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.
Showing posts with label annual review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label annual review. Show all posts
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Review of 2010
Well, it's that time of the year again. The fourth annual stream-of-consciousness review of Layclerk's year lies below. If you're a regular reader of this Blog (why?) then you may be aware of some of what's about to follow, if you know me in real life, and particularly if you're a Facebook friend and see my occasional status updates, then you'll have heard a great deal of it, and if you're one of my close friends then nothing I'm about to say will be news. Not that any of it is revelatory in any case.
On the topic of Facebook, and before I get started on the review, I've now developed the deeply ingrained habit of looking at the site several times a day. No, make that loads of times a day! I don't change my status too often, preferring to steer clear of what I consider to be the really mundane, but try to put things which may actually be of some small amount of interest to my friends, of which as it stands today I have 270, all of whom apart from a very small handful are actually known to me in real life and can be loosely considered friends to a much greater or much lesser degree. I know others use the site to add "virtual" friends willy-nilly, but that's not for me. The small handful I've not met are made up mostly of family members from round the world with whom I've been in contact while tracing my geneaology over the years (sharing great great great great grandparents but descended from different siblings for example) and a small sprinkling of contacts I've made through them commenting on this Blog or me commenting on theirs. This latter group can be considered truly "virtual" but one never knows, I may meet them at some point, which would be good because they all seem like good people.
So, 2010, how was it, I hear you ask. Pretty good on the whole, if truth be told.
I still maintain my silence when it comes to work, I don't feel it's appropriate to Blog about it, but whereas I'm still enjoying it and continue to be as busy as ever, the harsh realities of the current world economic climate are such that the dark spectre of redundancies has presented itself on the horizon, an offshoot of a massive reduction in funding from 2011 and for the next few years, however beyond introducing a voluntary redundancy scheme the top person in the organisation (a genuinely good bloke in my opinion, and one for whom I have a lot of time) has said publicly there'll be no compulsory ones so that's of some comfort. Doubtless there will be unavoidable financial economies and constraints, but fingers crossed that I'll still be around once the upturn happens, whenever that may be, albeit a bit poorer because of a reduction in paid overtime.
My review of 2009 mentioned having taken over as administrator for RSCM Scottish Voices, and that's a role in which I continue. I won't pretend it's all easy and plain sailing, and between you and me I put a lot of time and effort into it (which I think is appreciated by the choir members), but it's a very rewarding task which I think I'm performing reasonably well. We now have our own site, at www.rscmscottishvoices.org.uk which mostly contains details of upcoming events and information about the choir, who's who, and how to go about auditioning. The site's still in its early days, but in due course it'll develop naturally, as these things do, and there'll be more to read.
I recently did away with my own website, www.thecathedralchoir.org.uk as I hadn't updated anything on it for well over a year, so now that Domain just points to this Blog and I've saved myself a chunk of money as I no longer need the web hosting package from my ISP, just email and Domain pointing. In the meantime I've transferred a few things over here from the old site, such as the histories of my choirs and my motorcycles, and there are a few other things scheduled for the future. I may get round to replicating the page on my site which sought to recount every pub in which I'd ever had a drink (an ongoing project!) but it's quite labour intensive so it may take a while and be a fragmented version.
Another singing thing mentioned in last year's review was The New Quartet, and although it's still fledgling, and still primarily a social event for us, we have now sung properly in public, in a concert in June in the Glasgow Art Club, which seemed to go down very well. Again, we have a website at www.newquartet.org.uk, but there isn't too much there at the moment apart from some contact details if anyone wants us to come and sing anywhere, and a review and photo of our concert in the Art Club.
Glasgow Chamber Choir goes from strength to strength, and the 2009/2010 season has seen us singing concerts featuring music by William Byrd, Frank Martin and Olivier Messaien in November 2009; various Christmas "favourites" in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh in December 2009; music by William Walton, Jonathan Harvey, Thomas Tomkins, Thomas Weelkes and Orlando Gibbons in March 2010; G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach in June; Herbert Howells, Johannes Brahms and William Byrd in November 2010 and, for me, has seen amazing high points such as Howells' fantastic piece written for the memorial service for John F. Kennedy, Take him, earth for cherishing and Handel's wondefully exciting Dixit Dominus, as well as (for me) low points such as both the Jonathan Harvey pieces, which I've now managed to erase from my mind and can't remember what they were called. I said at the time that if ever anything by Jonathan Harvey was scheduled to be sung ever again in any choir I'm in, even a single short piece in a long programme, then I won't be available for that concert. And I stand by that.
More recently, in fact only a couple of weeks ago, 10 of us from Glasgow Chamber Choir sang carols live on BBC Radio Scotland during the programme Get it On with Bryan Burnett, which goes out on weekdays between 6pm-8pm. It's kind of a request show of sorts, the theme of the evening being set by the presenter and listeners contact the show suggesting tracks that fit the theme, and that evening the theme was their Christmas Carol Concert, so we were in a studio waiting for the general public to decide what we'd sing, interspersed with proper recordings of Bing Crosby, . It was a good laugh, although when I heard a recording of the end result on i-Player I was disappointed that the mics were far too close to us so the blend wasn't great. There was a video taken of us singing one of the carols live, and it's on the BBC Website, in the unlikely event you want a look!
Next year, in March, Glasgow Chamber Choir will be visiting the Netherlands (Amersfoort and Utrecht, near Amsterdam) to sing with a Dutch choir, St Joris Kamerkoor, and in turn they'll be coming over to Scotland to sing with us in Glasgow and Edinburgh in May. It should be a lot of fun!
Not least, the other singing thing in which I'm involved, and the reason for this Blog's name of course, is the choir of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow. I still sing there at Choral Evensong every Sunday and it's still very enjoyable, musically and socially. We've just released another recording of the choir, a CD called Listen, which is available to buy from the cathedral website. In a few weeks we'll be recording another, this time of Christmas music.
