Is it time to worry about me yet?

Some time ago, the CD part of my music playing device died (yes, that’s three pieces of technology died on me in quick succession, boiler, printer and CD player) and it didn’t seem that high on my list of priorities for replacing. If my printer hadn’t also decided to die, I might have replaced the CD player with some Christmas money, but, alas, a new printer definitely took priority.

I did find myself missing my CDs, though, especially during the run up to Christmas, and my usual radios stations of choice were playing wall to wall Christmas Carols. There is only so much of that I can tolerate before committing radio rage, especially in the fortnight I was playing an awful lot of them myself. I was wondering just what I could do about it when I was reminded I did possess a computer and CDs could be played on that… Cue a deeply blushing Japes, who had completely forgotten about this option, and the option of ripping CDs to the computer. (A newly acquired skill!!) Which also cut out my other reason for forgetting about my laptop’s CD playing capacity, the wobbling of a CD in a laptop balanced on a lap….

So, a happy evening was passed a few nights ago creating myself some playlists.

But – I seem unable to let myself have them in anything other than alphabetical order. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Church and Music

Organ playing is going to be interesting tomorrow. Right Knee has turned several interesting shades of purple, and has the kind of large scab developing that is going to be irresistible for picking purposes in a few days time. Moreover, Right Knee currently does not like being used for its main function of bending the leg. This makes things like sitting with feet neatly on the floor, the process of standing up, and playing the pedal board of the organ somewhat interesting!

I can also envisage the getting on to the organ stool process being even more entertaining than usual. It’s a high stool, especially for someone who is short of stature, and somewhat rotund. It’s achieved with the aid of another chair next to the stool for balancing purposes. I can only be grateful that I normally do the process of getting on and off the stool at moments during the service when most people are occupied with other matters! And that wearing jeans to this church is perfectly acceptable.

I am, however, weakening on a weekly basis in my resolve to find a new church! I do have good reasons for needing to do this…and one in particular. My failure is partly because this particular church is such a good one for me, for now. Partly because my main reason is incomprehensible to anyone but me, and God, (and even God seems to be on everyone else’s side at the moment in this matter) and the main reason I’m giving seems to most people (which isn’t my main reason) not a particularly good one at all. However, I am genuinely not keen to spend significant chunks of Sundays hanging around for buses, if there’s a reasonable church closer at hand. It would also be good for me to be going to church and not either playing, or reading, or intercessing, or helping on any rota, or being anyone other than me for a little while. Trouble is, at this time of year, I find it hard to say no to requests to play, especially when I know the church, and how hard it can be to get anyone to play for Midnight.

This all needs rethinking in the New Year!

A series of mishaps..

have caused me much anguish this week, but after a day flitting from department to department, and leaving a letter for the person who’s collecting the post that comes here for church and the usual occupant of the house with all possible names for me, so official post for me would not be returned to my place of work, (which earned me a reprimand for not giving them my correct address – one that was retracted as soon as I explained what had happened and assured them they did indeed have my correct address. You had to be there to get the full effect of the horrified and sympathetic looks as the tales of woe unfolded… it did mean they were very amenable to sorting their earlier errors which added to the series of mishaps!) or indeed any other post going astray, which I had blamed on other circumstances.

My day was not improved by the inter-campus shuttle bus having a new driver, working on a schedule which was not the printed one. Which left me stranded for an hour and a half, and meant I gave up on getting to small campus, as I was already later than intended owing to the other mishaps being sorted.

Then, there was the Sunday Musician’s Rota. I wasn’t going to fight that one – I knew I was playing, I wasn’t late, I knew what the rota said, but there’s a long, long, long standing problem with a particular musician and when there was accusatory “But, I was always going to be here for this service, I don’t know how you thought you were playing.” Well, I’m not in the mood for sorting it when I’m not going to be around for more than two or three more weeks. So, I left to go home…which had upset one or two people. Apparently, I should have stayed.

I think I need a holiday….

One day…

I’ll find all the music I need for one service, in one hymn book. Though, on this occasion the one tune I need that is not in the same book as the rest, is at least in a loose leaf book I possess, and I only need to remove the one page! Which is a blessing. This is because I’ll be transporting me, a clarinet, a music stand, (I never trust there will be one available) and the music I need for a three hundred and fifty mile round trip on public transport.

That hasn’t happened for a long, long while

But, it did in church this morning. I couldn’t sing the last hymn for the tears…

It’s rare for me to cry in front of other people anyway, and even rarer in church, as I go into professional musician mode when I feel tears coming on, even if, as at the moment, I am in the congregation. (For now, I’m a content occasional musician.) So when tears actually happen it shakes me up quite a bit. I had to go home to collect something I’d forgotten, so had a chance to recover my equilibrium before joining the coffee queue.

I do know it needed to happen today. Only I knew about it at the time, apart from the two people I told (or the people near me who may have heard me stop singing). It probably also happened as a cumulative thing all through the service, as if I’d been choosing a Significant Hymn/Song List of the last twenty years, most of the songs we sang this morning had meaning for me attached to them.

For curious minds, from the selection we sang, or had played during communion, or before the service, the ones that would be on my Significant Hymn/Song List included

• “At the name of Jesus” (to my preferred tune)
• “Lord, I come to you, let my heart be changed, renewed”
• “The Servant King”
• “All I once held dear ”
• “Be still, for the presence of the Lord”
• “In Christ Alone”
• “I, the Lord of sea and sky”

Now, anyone of those on their own could well have done it, but the one that finished me off and left me tearful and shaky was “I, the Lord of sea and sky”, especially the chorus.

