Ding dong merrily on high

I've been very busy, but in a mainly choir-related way. I'm a member of two choirs, and both had carol concerts last week. I have had quite a lot of organising to do for one of them, and as well as that I had rehearsals on Thursday evening, Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon, and concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings. This was quite hard on a) the brain, b) the back and legs and c) the voice. But it was all quite fun. As a result, I have nothing interesting to report, but - this isn't very interesting, but it's all I've got - Jubilo, the choir of which I am now the chair, used to have a banner which became obsolete, so I commissioned a new one (designed by a committee, hmm, but it turned out ok) to advertise our concert. It's reusable - we just stick another (plasticated) poster on the top for next time. This was much more faff than it sounds, but there it is on the fence outside St Cuthbert's Church, our venue. Can you see Edinburgh Castle in the background? 

Did it bring in any extra audience members? Well, at least two, which I know because they were very nice South African tourists who saw the banner and came to the concert. They came very early, which is how I became aware of them. Their presence may have had something to do with the fact that it was pouring rain at the time; who knows? 

Mr L kindly put the banner up with cable ties earlier this week, and after the concert, when it was still Biblically pounding down, he even more kindly took it down, in the dark and (very) wet, slicing his finger while cutting the ties. He's a very good chap. 

The other choir, at which I am just an ordinary member, had four of the same carols as Jubilo in its programme, which made it easier for me, though also slightly confusing, since we performed them slightly differently at each choir. For example, sometimes the men sang verse two alone (or we all sang it) or we had to get louder in one bit (or not), or we had to sing things legato (or staccato). And so on.

The other choir is The Seven Hills Chorus (Edinburgh is reputedly built on seven hills like Rome, though there are really more). This is their banner and it's an indoor one, displayed in the hall where we give our audience drinks and mince pies. It's there for the purposes of recruitment. 

And that's been my life this week. Next week - Christmas preparations. 

PS I was surprised that Margaret doesn't know what "faff" means. I hadn't realised that it was a British English word. It just means "bother", in the sense of having various minor but time-consuming things to do, though as a verb - when you're faffing around - you're doing these things inefficiently. The Scottish equivalent, or at least near equivalent, is "footer". Eg, "I haven't got time to footer around with that", or "I'm going to string fairy lights round the doors but it's a bit of a footer."