Deathless dower.

Sonnet XIX - Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:—
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above,
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

These are the words set to music in a piece by the same name by Ralph Vaughan Williams. I'll put a recording up if someone will show me how and/or find me somewhere to leave it for a bit. I was going to sing it in a recital that never happened. The words only tell half of the beauty of this - the music is something amazing. I cling to moments remembered, trying to live in them and extend them beyond their natural length. The poem isn't about that; it's about enjoying a perfect moment with someone else with no mention of what happens after that. But when that moment is gone, what else can you do but hold on to it, for a never-dying promise between the two of you? Even if it falls away and apart, intangible, if you hold too tight.

I saw a play this evening. I need to write about that, too, but it's late.

--------

Yay! Carl sorted me out with somewhere to put some mp3s for a bit - recording here.

I was doing so well.

I'm shattered today. Partly as a result of last night, which was fantastic. I did feel very young though - lots of young marrieds. It reminded me how little I want that life. That probably changes, but I really don't want the wedding-photos-and-dinner-parties existence. Dinner parties I could deal with (cooking dinners for close friends is one of my favourite things to do, after all), but less of the sitting around the table sort. Large amounts of good, interesting food and lots of alcohol. Not too many people, and stuff everywhere. Nothing that involves having to swap places every course. The food was fantastic and the company seemed good (a group of friends I'm not part of, but lovely nonetheless), but I need bohemianism. The food needs to be incidental to the company, unless you're with a group of foodies, at which point it's like going to an art gallery and entirely different. I don't know. That all sounds a bit harsh - it was a perfect example of its type, it really was. Just the life it seems to lead to is one with which I don't particularly want to be involved.

I got up this morning and cleaned a lot of kitchen. I failed to go to the eucharist and matins, but my hangover was a little insistent at 9am - considering I left the party still going on downstairs at about 2. I made a cake for a choir member. That particular couple have been so wonderful to me over the last year (they all have, but those two are particular friends), and I find it hard to find ways of repaying some of their kindnesses. I hope a little of that went into the cake. He seemed pleased, anyway.

I'm mostly shattered because we started rehearsing at 3 and sang through, with a brief food break until the service at 6:30. Hard work. It went very well indeed. A little bit stressful, and I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been more awake, but it really was a lovely service. 'Bethlehem Down' was particularly successful, as was Leighton's 'Lully, Lulla' (I'm very jealous of the sop soloist, still. She did it very well, but I LOVE that solo). And there was even a pretty piece by a member of the choir which was worth singing. Blah. Shame. I would have liked to have been awake to really love it, but I was just too tired.

Erk. This has become a diary entry. I did want to stop writing those. I wanted to write about noticing the stars on the way home. My cycle through Chesterton takes me along the riverside for a bit. On the other side, there's fenland for a bit and no buildings for quite a distance. That means it stays quite dark, and it feels like the country. It's really warm at the moment, and I stopped at the river for a second to look at the sky. It's nearly always busy just there - boats and people fishing and things. I need to be there at 2 in the morning or something sometime. Perhaps I'll go walking. It's so peaceful, and I want that. I love being in big, dark places on my own. It's quite a good reason for being early to choir practice - I can go and sit in a pew in the quiet and listen to the sound of a large building empty and dim. I used to go and sit in the pitch black auditorium in the Abbey Theatre when I was early for rehearsals. Nobody there to see you, and space to be.

Good things about today:

• Hovering in bed, slightly hungover having spent the preceding night with a bottle of cider and engaged in tipsy texting, enjoying the fact that I was still in bed and aware that, while I had masses to do when I got up, just then I could do nothing.
• EVERYONE being pleased to see me when I went to tend the menagerie in Royston. Ebony was delighted with food and company and followed me about and purred. The ferrets were sleepy, but came out for a cuddle and watched me to and fro from the house. The rats climbed all over me and the garage, coming straight out of the cage when I opened the doors. Even the fish were attentive, not that I gave them anything. I don't want to interrupt any fish feeding schedules (the fish are Science more than Cuddles). BUGGER. Just realised I forgot to check on the gerbils. Have texted Christian to find out if I need to go back to them... Too many animals in one house. I'm hoping they're ok, I have Christmas 2 to have!
  
• An hour spent wandering around the Chinese supermarket and Al Amin's on Mill Road, looking for bits and pieces for the brothers' Christmas presents while listening to Handel's Messiah very loudly on the ipod in order to learn the bit I was singing this afternoon. Those places are Aladdin's caves, and the peculiar juxtaposition with one of the most iconic pieces of Baroque English choral music in existence made me happy.
  
