In her veil of tears she sees no rainbow...

We're in Tooting Bec. God knows what this place is other than a nasty hole filled to the brim with all sorts of undesirables and inadequates! 

We've been doing another alto sectional for my concert on the 27th  November. We were rehearsing two great singers who aren't music readers, so they sailed through the music I wrote for the Lincolnshire choir, which is now called Four Colours, and then started to slow down when it came to the behemoth which is known only as Busker III. It's a sort of Swingle-Singers-meets-Bach number, which was written and recorded as part of thr Busker Symphony. Heaven knows what possessed me to write something quite so complicated, but it's one of those pieces which will be an absolute showstopper if we can nail it. 

I am still on a high from last night, although I woke up this morning in floods of tears! It's a rare phenomenon, but from time to time, I dream of something so sad and empty that I wake up with tears steaming down my face. Usually I've been crying in the dream. This morning was no different. I don't actually know why I felt so sad in the dream, but my friend Lisa was cradling me as I wept; ironic, really, after the dreadful year she's been having. I woke up at 8.40am, wondering if anything was wrong with the world, but ten hours later, I'm consoling myself with the hope that I would have heard if there was a problem with one of my loved ones.

Pepys started drinking wine at breakfast time 350 years ago, and was drunk as a skunk by mid day. He was invited out for lunch by his friend Luellin, and they ate more marrowbones and neat tongues and other substances, no doubt, too minging to mention.