The 30th anniversary of leaving Dalziel High School was marked by another get together in the Electric Bar in Motherwell. It went well, and it was great to see even more people there than had been at the previous one in 2009. We all agreed we should do it annually from now on, so that's going ahead!
The Institute of Advanced Motorists has taken even more of a back seat this year, and as I suggested I might do in the 2009 review, I've quit the local group, coincidentally with effect from the moment this was posted! I won't bother with the details here, but suffice to say I'm not particularly impressed by the people skills (or lack thereof) of some involved in the group. I'll still stay a member of the IAM, just not in a local group. Well, certainly not that group anyway.
The motorcycle, my lovely BMW R1100RT, has been laid up with a slipping clutch (expensive!) for much of the year, but a colleague has now offered to have a go at replacing it for me in his spare time. I just need to work out how to transport it to his house, some 40 miles from work where it's been sitting for months, safely and securely parked.
RE had a significant birthday this year, and it was great to meet one of her sisters from New Zealand when she came over for the birthday celebrations (having already met one sister and her brother, seperately, a while back). Over a weekend the festivities included a meal, a drink/meal/party, and a hillwalk up The Cobbler. I have a significant birthday coming up in 2012, and I only hope I do it as much justice as RE did in organising a whole weekend of events, albeit my significant birthday is bigger than hers!
My fitness quest has had mixed and varying results, but it continues. I was doing quite well, more than quadrupling the time I was capable of on the treadmill, but ran a bit too hard about a month ago and tweaked the achilles tendon on my right leg. Truly horrible memories of the ruptured achilles tendon on my left leg stay with me almost 4 years after the event, and I've been too nervous to go back to the gym until I'm completely happy it isn't going to end in tears! I'm pretty much at that stage though, so I'll be back soon.
One great step forward was getting some decoration done in the flat, at long long last. I managed to find a tradesman who came in, stripped the wallpaper in the living room, prepared the plaster underneath, emulsioned the walls and ceiling, and glossed all the woodwork, all at a very reasonable rate. What a difference! I'm so much happier sitting in it now, without having to look at torn wallpaper (the aftermath of a new damp proof course being installed when I bought the place). So that's now the hallway and living room done, and hopefully next year I'll be in the financial position to have the other rooms done too (after the usual Christmas overspend has resolved itself!).
A real low point was back in May, when my late mum's only sister, my aunt Shirley, died suddenly. Not entirely unexpectedly, but an awful lot sooner than predicted. I miss her. I miss my mum who died absolutely suddenly and completely unexpectedly in June 1996, and I miss their mother, my nana, who passed away in January 2008. But they are now together and looking down on us, along with my niece Rebekah who would have been 20 this year, had life not cruelly been snatched away before she was 5.
That's now over a year my brother and his family have been back in the UK after their years in Dubai and California, and it's still great to have them around, although he seems to have to work away from home for large periods at a time, mostly in Belgium but also in Texas, amongst other places which this year have included Moscow! My niece is still singing in the Cathedral choir, and seems to enjoy it, which is great.
Back in August I was fortunate enough to attend a training course in Cambridge, and since it was two weeks long I was able to stay down there for the middle weekend, and use that more or less as my holiday away this year, particularly as RE came down to stay for the weekend. Great weather (mostly), a great city, and great company made it, well, great! Hopefully at some point in 2011 I'll get away for a proper holiday though. The middle weekend was also when the last of a series of three recordings of BBC Songs of Praise from St Mary's Cathedral was broadcast, on an unrelated topic.
So that's all that readily springs to mind at a single random sitting. I'll doubtless have missed things, and if so it isn't necessarily because they weren't important to me, so apologies if I've missed mentioning something you shared with me.
I'd like to finish this post by taking the opportunity to thank all my friends for their continuing friendship and support, all my family for their unconditional love, all those who read my occasional stream of consciousness here (particularly those who for some reason seem to do it regularly), and not least I'd like to thank RE for being who she is and for all she means to me.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Review of 2009
Well the choir of King's College, Cambridge are on the radio performing Nine Lessons and Carols right now as I sit here starting to type this, so it must be time for my third annual review. How was Lay Clerk's 2009?
A bit mixed, to be honest, but then again such is life. Much of what occupied my mind throughout the whole year concerns another person and according to the unwritten rules of Blogging which are solely in my head, I choose to keep that topic to myself.
Another unwritten rule is that I won't Blog about work, so apart from saying that I'm still enjoying it and we continue to be as busy as ever, I'll leave it there.
On the subject of work, a close friend was unfortunately made redundant at the start of the year, a victim of the worldwide economic situation, and for a few months went through a difficult time during which I hope I was there to offer what little support or help I could, and thankfully a new, better job was secured after a while. Onwards and upwards.
I still sing with Glasgow Chamber Choir, mostly enjoying it but sometimes having to fight against my inner dislike of certain types of choral music. On the whole it continues to be good fun, good musically, and a good bunch of people.
In 2009 my presence in the choirstalls at the Cathedral occurred more frequently and more regularly, and more or less every week I sing Choral Evensong on the Sunday, which I am thoroughly enjoying.
In about May the administrator of RSCM Scottish Voices, which was started the previous summer, resigned, and I was subsequently asked to take over that role. It's been an interesting 6 months, most but not quite all of it interesting in a nice way. I've registered a Domain name for the choir, but haven't yet got round to uploading the website which is sitting on my laptop. In truth, this is mostly because I've forgotten how to go about having multiple websites hosted together but kept separate, since it's been such a long time since I did anything with any of my sites. At some point I'll get the finger out and do it. And if anyone familiar with creating and uploading websites to 1&1 using Microsoft Frontpage is reading this and wants to remind me how easy it is, I'd be obliged! In the meantime I've also started a Blog for the choir, which is linked from the sidebar on the left. If any RSCM Scottish Voices members are reading this for some reason, and they fancy having a go at sometimes adding choir-related content to our Blog, email me.