• Turning up at Michaelhouse to sing a service one-to-a-part, with me singing soprano - and actually pulling it off in a way I was pleased with. We did the aforementioned bit of the Messiah ('And the glory of the Lord', for those interested in such things), 'O Magnum Mysterium' by Victoria and the final chorale ('Gloria sei dir gesungen') from Bach's Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Nothing particularly hard, though the Victoria's a bit awkward for this kind of thing - polyphonic and C16th and requiring a little bit of thought. I was really pleased with myself though - only cock up (that I count...) in the choral stuff was a bit I knew I'd fail at in the 'Alleluias' in the Victoria, which was rhythmically odd and I plain hadn't had time to get under my belt. I did accidentally start singing alto in the choir-only verse of 'O Little Town', which was embarrassing, though. I did it out of habit - almost ANY time I've sung that carol I've been singing alto in that verse, even at school because I sang that part when we did it choir only. Bah. That was silly. Fun descants and playing about though. AND Sam intimated that it might have been a money gig. Being paid for something that you'd have jumped at the chance to do anyway is the icing on the cake. It won't be much, but singing for money gives my very unstable singing self-esteem a huge boost.
• Cycling home with the most magnificent sunset behind me all the way. I had to stop just to admire it at one point, in order to avoid getting run over as I peered over my shoulder. The sky was striped blue and pink from the towers in town to straight up above my head, and even further. Flourescent. It was amazing. The one day I didn't have my camera in my bag (I always have my camera in my bag). And it was barely visible by the time I got back to my western edge of Cambridge. It's a sort of sunset I've never seen anywhere except this little bit of the country. Something to do with the flatness and the coldness and the easterliness. Sublime, in the true sense of the word.
• Coming back to the most amazing smell of goose and roast dinner across the whole street. Apparently, the answer to 'how does one cook roast geese for 15 in one oven' is not to, but to use next door's oven too. Martin's doing the thing properly, it's brilliant. Very impressive indeed - and I'm STARVING now, because I haven't actually eaten any of this yet. I won't know anyone tonight except my housemates, but having sat and chatted to early arrival Jen while peeling sprouts, I'm actually feeling positive about a party. Usually, I'm excited until the actual day, and then I hate the idea, hate the getting dressed and have to march myself out of the house telling myself I'll enjoy it in the end, and how can I not go by this point?

How good a day is that?! I mean, really. Busy as, and I didn't finish everything on the list of things to do, but I got most of the way there. But sometimes it's worth it in order to have a day like this one. And tomorrow looks pretty exciting, too. If I wake up in time, I have the option of singing up to twice tomorrow morning, then a break for lunch, in which I'm hoping to cook Graham-the-GSM-tenor a cake because it's his birthday, then a rehearsal, then a spend-it-in-a-coffee-shop-type break before the climax of all the carol services at 6:30. (Come, if you haven't got anything else to do - it really will be worth it. Be early though - the church will be packed!).

"In November, [Lindsey Lohan] served 84 minutes in jail for drunken driving and cocaine possession charges."

How do you serve EIGHTY-FOUR MINUTES in jail for anything?!

Article is fairly unconnected to that, but see here.

Also, still alive. Lots of singing. Thinking about doing my diploma, but I've been thinking about it for ages. I have gone one step further, in that I've got the repertoire list. Now I need a really good teacher, somewhere with a real piano to practice, and an accompanist. The latter two might be solved by GSM, and possibly the former as well, but we'll see.

New Job.

Since the last post, Andy has deleted himself from the internet. I suspect I managed to imply that I thought the whole thing had been a waste of time from the beginning, which I didn't feel at the time at all. It's just that now, it's clear that it was always going to work out like it did. But we had to try and make it work in order to find that out. I understand why that might come across as 'I wish I'd never started it', but it's not exactly what I meant. Anyway. It.

New job's quite good. I spend ages in Excel un-mangling box office data and making it readable and understandable and then turning it into graphs for PowerPoint presentations. That sounds really dull, but it's actually quite good. At present, anyway, it's pretty interesting. I hope when I've learnt how to use Excel properly it's not going to get boring, but I don't think it will, because hopefully then I'll have started going to meetings and talking to clients and that kind of thing, and it'll be interesting in a different way. So yes. It's good. And disconcerting similar to what Melissa's doing at Merrill Lynch, and being paid Lots for. Ah well. She won't get to wander into interesting theatres, and I don't have to stay at work til 4am several times a week.

I think Christian was feeling guilty this week, cos he bought me flowers AND took me out for dinner at the Vietnamese place on Magdalene Bridge. Both were awesome. Maybe he was just feeling nice, but it was still great. He had no real need for guilt - he's just been really busy, which I understood, even if I would have rather he was around...

