I didn’t write yesterday about the choir meeting on Friday. There were 43 participants and some of those were couples, so probably just under fifty people (about half the full choir) logged in I’m sure lots of people enjoyed it, but for me the singing part was truly awful. Because the way it works is that you can’t hear the other people singing, everyone is on mute apart from the musical director, so all you can hear is his instructions and the keyboard, and you sing your part along with that. For a start, I hadn’t realised that there was a link to the sheet music and audio files in the email, so I wasn’t prepared. The music was shared on the screen, but I couldn’t see it well enough to read without having to scroll round it all the time. We did two songs: ‘Panis Angelicus’ and ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, both of which I know (though I didn’t know the alto part for Over the Rainbow). I had got the music for ‘Panis Angelicus’ because we were rehearsing it for the Easter concert when lockdown started, so I was able to follow that, and I have sung it before, but as soon as I opened my mouth all that came out was a horrible scratchy squeak. Horrible. It was like being before an audition panel, except that no one could hear me – which is strange, if you think about it, because if no one can hear why would that make me nervous? The thing is, I can’t read music, so I’m dependent on picking up on the voices of the other people singing the same notes, whether that’s the whole choir or just the other ladies in the alto section. Even ‘Over the Rainbow’ – which I used to sing to my kids when they were little, so you’d think I’d know it – was a struggle, because if I sing it by myself it doesn’t matter if I’m in the wrong key, and anyway, as I said, I didn’t know the alto part.

Well, that’s what I should have written about yesterday, only I didn’t feel like it, and today… Today I was originally going to write about anger, how angry I am with everything, with the state of the country, with the state of the world, with everything, with myself. I’d be angry with God if I believed in him/her/it, but of course I don’t, so that’s someone I can’t blame.

On Facebook yesterday I saw a Wordsearch, and the instructions were to share the first three words you noticed because that says something about you. The first two I saw were: ‘One’, and ‘Lesson – I was intrigued to find out what this ‘one lesson’ was – and then I saw ‘Strength’. Oh great. So is that a lesson I’ve learned, or one I need to learn?

I don’t really understand how the choir thing is going to work. Of course, I sing a lot by myself when I’m by myself, but that doesn’t have to be in tune. At choir, I usually rely on the ladies around me to get it right, and hope I can blend in. The email said that the Musical Director has ‘some ideas of things we can do’. Knowing him, I’m sure he’ll make it fun. We have the music we were rehearsing for the Easter concert (which was cancelled, obviously). We were also supposed to be doing a concert at the Guildhall last month, but we never even started rehearsing that. I haven’t looked at any of it for four months, of course, but I know where it is.

The thing is… I’ve really appreciated having Friday evenings to myself, not having to think about going out and interacting – more so in that I have to go by car, and finding somewhere to park is a nightmare – not just at the rehearsal hall, but also around here when I used to get back at about quarter to ten. There’ve been Friday evenings when I’ve spent half an hour driving around looking for a spot, and ended up parking so far away that I then had a twenty minute walk to get home (though that has improved a bit since the residents’ parking permits were introduced eighteen months ago, although they’re not in operation by that time of the evening).

Choir is one of those things that has caused me massive amounts of stress – especially around concerts – but that I keep bullying myself into going to because – well, mostly I enjoy it once I get there, but also I feel I have to go out and interact with people. And actually, it is quite non-threatening, because chatting isn’t compulsory, in fact most of the time it’s frowned upon. And they are a very nice bunch – those I know enough to actually speak to.

We’ll see how it goes.