In May I sang with The Biggar Singers in an enjoyable performance of Morten Lauridsen's piece, Lux Aeterna, which involved about a hundred mile round trip every week to rehearse. The choir's conducted and accompanied respectively by two members of Glasgow Chamber Choir who live down that way, and my few weeks of excessive travel pale into insignificance when set against them doing it every week coming to Glasgow. And indeed two other GCC members travel from Dumfriesshire every week to rehearse!
A personal high point of the year was when I was asked to sing the tenor solo in a performance of Stainer's Crucifixion on Good Friday in Paisley. My initial reaction upon being asked was "no thanks, I'm a chorister, not a soloist" but when I thought about it, knowing that I can actually sing the notes if not necessarily perform them as a "proper" soloist would, I thought why the hell not. And so I did. And it went well. First time I've ever had my name on a poster! I have no ambitions to be a soloist, and while I'd possibly say yes if asked again, equally I am not at all bothered.
I paid another visit to Paisley later in April, but this time to the Paisley Beer Festival, which was most enjoyable and having been there two years ago is likely to become an annual pilgrimage, albeit I missed last year as I was in Calfornia. I only went on one evening, but a fellow Cathedral chorister, Neil, took holiday from work and went every day. Now that's dedication!
In July four of us from Glasgow Chamber Choir, having coincidentally and enjoyably sung solo parts together during a recent concert, decided to get together and sing together some more. We've met twice so far, it's as much a social event as a musical one, and despite some (hopefully tongue in cheek) remarks from another couple of friends about "the elite group" it's just a bunch of friends singing, drinking and eating together. We've performed together under the name The New Quartet in public once, a few days ago in a branch of a bank for charity, but who knows whether we'll do it again or whether it'll stay purely as a social event.
After a break of 29 years, I met up with former schoolfriends at a wee reunion in Motherwell in April. It was as though we'd only had a break of 6 months and we all got on great again. An unexpectedly tremendous evening. Another one, on a bigger scale, is planned for next year when it'll be 30 years since we left school. And I foolishly offered to co-ordinate it. It shouldn't involve much more than a few emails though, so should be OK.
On the subject of school, there is a sobering time in one's life when one's schoolfriends start dying. In August Kenny Stewart was the first of us to go. Admittedly the lovely, intelligent, caring person Catherine Fellowes died in a tragic diving accident soon after we left school, leaving her massive potential unfulfilled, but Kenny is the first to die without having an accident. He was one of my closest friends at school, and despite us having some differences in later years, you can't take away the fact that we grew up together.
In July RE and I made a weekend trip to the north east of Scotland to see friends, Stephanie and Martin, and to have a wee tour about. It's an area of the country I happen to really like, and it was good not only to show RE round it, but to catch up with old friends at their barbecue. I've known Stephanie since the mid 1980's when she was a student at Glasgow University and joined the Cathedral Choir, so she's probably one of my oldest friends and although we don't see each other terribly often, it's good to catch up when we can.
In August my brother, his wife and daughter moved back to Scotland. They've been living abroad for about a dozen years, first in Dubai and then in San Diego, California. For some reason they decided to come back to the Scottish climate, and it's great to have them here. My niece, Jess, has joined the Cathedral Choir trebles, and seems to enjoy it I'm glad to say. I was immensely proud to be asked to present her with her surplice at Evensong when she passed from being a probationer to being a chorister. They hosted a Halloween party in October (on the 30th, funnily enough!) and the fact that they live in a castle (yes, really) made it all the more spooky! Great fun.
August also saw a return visit to the World Pipe Band Championship at Glasgow Green, with RE, her cousin and his German girlfriend who were visiting Scotland. It rained. But it was a very enjoyable day despite the weather.
In September RE hosted one of her sisters, visiting from New Zealand, and I joined them for a trip to Linlithgow, their ancestral town. It was the first time I've been there, and I can now recommend the Four Mary's pub in the main street.
In a much previous life I was a roadie and mixed the sound for a local band. All very enjoyable, but in an amateur way. A friend, Ian, does it for a living though, well, the sound engineer bit anyway, and ages ago I mentioned to him that if he was ever needing some semi-skilled labour (i.e. really unskilled!) then I'd happily come and lift and carry stuff around for him. In September he called my bluff, and I found myself for two days being a roadie working on the sound crew at the Merchant City Festival in Glasgow. With three outdoor stages and an indoor venue to be covered, it was hard work, a bit physical sometimes, and a lot to take in, but it was great. I even ended up twiddling the knobs for one act, while Ian was called away to deal with a change of venue for another group. All very basic stuff of course, but I'm glad to say Ian trusted me enough to leave me on my own, and I'm even gladder to say I managed to avoid fucking it up! I'm looking forward to the next time, although I don't expect a change of career is due anytime soon!
The Institute of Advanced Motorists has taken more of a back seat this year, pardon the pun, although I did complete the necessary number of observed runs to continue as a Qualified Motorcycle Observer. It remains to be seen however whether I'll continue next year.
I've started to get the flat a bit more sorted. With the benefit of hindsight I realise that when I moved in I wasn't really in the right emotional frame of mind to do the decorating necessary, and as time went on I stopped seeing the faults. I have now got as far as getting a quote from a decorator, and getting the hallway replastered. Soon after Christmas I'll contact the decorator again and get him to come and do the business in the living room and hallway.
My general level of fitness continues to improve as I take advantage of the gym a few hundred yards from my house. I even made it onto a running track with RE a couple of times, but that was very hard going at that time! In the past few weeks I've slipped a bit, but my main New Year's resolution is to redouble my efforts. And I WILL do it.