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

It just has so many memories attached to it, of youth occasions, of a funeral, of schools singing it, but specifically of a commitment I’d made that I just didn’t ever envisage disentangling myself from. Only the fact that it is becoming clearer by the day that God is leading me in a totally different direction, and has other purposes for my life has made me turn my life completely upside down.

Mostly, over the last few weeks, I’ve been very calm and relaxed about the decision, but, sometimes, it hurts. Very much. Today, it did that. Especially being surrounded by lots of people who are getting to hear the story, and who’ve known me for a few years now. But, I didn’t run away from it all, or tried to ignore what I was feeling. It’ll only come back again and again if I do both those things, tempting as it is to continue the seeming to be calm and relaxed. There are times for that, and professionalism. This isn’t one of them.

It’ll be OK in a while, though!

Sorry, Smudgie

and anyone else who now may have a tune on the brain after my last post. Including me, as I’ve been humming “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” more or less ever since.

It has displaced my last selection of “ear worms” as they included “Jesus is my superhero”, “Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal post of life”, the theme tune for “Murder, she wrote”, three of Finzi’s Five Bagatelles for clarinet, and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

Eclectic set of earworms, methinks.

Almost all found, but more lost.

Well, except the clarinet reeds and the motivation. Everything else, curiously, was exactly where it was meant to be… I just assumed I’d put them all in the Green Box as I’d been in a rush. (The Green Box is the Holding System for everything in transit in my room… there’s no spare room in it at the moment!)

My patience has also gone missing, though. This could have Consequences, though I got through the early evening without any Consequences.

In between times, I’m having a bit of a nostalgic moment with Holst’s Planet Suite! No, nothing to do with remembering the Moon Landing of 40 years ago – I think I vaguely remember something, but it really didn’t impinge on me at the age of four. No, it’s much more personal… It’s the only piece of classical music I can ever remember my tone deaf brother being able to identify! To my total amazement. Probably to his. Though, at the time he was working at a theatre with the lighting department and he heard it every night for several weeks. It had nothing to do with the fact his elder sister tortured him daily with classical music from either of her two instruments or her trusty radio/cassette player for years! I was informed it all sounded the same… Which to him, I am convinced, it did. I’ve only come across a very few people who are genuinely tone deaf, and he was one of them. Still, these days I can listen to it without getting tearful or having to turn it off, which I had to do for a number of years after he died, (nearly 18 years ago) and only get kind of wistful, just wondering.

Now – whilst I’m in wondering mode, which is better than being De-Motivated, or Impatient, shall I deal with the glitter crisis? Sorting out boxes of cards, with poorly stuck on glitter, (but all cherished cards as they were lovingly made by those with only small single digits in their age!) is a Bad Idea when wearing a new black T-shirt. I think I shall get the sellotape out and deal with it now!

Discipline required

Oh, I have discovered a wonderful new thing on the internet, and if I’m not careful, I can see myself being led very easily astray by this wondrous discovery of digital sheet music.

For a small sum, I can purchase music, for a single printing from my computer. Most useful for the odd occasion when I’m asked for a song as a one-off. Somewhat heavy on my ink usage, but still, in total, cheaper than glossy sheet music would be, and meant I could do the task of locating the music I needed this evening.

I had to download some music reading software, which I realise I’d had on my old computer, but never got to downloading onto this one, and that was the most problematic part of the whole exercise. But, I remembered this from the last time, and patiently persevered.

And, in further wonders of the internet, I have listened to the song as well. (Ssshh – it won’t be remaining in my repertoire beyond the End of Term event for which it is required!)

My soups and smoothies were just what I needed, and I feel lots better now. Discipline required there, too!!

Victory declared

I think I can declare the Grand Sort Out finished for now. I have achieved most of what I set out to do, and that which I haven’t managed this week, can wait until my next few days of solitariness. Which will be upon me very soon.

But, I have tackled the Top of the Wardrobe, the Top Cupboard, the Space Under the Bed, and dusted the Shelves Behind the Books.

I do have one small dilemma… my cassette tapes. My cassettes are not in their first flush of youth, some of them are nearly as old as me. But, they were my very first collection of recorded music, carefully purchased using limited Saturday job income, and some of my favourite recordings are on them. My cassette playing machine is distinctly newer, but was involved in a little mishap a couple of years ago during a Painting and Decorating Saga, and it’s never been quite the same since. So, I can’t quite tell if it’s machine or tapes, and there is no other machine in the house to test them on.

A return to my normal routine beckons tomorrow… (EDIT.. oops, I mean today! I hadn’t realised it was quite so close to midnight) apart from the extra plant watering duties, which cease the day after.

News from the Shredding Department

The job continues… I’m now onto the baker’s dozen of bin-liners filled with shredded paper, two shopping trolley loads of unshredded paper and related material, (for alas, I do have to walk with all this lot along to the recycling bins) and I do believe the end is in sight. For shredding, at least.

There are other delightful chores ahead of me, including dusting and cleaning in places I’ve not visited recently. mainly because now I’ve got rid of so much paper, and recycled so many things I can now, um, see the dust. I also moved the flipchart paper from the top of the wardrobe. That, too, was an error of judgement that revealed layers of dust I prefer not to have known about.

I have saved the pleasant task of sorting out my printed music until this evening.

Today we commemorate Josephine Butler, my favourite commemoration in the Church of England’s calendar, and I will reread the excellent biography by Jane Jordan some time over the next few days.