Singing with the Halle

I sang with the Halle Choir in my first concert last Saturday! It was amazing... we sang Brahms' Song of Destiny, and then I went and found Stephen and sat with him for the second half of the performance, to listen to Bruckner's 7th Symphony, which was absolutely amazing. Random fact from my dad: apparently the tune to "Don't Cry for me Argentina" was inspired by this piece of music. Well we all looked wonderful in our concert dresses, they definitely look better en masse and certainly better from a distance. Individually and close up, they are not particularly flattering... unfortunately, I've not yet got a picture of myself in said dress.
Woke up on Sunday morning, with no voice. And Monday morning, and this morning. Should have seen it coming really, after the last few rehearsals we've had, I've been really out of breath and dizzy, and have been straining to hit the higher notes. So, reckon I've got an infection of some sort. Coughing and aching generally, you know the feeling. Well praise God I had my voice for the concert, and I wasn't due to sing on Sunday either: playing keyboard isn't so hard if you've lost your voice - although trying to communicate with the other musicians and the PA is tricky.
Oh well.
Off work today, so am taking time to update dancerjen, and I ought to make an effort to finish my Key Skills stuff too, as it needs to be finished for tomorrow.
'nuff for now...

flames

our boiler gave up the ghost last saturday, so we've been making use of our store of wood that has been taking up space in the garden. today the new boiler is being fitted, so i took some pictures of the flames last night - they were very beautiful, and i was poorly, and i was very pleased with myself that i'd got the fire going myself and had managed to keep it fed all evening.

my front room

thought i'd take some photos of our front room, you know, for posterity. the front room has looked specifically like this since october 28th (which, coincidentally, was my birthday). the main point of these photos is to prove to myself in years to come that i really did have a piano in my front room, and my parents really did get all the hints i'd been dropping for several months run-up to my birthday! my dad phoned us at 7.15am on the 28th, saying it might be an idea to get dressed 'cos the piano was currently at the front door on its way out of their house. which meant it would be about 15 minutes before it arrived at my house. sure enough, i'd only just managed to get dressed, when the piano movers turned up at half past seven in the morning, on my day off, on my birthday: the earliest i'd managed to get up all week. but hey! there was a piano on its way into my house! what a cool birthday present.

night lights and street lights

these are some pictures i took the other night, having discovered about exposure times and stuff. small beginnings - watch this space! the locations are probably oxford roda, manchester (taken from outside the BBC building) and what could possibly be portland street, i say possibly, because i don't actually know, but they were taken from outside piccadilly station so they are from that vicinity!