On a fitness topic, in 2009 I did something I never thought I'd do. I climbed a hill. Not only a hill, but it was in fact a Munro. I've never ever ever been interested in hillwalking, and have been vocal about that opinion all through my life. But RE persuaded me to try it. Well I say persuaded me, but not proactively. I just mean that her influence, unbeknownst to her, made me want to do it. So she kindly agreed to "babysit me" up a hill. I'd be lying if I said there weren't bits I didn't enjoy. I slipped and fell up to my knees in a very cold stream; I slithered and slid my way down what was allegedly a "path"; I fell and staved my finger, but I bloody enjoyed it! And I know that thousands of people do it every weekend and think nothing of it. But this was me doing it. Me who about a year ago looked as though he was about to expire after a very short climb up a set of steps to a scenic viewpoint in the Scottish Borders. Me who a year ago hadn't taken any form of exercise for God knows how long, apart from when I tried badminton and spectacularly ruptured my achilles tendon. Me who is a city boy who has always said he didn't mind walking as long as it was on a pavement. This was me who walked up that Munro. And it is still me who is immensely proud of having done it, and proud of his friend RE for having the patience, skill and perseverance to help me all the way. Others may do it more often and with less effort, but we all have different abilities and different goals, and this particular achievement ranks highly for me.
So that's a potted history of Lay Clerk's 2009. A mixed year, but generally a good one and ending better than it started. Much of the above was Blogged about in depth at the time so if you've read this post in isolation it must seem pretty sparse of detail, and of course I've missed things out. Not just deliberately missed things to protect other people's privacy, but simply because things will have slipped my mind. Something which will hopefully never slip my mind though is to mention the love, friendship, and support of my closest friends, some of whom have been such for the thick end of 25 years, some for only a couple of years, but I value them all and thank them for their continuing friendship and support. I won't name them, but you know who you are. Thank you one and all.
Happy Christmas folks!
A bit mixed, to be honest, but then again such is life. Much of what occupied my mind throughout the whole year concerns another person and according to the unwritten rules of Blogging which are solely in my head, I choose to keep that topic to myself.
Another unwritten rule is that I won't Blog about work, so apart from saying that I'm still enjoying it and we continue to be as busy as ever, I'll leave it there.
On the subject of work, a close friend was unfortunately made redundant at the start of the year, a victim of the worldwide economic situation, and for a few months went through a difficult time during which I hope I was there to offer what little support or help I could, and thankfully a new, better job was secured after a while. Onwards and upwards.
I still sing with Glasgow Chamber Choir, mostly enjoying it but sometimes having to fight against my inner dislike of certain types of choral music. On the whole it continues to be good fun, good musically, and a good bunch of people.
In 2009 my presence in the choirstalls at the Cathedral occurred more frequently and more regularly, and more or less every week I sing Choral Evensong on the Sunday, which I am thoroughly enjoying.
In about May the administrator of RSCM Scottish Voices, which was started the previous summer, resigned, and I was subsequently asked to take over that role. It's been an interesting 6 months, most but not quite all of it interesting in a nice way. I've registered a Domain name for the choir, but haven't yet got round to uploading the website which is sitting on my laptop. In truth, this is mostly because I've forgotten how to go about having multiple websites hosted together but kept separate, since it's been such a long time since I did anything with any of my sites. At some point I'll get the finger out and do it. And if anyone familiar with creating and uploading websites to 1&1 using Microsoft Frontpage is reading this and wants to remind me how easy it is, I'd be obliged! In the meantime I've also started a Blog for the choir, which is linked from the sidebar on the left. If any RSCM Scottish Voices members are reading this for some reason, and they fancy having a go at sometimes adding choir-related content to our Blog, email me.
In May I sang with The Biggar Singers in an enjoyable performance of Morten Lauridsen's piece, Lux Aeterna, which involved about a hundred mile round trip every week to rehearse. The choir's conducted and accompanied respectively by two members of Glasgow Chamber Choir who live down that way, and my few weeks of excessive travel pale into insignificance when set against them doing it every week coming to Glasgow. And indeed two other GCC members travel from Dumfriesshire every week to rehearse!
A personal high point of the year was when I was asked to sing the tenor solo in a performance of Stainer's Crucifixion on Good Friday in Paisley. My initial reaction upon being asked was "no thanks, I'm a chorister, not a soloist" but when I thought about it, knowing that I can actually sing the notes if not necessarily perform them as a "proper" soloist would, I thought why the hell not. And so I did. And it went well. First time I've ever had my name on a poster! I have no ambitions to be a soloist, and while I'd possibly say yes if asked again, equally I am not at all bothered.
I paid another visit to Paisley later in April, but this time to the Paisley Beer Festival, which was most enjoyable and having been there two years ago is likely to become an annual pilgrimage, albeit I missed last year as I was in Calfornia. I only went on one evening, but a fellow Cathedral chorister, Neil, took holiday from work and went every day. Now that's dedication!
In July four of us from Glasgow Chamber Choir, having coincidentally and enjoyably sung solo parts together during a recent concert, decided to get together and sing together some more. We've met twice so far, it's as much a social event as a musical one, and despite some (hopefully tongue in cheek) remarks from another couple of friends about "the elite group" it's just a bunch of friends singing, drinking and eating together. We've performed together under the name The New Quartet in public once, a few days ago in a branch of a bank for charity, but who knows whether we'll do it again or whether it'll stay purely as a social event.
After a break of 29 years, I met up with former schoolfriends at a wee reunion in Motherwell in April. It was as though we'd only had a break of 6 months and we all got on great again. An unexpectedly tremendous evening. Another one, on a bigger scale, is planned for next year when it'll be 30 years since we left school. And I foolishly offered to co-ordinate it. It shouldn't involve much more than a few emails though, so should be OK.
