Anyway, not to worry. I'll just ramble on in my normal style and you can do your best to keep up. So... let's see... where were we? Monday 1 December, our choir performed in the first carol concert of our season, a charity service in aid of prostate cancer. It went OK but we did have to suffer the indignity of the inaugural performance of our choreographed routine accompanying Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, a moment of intense humiliation for me and several other choir members. I stayed out far too late in the pub afterwards when I should have been rushing home to pack, so then ended up throwing random and disassociated items together into my suitcase well after midnight.
Tuesday 2 December I took the Northern Line to King's Cross in the morning, met my parents, boarded the Eurostar and travelled to Paris. Having moved out of the family home in March this year, this two night, three day break was the longest uninterrupted parent time I've had for over eight months, and I must say it was rather a shock to be back in the fold. They are both almost everything wonderful and I love them to pieces, but my dad's insistence on stressing about possible negative future occurences is nothing short of debilitating. I bore it by taking the mickey out of him as much as possible, but there was a moment at Gare du Nord on our final afternoon where I was tempted to stuff him into a left-luggage locker and go sightseeing alone. Other than that brief blip, we had a wonderful time, eating and drinking far too much (as is correct at such times) and having a good look round Versailles, which created historic overload within almost a few seconds of arrival, but was still mighty impressive. I especially loved the hilarious contrast between the temporary Jeff Koons artworks that were being exhibited both inside and outside the palace, and the traditional ostentation of the original building - but the oversized metallic balloon animals upset my father a little. The driving horizontal rain and icy wind made looking round the gardens impossible, so maybe I'll return another milder day to enjoy those. Certainly a trip worth making. And the double-decker trains out there and back were cool too. On Thursday we tried our best to walk alongside the Canal St Martin and had OK food at the very cool Hotel du Nord. It was an area of the French capital I'd never seen before and I'm glad we made the trip. That said, I think that most of the reason why Paris is wonderful is that it's a fun city to meander around. If the weather is minging (which it really really was), it does reduce the funcount quite substantially. I don't know if I'd rush to go back there in winter again. And yes, I know that sounds like I'm an ungrateful, heartless daughter. I'm not saying I didn't have fun: I did. And my parents are well aware of that. I hope.Friday I saw the Chief Superintendant - we went to see Waltz with Bashir which was fascinating, although the policeman has just got back from six months in Afghanistan and I was aware of him wincing every time a bullet or a missile whizzed across the screen. Did bring an even more intense resonance to the viewing experience. Saturday, my friend Toby brought me carrot cake and drank a lot of my tea, and then we went for a walk along the river which was lovely until we reached the area by the Millennium wheel, when the tourist build-up became unacceptable and we both gave up and headed for Waterloo. That night was the X Factor semi-final, which was unremarkable in every way except adorable 16-year-old Eoghan's absolutely heart-wrenching devastation on finding out that he had made it through to the final and Diana, his 17-year-old love, had been booted off the show. I know a bitter old cynic like me should be more hardy but I must admit that my eyes did brim with tears as the young hobbit sobbed 'I love you! I love you so much!' with a conviction that only a teenager can muster.
Sunday was fairly hilarious. The choir I'm in had a day trip down to Poole, in Dorset, to perform in a concert. When we arrived, after a three hour coach trip, we found that the gig was 'Christmas with Morse', featuring a few songs by us, interspersed with many, many readings by two men connected with the popular book and TV series, Inspector Morse. The performance itself was pretty unremarkable with the exception of a lady in the front row who was obviously Morse's number one fan, and, when a vaguely Christmas-themed extract from one of the stories was read to the audience, she mouthed along with every. single. word. and then gave the speaker a solo standing ovation at the end. Oh - also, on our final song, we were given a note and were expected to come in, singing a beautiful, lilting chord. Unfortunately, none of us could work out what we were meant to be doing, and all sang a note plucked at random. It sounded horrific. Ed, who was conducting us, turned to the audience and said 'I think we'll try that one again.' Fortunately it was better second time around.
On the way back to London, we bought a lot of booze in a BP garage. I was charged £1.49 for a bottle of nice Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and a large bag of blue Doritos. "That can't be right," I said to the man behind the counter, waving the receipt at him. "Don't worry about it," he shrugged. Delighted. Then we sang raucously the entire way to town, including such hits as The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Jingle Bells (Cockney remix) and I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. Brilliant.
Monday I was desperately hungover at work, which wasn't a good start to the week - and in the evening there was another choir rehearsal, which was a bit grumpy-making for various reasons, although it was useful in that it helped me decided that I definitely did a little bit fancy one of the new guys in the choir. Helpfully, around 24 hours later, i.e. late last night, he sent me an email asking if I knew if another girl in the choir was seeing anyone romantically, as he wanted to ask her out but didn't want to face the embarrassment of being knocked back. It was like being back at school. Well, not my school, obviously, as we barely knew what boys were, let alone dreamed that they might one day want to go out for a drink with us. But that high school cliche of the boy nervously approaching the girl, asking if he can ask her something, her looking up all hopeful and ecstatic that he's finally going to ask her to the prom, and then him saying 'Do you think your friend X would come to the prom with me?' and her getting all crestfallen and having to disguise it - well, it's still alive and kicking, aged 31. Still, fortunately he isn't the only iron in the fire, as it were. And now that I know he doesn't like me, I have actually gone off him. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Anyway, before he sent me that email, we had all performed at yet another concert (this is yesterday, so Tuesday), and had more drinks in the pub afterwards, which was once again really really fun. Choir at Christmas is just brilliant, even when boys don't fancy you. Feel very lucky to be part of it all. But now I am running on empty, big time, and there is no sign of a break - I'm out every night for the rest of the week and most of next week, too. Dead a long time, dead a long time, dead a long time. Will try and be back before too long. Hope you're all having a fun packed Advent.
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