's as "my" anthem because she remembers me singing the tenor solo when we were both in the choir of All Saints' Church in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

After the morning service we had the Cathedral AGM, the first one over which KH has presided. I thought he handled it all very well, although I haven't got much with which to compare it because that's the first one I'd been to for years and years. I only went to show support because one of the choir had been asked if she would agree to be nominated for election to the Cathedral vestry and despite several of us counselling her she agreed. It then transpired that there were three vacancies and three candidates, so all became vestry members without a vote. Ah well. She can't say she wasn't warned!

Evensong tonight should be OK, and the pub afterwards will be as usual. Oh and on that note, I am sad to report that the Junkyard Dog (born 1927) may be not much longer for this world. Depending on who you ask the lease is up and the people who have been running it are not renewing the lease so it reverts back to another pub chain, or it's being/been sold. Either way the only reason anyone would surely dispose of it is if it wasn't making money, so whoever takes it on, if indeed they keep it open at all, will surely close it for refurbishment and relaunch. Let's hope it won't be a lager-joint. In the meantime we might have to find somewhere else. And related to the Dog, one of the barmaids seems to perhaps have had some surgical enhancement recently. Either that or she was wearing a "sheepdog" bra (rounds them up and points them in the same direction). Scary.

update: her baps had returned to their normal dimensions by the next time I saw her!