On the subject of school, there is a sobering time in one's life when one's schoolfriends start dying. In August Kenny Stewart was the first of us to go. Admittedly the lovely, intelligent, caring person Catherine Fellowes died in a tragic diving accident soon after we left school, leaving her massive potential unfulfilled, but Kenny is the first to die without having an accident. He was one of my closest friends at school, and despite us having some differences in later years, you can't take away the fact that we grew up together.
In July RE and I made a weekend trip to the north east of Scotland to see friends, Stephanie and Martin, and to have a wee tour about. It's an area of the country I happen to really like, and it was good not only to show RE round it, but to catch up with old friends at their barbecue. I've known Stephanie since the mid 1980's when she was a student at Glasgow University and joined the Cathedral Choir, so she's probably one of my oldest friends and although we don't see each other terribly often, it's good to catch up when we can.
In August my brother, his wife and daughter moved back to Scotland. They've been living abroad for about a dozen years, first in Dubai and then in San Diego, California. For some reason they decided to come back to the Scottish climate, and it's great to have them here. My niece, Jess, has joined the Cathedral Choir trebles, and seems to enjoy it I'm glad to say. I was immensely proud to be asked to present her with her surplice at Evensong when she passed from being a probationer to being a chorister. They hosted a Halloween party in October (on the 30th, funnily enough!) and the fact that they live in a castle (yes, really) made it all the more spooky! Great fun.
August also saw a return visit to the World Pipe Band Championship at Glasgow Green, with RE, her cousin and his German girlfriend who were visiting Scotland. It rained. But it was a very enjoyable day despite the weather.
In September RE hosted one of her sisters, visiting from New Zealand, and I joined them for a trip to Linlithgow, their ancestral town. It was the first time I've been there, and I can now recommend the Four Mary's pub in the main street.
In a much previous life I was a roadie and mixed the sound for a local band. All very enjoyable, but in an amateur way. A friend, Ian, does it for a living though, well, the sound engineer bit anyway, and ages ago I mentioned to him that if he was ever needing some semi-skilled labour (i.e. really unskilled!) then I'd happily come and lift and carry stuff around for him. In September he called my bluff, and I found myself for two days being a roadie working on the sound crew at the Merchant City Festival in Glasgow. With three outdoor stages and an indoor venue to be covered, it was hard work, a bit physical sometimes, and a lot to take in, but it was great. I even ended up twiddling the knobs for one act, while Ian was called away to deal with a change of venue for another group. All very basic stuff of course, but I'm glad to say Ian trusted me enough to leave me on my own, and I'm even gladder to say I managed to avoid fucking it up! I'm looking forward to the next time, although I don't expect a change of career is due anytime soon!
The Institute of Advanced Motorists has taken more of a back seat this year, pardon the pun, although I did complete the necessary number of observed runs to continue as a Qualified Motorcycle Observer. It remains to be seen however whether I'll continue next year.
I've started to get the flat a bit more sorted. With the benefit of hindsight I realise that when I moved in I wasn't really in the right emotional frame of mind to do the decorating necessary, and as time went on I stopped seeing the faults. I have now got as far as getting a quote from a decorator, and getting the hallway replastered. Soon after Christmas I'll contact the decorator again and get him to come and do the business in the living room and hallway.
My general level of fitness continues to improve as I take advantage of the gym a few hundred yards from my house. I even made it onto a running track with RE a couple of times, but that was very hard going at that time! In the past few weeks I've slipped a bit, but my main New Year's resolution is to redouble my efforts. And I WILL do it.
On a fitness topic, in 2009 I did something I never thought I'd do. I climbed a hill. Not only a hill, but it was in fact a Munro. I've never ever ever been interested in hillwalking, and have been vocal about that opinion all through my life. But RE persuaded me to try it. Well I say persuaded me, but not proactively. I just mean that her influence, unbeknownst to her, made me want to do it. So she kindly agreed to "babysit me" up a hill. I'd be lying if I said there weren't bits I didn't enjoy. I slipped and fell up to my knees in a very cold stream; I slithered and slid my way down what was allegedly a "path"; I fell and staved my finger, but I bloody enjoyed it! And I know that thousands of people do it every weekend and think nothing of it. But this was me doing it. Me who about a year ago looked as though he was about to expire after a very short climb up a set of steps to a scenic viewpoint in the Scottish Borders. Me who a year ago hadn't taken any form of exercise for God knows how long, apart from when I tried badminton and spectacularly ruptured my achilles tendon. Me who is a city boy who has always said he didn't mind walking as long as it was on a pavement. This was me who walked up that Munro. And it is still me who is immensely proud of having done it, and proud of his friend RE for having the patience, skill and perseverance to help me all the way. Others may do it more often and with less effort, but we all have different abilities and different goals, and this particular achievement ranks highly for me.
So that's a potted history of Lay Clerk's 2009. A mixed year, but generally a good one and ending better than it started. Much of the above was Blogged about in depth at the time so if you've read this post in isolation it must seem pretty sparse of detail, and of course I've missed things out. Not just deliberately missed things to protect other people's privacy, but simply because things will have slipped my mind. Something which will hopefully never slip my mind though is to mention the love, friendship, and support of my closest friends, some of whom have been such for the thick end of 25 years, some for only a couple of years, but I value them all and thank them for their continuing friendship and support. I won't name them, but you know who you are. Thank you one and all.
Happy Christmas folks!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Review of 2008
It's that time of year again when the TV, Radio and newspapers are full of their reviews of the activity and stories of the previous 12 months. Well I'm not going to be outdone! For your delectation (well, OK, it's actually totally for me as a cathartic exercise) here is how 2008 went for me. Not everything I'm going to mention has already been Blogged about, but some has.
Looking back at the review of 2007 I posted a year ago, I can see there have been some changes to my life in the past year. Almost exclusively these have been changes for the better.
