Welwyn

It's midnight and we haven't yet finished working for the night. As expected, Rogers and Hammerstein publishers have come back with a series of formatting issues which Nathan is very kindly addressing. This evening he's dealt with three out of the thirty files, whilst I've been writing music for the mystery project. 

My cold persists and Nathan has started to exhibit the classic symptoms of stress, with neuralgia and a face which keeps flushing red. This is no life.

Something nice did happen today, however. Our friend, Carrie, has set up a professional choir to do corporate gigs and we had our first rehearsal today.

It was a welcome respite from the other project and gave me a chance to immerse myself in music as a performer... Without worrying about organising people, or the wellbeing of the people I've brought together, or anyone panicking about things or telling me they can't make rehearsals. It didn't stop a tide of emails coming in whilst I was rehearsing, which kept pulling me away from the bliss of the rehearsal room, but for the majority of the day I was in heaven.

Llio, Abbie and Anthony from the Rebel Chorus were all there. We sang five songs, mostly from the "inspirational" pop canon. I growled away in the basses. The tessitura of the part is on the low side (and I'm a low bass), so none of us were really able to give it a massive amount of welly, but it was so much fun to be singing in a choir again. Everyone should sing in a choir.

The rehearsal was in Welwyn Garden City, in a rather curious industrial estate which reminded me of places in my home town of Higham Ferrers. We had lunch sitting on a step outside a unit which made condiments. The sun was warm. It was very relaxing. Like a lovely dream.