Kate, Melissa, Lee and Graham T and me went to the Natural History Museum yesterday. Was FANTASTIC. I had bullied them all there to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which was absolutely brilliant. It's made me keen for sitting in hides waiting for birds and things. I'll keep my eyes out for beautiful days and pretty places to go, I think. I'm also likely to negotiate for a decent camera from one of the two friends I've got who have spare digital SLRs... The NHM is the kind of place you could go to every week for 3 months and not go through the same room twice - I'm quite keen to go back AGAIN, despite the fact that this was the second time in about 2 weeks (I went the week before very briefly with Eleanor when we went shopping on Oxford Street and got caught out by the 'you can't use cheap tickets in rush hour clause'). I'm also keen on the Science Museum AND the V&A, and am planning a champagne picnic in London Zoo in the summer. Will be fantastic. I know it's expensive, but I don't mind donating money to the zoo, because they do good stuff with it. It's like paying for the Eden Project.

I got to see Graham's new flat, too, which is lovely. Doesn't have the view of the previous one - which was about 10 feet from the south bank of the Thames. This one looks down on a panorama of Elephant and Castle. Not so pretty, but still a great flat. Also really near a rather nice indian, which was dinner. Was nice to catch up with everyone, and enjoy the book I bought from the NHM (Extreme Nature - I KNEW I wouldn't be able to go back without buying books. I also bought Darwin's account of the Voyage of the Beagle, which looks pretty cool.). I'm going to see them all next weekend for Leigh's birthday evensong at GSM, which I'm looking forward to. I'm tempted to ask Leigh if I can join GSM choir - they have adult female altos, which is something. Would give me a chance to find out what's what in Cambridge singing, and I'm going spare with nowhere to sing.

Well. I came home for chillis and red onions. Off again now. I nearly have housemates again. I've decided that it's less weird that I'm back in this flat, and more that Will and Tom live here too...

Colin

Colin 1
Originally uploaded by hazelsheard

This is (a bad photo of) Colin. He's Azrael, Boris and the snails' newest friend. I wanted to call him Simon, because he has amazing whiskers and is equally difficult to find, but Colin fitted better with my naming scheme (guess my naming scheme). He's decided the back of the filter's a good home, and has gone black because that's a good colour to be on the filter. He can CHANGE COLOUR though. Yay. He's one of these, specifically Ancistrus spinosus or a bristle or bush nosed ancistrus. Mostly, he's awesome. There's a picture of an albino version on wikipedia.

My birthday was lovely, though a little stressful what with one thing and another, and being ill. Thanks for all the good wishes though! I had curry on Brick Lane, and went to the theatre. Was nice.

I had second birthday in Cambridge on Sunday night - sang in Robinson and then went for dinner in Pizza Express. Robinson Choir is now HUGE - it's expanded way beyond anyone's wildest dreams of last year. Granted it's got a lot of non-Binsonites in it, but it's THIRTY odd strong, and just sounding great. We went expecting to be singing stuff in two parts that bored us stupid, but we sang Rachmaninov (Bogoroditsye Dyevo, or Hail Mary to you and me), and Locus Iste (by Bruckner). AND all the graduation hymns. It was fantastic. Came out on a complete high, augmented by the new organ scholar saying nice things after the service. He's someone drafted in from Sidney because we didn't have one. He's a composition student, and is clearly very musical and has a great rapport with the choir, but his conducting's a bit crap. That, though, he can learn. All in all, things look great for them this year, and I definitely intend to be singing up there plenty.

I came home to a heap of job rejections. Pleasant. Meh. Ah well. Hanna and I had a good bitch about job stuff at the weekend. Today I went into Cafe Roma and handed them a CV. Advantages to working there: I can fall out of bed and into work. Disadvantages: Chance of serving a former teacher = pretty damn high. Bah. I really had better get that job. I'm likely to feel myself utterly and completely without hope or point if I don't. Will mean that I don't have to feel so desperate for a job though.

Sad.

Andy and I broke up last week. I haven't blogged about it because I haven't known really what to say. It seemed to have become a bit of a shell, and I was feeling like I made life harder rather than better for him, and that his feelings about me were lukewarm. He tells me now that this wasn't the case, but I didn't feel that at the time. I could probably have gone on living with the frustrations I had for quite a while, but it would have ended up with a more bitter break up than the one we've had. Stuff happened with someone else while I was in Cornwall, and I suddenly realised how many things had been missing from me and Andy for so long.