The year 2007 ended with me having rejoined Glasgow Chamber Choir, and continuing to enjoy the experience. This coincided with me coming to the end of a difficult and sometimes turbulent relationship which had been going on for a bit over a year. I pride myself on being easy going and hopefully pretty calm much of the time, but my stress levels were through the roof for a significant chunk of the latter part of 2007. I didn't really Blog about this much at the time, it wouldn't have been right, but I can say now with the clarity of hindsight that this was a relationship I shouldn't have been in, and having been in it, it shouldn't have dragged on as long as it did. It did neither of us any good. And in fact it affected my friendship with other, better, friends too. Another pride I take is that I am still on good speaking terms with everyone (there are not all that many!) with whom I have had a significant relationship, whatever form that took, but this particular relationship having finished part way through the year and changed into a tentative, or possibly even tenuous, friendship, in January something happened which caused the other person to cut off all contact with me, despite my efforts to try to remain friends. I gave it a few weeks though, and after all calls had gone unanswered, including calls being rejected, I gave up and haven't thought about contacting her again. So another dark chapter passes!
The thing that happened in January was that I started a new relationship with RE, a member of Glasgow Chamber Choir. She had joined in September 2007 on the same evening I had rejoined, and over the next weeks and months we seemed to hit it off and seemed to enjoy one another's company, albeit always in a larger group, and so we eventually started dating. And we are still doing so, I'm very glad to say! It wouldn't be right for me to describe RE, or our relationship, or how I felt, or anything like that. So I won't. But she knows, I hope, and that's what matters.
In January, sadly, my gran died after a short illness but a long life. Needless to say I miss her. It was largely for her that I started tracing my family tree a few years ago (I currently have it traced back to the late 17th century in one of the strands) and since her death I haven't put any real effort into researching anything further. I fully intend getting back into it in the new year though.
Also in January I sat and passed my Institute of Advanced Motorists Advanced Driving test, adding that qualification to the Advanced Motorcycling one I passed the previous month. Since then I haven't felt the urge to become a Qualified Car Observer, but I persevered with the motorcycling training and in September 2008 I successfully passed the written and practical tests which make me a Qualified Motorcycle Observer, able to accompany and assist associates who are undertaking training to pass their own Advanced test. The season's finished just now of course, but I'm looking forward to carrying on with helping associates next year.
In March I spent a tremendously enjoyable long weekend in Marseilles with Glasgow Chamber Choir, where we sang in a couple of concerts (pretty stress free) and ate, drank and socialised a lot. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it was that it was my first trip abroad for ages, apart from the trip to Belgium in 2007 when I was in a plaster cast, and the first time away with RE. In fact up to that point our relationship was known only to a very small handful of people, but we had to come out the closet, so to speak, for the trip away so it was nice not to have to hide it from our friends any longer!
I've made my personal peace with St Mary's Cathedral. For a while I had no intention of ever going back, but I have and I'm very happy to have done so. My absence from the choir, and from the building generally, started with my achilles tendon injury when I couldn't walk or even stand without crutches, but it then developed into a wider problem connected with the relationship I was in. I should never have let that happen, but I did, but I'm glad to say that I'm back. I'm not singing in the choir full time at the moment, because they rehearse on the same evening as Glasgow Chamber Choir does, but I am for the moment one of the "occasional extra" singers drafted in when they need tenors. The other side of that coin is that if I see anything coming up on the music list which I'd like to sing, then I just contact FW, the director of music, and he's happy for me to come and join in, even if that means the choir has a boatload of tenors that evening! And in fact the choir is well blessed for tenors at the moment, there are I think about five of them, so I'm not really needed just now. But RE and I do attend Evensong most weeks, which is very enjoyable only not quite so enjoyable as actually singing in it!
This year, and I actually can't remember when it was apart from early summer or before, St Mary's Cathedral played host to a big Evensong service for the organist emeritus, Bernard Porter, who was celebrating a significant birthday. Lots of former choir members, including me, joined the current choir and made a spectacular sound. Some travelled from as far afield as the south of England, the north of Scotland, and New York to join the singing! And the socialising, funnily enough, was great!
In the summer, together with various friends including RE, I joined the newly formed Royal School of Church Music Scottish Voices choir. The initial meeting was a residential weekend at Strathallan School in Perthshire, which seemed to go well, not least because FW, from St Mary's Cathedral, is also the conductor of RSCM Scottish Voices. I should explain that the RSCM choir is not to be confused with Scottish Voices, which is a different choir. Apparently RSCM Scottish Voices is the equivalent of the RSCM Cathedral Singers in England, but they decided not to use that name in Scotland lest it offended Presbyterians and others who have no cathedrals! Political correctness strikes again! So they chose the name RSCM Scottish Voices instead, and presumably either didn't realise there is already a choir called Scottish Voices, or didn't care. Superb!
Anyway, next year's dates have recently been circulated, and it looks like it'll be a busy and enjoyable year.
In September my little cat Ernie fell ill, and after a short illness sadly died. I Blogged about that extensively at the time and have no intentions of reliving it here, since it was an intensely painful experience. I miss him greatly, as does Elmo, his wee pal.
One of the high spots of the year undoubtedly was my visit to San Diego, Califonia to visit my brother and his family. Made even better by RE joining me for the last few days when she was enroute back to Glasgow from New Zealand and made a stopover. I've Blogged a fair bit about the holiday, but I'm conscious that I still haven't told the full story yet and I owe this Blog the final installment, so I'll try to get to that as soon as possible!
I discovered in 2008, or it might have been late 2007, that my blood pressure had climbed alarmingly. It's now down to a better level, and I'm trying to get my act together to get to my local gym regularly in an effort to keep it down, lose a bit of weight, and get fit enough to do the things I want to do, which are many and varied! I've decided against taking up badminton again though, as I don't relish the idea of fucking up my achilles tendon again! Watch this space for details of my progress, if indeed I make any progress!
