Could I be losing my mind? Really?
The Princess and I have joined the church choir. Rehearsals are at 7.15 on Thursday. Last Thursday, I hared home from work. I stopped off at home and picked up herself and we ran up to the church. The choir is composed of two elements. The first element consists of those who were auditioned and joined many years ago when the catholic church was a force to be reckoned with and the choir director was a successful professional singer who was never ever addressed by her first name. They can all sing and read music and are quite elderly. The second element consists of more recent additions who are willing to come to rehearsals.
I scurried into the pew. The nice lady beside me said, “You know, I think you’re an alto; the altos sit over there”. I went to the next pew where three rather frail but charming ladies made me welcome. “Are you sure you’re not a soprano?” they asked. “No,” I said with quiet confidence. I buried myself among them and tried to sing along. In case you don’t know this either, let me tell you now; the sopranos sing the tune and the altos make them sound nice by singing something completely different. I was all at sea and the lady beside pointed helpfully to the alto line in the music. I was forced to whisper, “I’m afraid I can’t read music.” She was visibly startled but said kindly, “I’m sure you’re doing the best with what God has given you, dear.” She had to run off at 8.00 to go home to her husband who had a carer until then. I was then doomed as she had a nice strong voice I could row in behind. The director had me come and sing near the piano. Never a good sign, I think you’ll agree.
The Princess meanwhile was doing fine by dint of standing beside her friend who has a really lovely voice and, like me, rowing in behind but with considerably more success. She was quite pleased with herself.
We got home about 9. Mr. Waffle said to me, “Did you remember the car?” “No,” I said, “we actually walked up.” “No, remember you drove to work?” he said. Oh woe. And I had had to fly home on a Dublin bike in the wet and would have loved to take the car which was waiting patiently in the office car park. I had to get the tram back in and rescue it. Can you believe that this is the second time I have done this in six weeks?
By the time I came home with the car, the Princess had been sick. She proceeded to get sick repeatedly until 4 in the morning when she dozed off. The poor child was actually green. I have never seen that before in real life. I stayed at home with her the next morning and she was almost recovered and by that evening she was fine. But really it made for a somewhat stressful 24 hours.
Is it any wonder I’m losing my mind?
I have done that car thing. I have also done the thing where I get on a Dart in one direction, say Howth, get off and realise that I should have gone on the other direction, take two Darts to go around the corner (say an hour extra) and THEN realise I drove to work that morning. Now that’s a pickup call of shame.
Thank God, it’s not just me.
I’ve never left my bike at work and taken the bus, but I’ve had a couple of very close calls. (And I have on several occasions gone looking for my bike before remembering I came on the bus…) Snow here, now, so at least that problem has been resolved for a few months! The locals cycle unless it’s a blizzard, but I’m not that tough.
Oh, and I’ve had a similar illness to your daughter. Only twice, but once was fairly recently while visiting a friend. She was also unpleasantly surprised to discover people can actually turn green!
And I’m only having to look after me. So I think you’ve every justification for feeling frazzled.
Oh Lauren, poor you. Turning green too. Better to do that with someone there to look after you, though…