This all sounds horrendously callous, and all the worst possible reasons for ending things, but I've cried enough in the last 2 weeks, and right now I don't want to go into real details. I've agonised over it, and tried to work out the right ways of doing things and do them as much as possible. I'm not sure I succeeded though. Meh. I really, really hope he and I will stay friends, because I think if we can get past this we'll still have an awful lot to offer each other. I'm massively sorry for what's happened between us. There were amazing bits of our relationship, and it's sad that it's over.

I spent my weekend singing for Salvador's ordination in Portsmouth. Dramatic. Had good fun on Saturday rehearsing the Byrd Mass for 4 Voices and some motets. I ended up singing soprano with Sarah Lambie, which was actually really nice. I had been intending to sing alto, but the girl singing alto was really good and I was more use singing sop. We headed down to London on Saturday night. At 6am on Sunday morning, we discovered our tenor wasn't coming. GRRR. VERY rude of him. So I ended up singing tenor, typically. And we had to cut the Byrd Mass and just do the motets. Very annoying. I got paid to sing though! Yay! And proved to myself that my sightreading isn't as bad as it might be. The place was very weird though - Traditional Anglican Communion. Scary lot of people. I've never been to a mroe formal service, and the last mass I think I went to was a Catholic one in Milan, of all places. There were more clergy than congregation, for a start, and all of the clergy had lace on. And there were TWO bishops, for one ordinand. Madness. Lots of bells and incense - and about 5 small boys to do it. I had fun afterwards baiting the priest in charge. Very odd.

Drove them all back to Cam on Sunday night, and then helped Will catch some fish for his tank from Fish's tank. I eventually stayed in Fish's empty house, because I was KNACKERED by this point. Headed back here yesterday in time to clean the house for my dad.

OOOO - someone's given me a job interview! Not for a job I massively want, though. Well, the job itself is nice enough, but it's part time. Grr. 2.5 days a week isn't enough for me. My dad was looking at the description last night and saying he thought it must be a job share, looking at the duties. Bah. How irritating. Anyway. Whatever I decide, it's my first interview, so it doesn't matter too much.

Busyness, sort of.

Well. Much chaos. Excuse the messy desk - it's tidier now, but Tolly was trying to help me type. Cleo had her op, which went fine, though she's less than impressed at having to wear a lampshade and take pills. Tolly's been the funny one though; he's been absolutely all over us, demanding attention and playing and all sorts. I think he's been quite lonely, especially to begin with when Cleo would only hiss at him any time he came near her. He's been chasing down newspaper and flies and all sorts of things, not to mention my leg and my fingers. The one I like best is below (though they're all much of a muchness), but there are more here, here, here and here. He's a silly kitten. Sorry about the messy room - I was busy tidying at the time, and Tolly was assisting, by deconstructing the newspaper.



We went to see the LLAMAS on Friday night! They're SO COOL. The two we're probably getting are called Pepper and Brandy - Pepper's dark brown, and Brandy's a mix of ginger and cream with a skewbald face. They're boys, and will be somewhere over 18 months old when we get them. That won't be til Autumn/Spring, because we need to fence the place properly and build them a shed and the like. YAY LLAMAS. We'll need to do a fair amount of handling of them, and train them to take a head collar properly so we can walk them in the woods. LLAMA WALKS. YAY!!!!

I've been staying at the Village Hall in Paul with the Pinafore cast for the last couple of nights. I went with them to the Meadery in Penzance on Friday night, post llamas. (People have been asking me about whether I was REALLY late because I was at a llama farm. I could say yes. How cool is THAT??) This was a very silly evening all round - films again here and here. This was not the half of the debauchery that went on. Very entertaining.

I spent Saturday making Becky Thomas a birthday cake, of which I'm actually quite proud - large and pink and filled with strawberries and butter-cream. Excessively sickly and very pink, but that was the specification. I sang with them in church in Paul this morning, too. Nothing MASSIVELY exciting - Stainer's I Saw The Lord - but it was really nice to be singing with a big group of big voices. I didn't stick out! Yay! And so many men, and I didn't have to sing tenor, though I did sing second alto, which is actually pretty similar, because there were more sops than altos. Nice. I'm heading back with them tomorrow to see Twelfth Night at the Minack, and then to deliver timps on Tuesday, and then to see the talent night and cook ANOTHER cake on Wednesday. Lots of drifting about Cornish roads. I'm beginning to think I should just stay there all this week, but it seems a bit harsh on my family and I do want to see my animals.

Erk. I'm SO tired, despite all I've done today was the service this morning and lying on a beach reading all afternoon...