As ever, I make it my rule not to Blog about work. Suffice to say I'm still enjoying being in the particular department I'm in, doing the things I do, and tempting as it is to go looking for more money elsewhere, and it IS available, I'd rather stay where I am. For the moment anyway!
So, to sum up, 2008 has been a good year for me, not only on the relationship front but also as regards St Mary's Cathedral and trips abroad to sunny places. On the extreme down side, I lost both my gran and my faithful companion Ernie, but such is the way of life.
I've just re-read all of the above and realised it's a bit more of a random stream of consciousness than usual, so apologies for that. If I could be arsed I'd edit it into some better chronological, or at least logical, order, but I can't!
Anyway, Happy Christmas and a successful 2009 to you all, and I refuse to go down the political correctness route and use weasel words detracting from Christmas. If you are offended by my wishing you a Happy Christmas rather than Happy Holidays or similar, then perhaps you're reading the wrong Blog and I invite you never to darken my URL again!
Looking back at the review of 2007 I posted a year ago, I can see there have been some changes to my life in the past year. Almost exclusively these have been changes for the better.
The year 2007 ended with me having rejoined Glasgow Chamber Choir, and continuing to enjoy the experience. This coincided with me coming to the end of a difficult and sometimes turbulent relationship which had been going on for a bit over a year. I pride myself on being easy going and hopefully pretty calm much of the time, but my stress levels were through the roof for a significant chunk of the latter part of 2007. I didn't really Blog about this much at the time, it wouldn't have been right, but I can say now with the clarity of hindsight that this was a relationship I shouldn't have been in, and having been in it, it shouldn't have dragged on as long as it did. It did neither of us any good. And in fact it affected my friendship with other, better, friends too. Another pride I take is that I am still on good speaking terms with everyone (there are not all that many!) with whom I have had a significant relationship, whatever form that took, but this particular relationship having finished part way through the year and changed into a tentative, or possibly even tenuous, friendship, in January something happened which caused the other person to cut off all contact with me, despite my efforts to try to remain friends. I gave it a few weeks though, and after all calls had gone unanswered, including calls being rejected, I gave up and haven't thought about contacting her again. So another dark chapter passes!
The thing that happened in January was that I started a new relationship with RE, a member of Glasgow Chamber Choir. She had joined in September 2007 on the same evening I had rejoined, and over the next weeks and months we seemed to hit it off and seemed to enjoy one another's company, albeit always in a larger group, and so we eventually started dating. And we are still doing so, I'm very glad to say! It wouldn't be right for me to describe RE, or our relationship, or how I felt, or anything like that. So I won't. But she knows, I hope, and that's what matters.
In January, sadly, my gran died after a short illness but a long life. Needless to say I miss her. It was largely for her that I started tracing my family tree a few years ago (I currently have it traced back to the late 17th century in one of the strands) and since her death I haven't put any real effort into researching anything further. I fully intend getting back into it in the new year though.
Also in January I sat and passed my Institute of Advanced Motorists Advanced Driving test, adding that qualification to the Advanced Motorcycling one I passed the previous month. Since then I haven't felt the urge to become a Qualified Car Observer, but I persevered with the motorcycling training and in September 2008 I successfully passed the written and practical tests which make me a Qualified Motorcycle Observer, able to accompany and assist associates who are undertaking training to pass their own Advanced test. The season's finished just now of course, but I'm looking forward to carrying on with helping associates next year.
In March I spent a tremendously enjoyable long weekend in Marseilles with Glasgow Chamber Choir, where we sang in a couple of concerts (pretty stress free) and ate, drank and socialised a lot. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it was that it was my first trip abroad for ages, apart from the trip to Belgium in 2007 when I was in a plaster cast, and the first time away with RE. In fact up to that point our relationship was known only to a very small handful of people, but we had to come out the closet, so to speak, for the trip away so it was nice not to have to hide it from our friends any longer!
I've made my personal peace with St Mary's Cathedral. For a while I had no intention of ever going back, but I have and I'm very happy to have done so. My absence from the choir, and from the building generally, started with my achilles tendon injury when I couldn't walk or even stand without crutches, but it then developed into a wider problem connected with the relationship I was in. I should never have let that happen, but I did, but I'm glad to say that I'm back. I'm not singing in the choir full time at the moment, because they rehearse on the same evening as Glasgow Chamber Choir does, but I am for the moment one of the "occasional extra" singers drafted in when they need tenors. The other side of that coin is that if I see anything coming up on the music list which I'd like to sing, then I just contact FW, the director of music, and he's happy for me to come and join in, even if that means the choir has a boatload of tenors that evening! And in fact the choir is well blessed for tenors at the moment, there are I think about five of them, so I'm not really needed just now. But RE and I do attend Evensong most weeks, which is very enjoyable only not quite so enjoyable as actually singing in it!
This year, and I actually can't remember when it was apart from early summer or before, St Mary's Cathedral played host to a big Evensong service for the organist emeritus, Bernard Porter, who was celebrating a significant birthday. Lots of former choir members, including me, joined the current choir and made a spectacular sound. Some travelled from as far afield as the south of England, the north of Scotland, and New York to join the singing! And the socialising, funnily enough, was great!
In the summer, together with various friends including RE, I joined the newly formed Royal School of Church Music Scottish Voices choir. The initial meeting was a residential weekend at Strathallan School in Perthshire, which seemed to go well, not least because FW, from St Mary's Cathedral, is also the conductor of RSCM Scottish Voices. I should explain that the RSCM choir is not to be confused with Scottish Voices, which is a different choir. Apparently RSCM Scottish Voices is the equivalent of the RSCM Cathedral Singers in England, but they decided not to use that name in Scotland lest it offended Presbyterians and others who have no cathedrals! Political correctness strikes again! So they chose the name RSCM Scottish Voices instead, and presumably either didn't realise there is already a choir called Scottish Voices, or didn't care. Superb!
Anyway, next year's dates have recently been circulated, and it looks like it'll be a busy and enjoyable year.
In September my little cat Ernie fell ill, and after a short illness sadly died. I Blogged about that extensively at the time and have no intentions of reliving it here, since it was an intensely painful experience. I miss him greatly, as does Elmo, his wee pal.
One of the high spots of the year undoubtedly was my visit to San Diego, Califonia to visit my brother and his family. Made even better by RE joining me for the last few days when she was enroute back to Glasgow from New Zealand and made a stopover. I've Blogged a fair bit about the holiday, but I'm conscious that I still haven't told the full story yet and I owe this Blog the final installment, so I'll try to get to that as soon as possible!
I discovered in 2008, or it might have been late 2007, that my blood pressure had climbed alarmingly. It's now down to a better level, and I'm trying to get my act together to get to my local gym regularly in an effort to keep it down, lose a bit of weight, and get fit enough to do the things I want to do, which are many and varied! I've decided against taking up badminton again though, as I don't relish the idea of fucking up my achilles tendon again! Watch this space for details of my progress, if indeed I make any progress!
As ever, I make it my rule not to Blog about work. Suffice to say I'm still enjoying being in the particular department I'm in, doing the things I do, and tempting as it is to go looking for more money elsewhere, and it IS available, I'd rather stay where I am. For the moment anyway!
So, to sum up, 2008 has been a good year for me, not only on the relationship front but also as regards St Mary's Cathedral and trips abroad to sunny places. On the extreme down side, I lost both my gran and my faithful companion Ernie, but such is the way of life.
I've just re-read all of the above and realised it's a bit more of a random stream of consciousness than usual, so apologies for that. If I could be arsed I'd edit it into some better chronological, or at least logical, order, but I can't!
Anyway, Happy Christmas and a successful 2009 to you all, and I refuse to go down the political correctness route and use weasel words detracting from Christmas. If you are offended by my wishing you a Happy Christmas rather than Happy Holidays or similar, then perhaps you're reading the wrong Blog and I invite you never to darken my URL again!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Review of 2007
I had every intention of continuing with regular postings here, but for various reasons real life has got in the way of virtual life somewhat, so there are gaps in this Blog. Time then for an update of what's been happening.The year started with me still in the rented flat in Dowanhill in Glasgow's west end, where I'd moved after leaving Johnstone, in Renfrewshire, when my wife and I separated and we sold our lovely house in summer 2006.
January 2007 saw me starting to look properly for my own place and I had decided I didn't want to waste money on chasing "offers over" properties, so was interested only in fixed price. Not only that, but with Ernie & Elmo, our two cats, living with me I was only prepared to consider ground floor or at a push first floor flats so they could get out. It also had to be in the west end of Glasgow. My choices were, to say the least, limited!
Taking advantage of all t'InterWeb has to offer, I was on various mailing lists, and eventually I was notified of a flat which ticked all of the boxes except that it wasn't in the west end but 5 miles further out, in Clydebank. Long story short, I bought it and have been happily living here since May. More recently I had a cat flap fitted in the back door, so Ernie & Elmo have now got used to 24/7 access to the great outdoors, which seems to suit them well!
In March I was playing badminton, for only the second time in a long number of years, when I ruptured my Achilles Tendon, putting me into a plaster cast for 2 months, and off work for 3 months. That was not a pleasant experience.
My enforced lay-off from singing in the choir of St Mary's Cathedral while unable to stand without crutches, led straight on to a period of time out from singing there for various reasons I don't intend blogging about. I am still not singing in the cathedral, and I have only been back in the building twice, once for a funeral and once to sing in a concert with another choir. I remain very disillusioned with organised religion, which is a shame.
I visited Belgium with my dad over a weekend back in about April to see my brother who was working there for a few weeks, and despite being on crutches which made things difficult, that was the high spot of the year, partly because I haven't done much travelling abroad in my life, and partly because it was great to spend time like that with dad and with my brother who I see so rarely because he lives in California.
In Manchester I attended the civil partnership of the brother of a friend. It isn't all that long since these were first allowed in the UK, and a straw poll conducted during the speeches at the reception confirmed that not one person attending had been at one before!
Later in the year I was in Kent, this time without crutches, at the wedding of friends of a friend, and that was good partly because they're nice people, but also it's a nice part of the country.
In September my divorce came through. As an observation, it's easier to get divorced than married, at least as far as the amount of paperwork which need completing is concerned! We remain on friendly terms, and I sincerely hope it remains that way. No reason for it not to.
Work is good again. I moved out of my comfort zone into a different department a bit over a year ago, and that caused me for a time to consider where my future lay, but thankfully I am now enjoying it again and have no intention of moving. Sticking with my personal policy of not blogging about work, that's all I intend saying about it.
In late summer I embarked on a quest to pass my Institute of Advanced Motorists bike and car tests. It has been the subject of extensive posts over the past month or so, so suffice to say that I have now passed my advanced bike test, and I'm awaiting a date for my advanced car test.
Missing singing, but not missing the cathedral, in September I rejoined Glasgow Chamber Choir. I was one of the original members when it was founded, and I've sung with them on and off since then. I'm enjoying it immensely and, because there are a fair number of people who have joined since 2002 which was the last time I sang with the choir, I have been enjoying making new friends, some of whom look like becoming very good friends indeed.
So, there you have it. The short version of Lay Clerk's 2007.
Put simply, I have come from a real low in summer 2006 to being just about back on track, and the future looks potentially bright for all sorts of reasons.
My New Year's resolution for 2008 is to start to really enjoy life again, and to try to do what's right and necessary for me even if it's not necessarily right for other people. I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to hurt or upset anyone, least of all my friends, but I need to get my priorities sorted, and my priority this forthcoming year is going to be me!
Can I take this opportunity to wish everyone reading this, particularly those (and I am told there are some) who for some obscure reason read this Blog regularly, a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)