Day 4

I was up before it got light this morning. Okay, I realise this is part of most ordinary people's daily regime, but when it happens to me it always seems a little bit wrong. I stumbled around in the bedroom trying not to wake Nathan up whilst looking for socks and things to wear that didn't clash. Who am I trying to kid? I only have brown and black clothes. I was actually simply trying to work out whether the clothes strewn on the bedroom floor were clean or not!

As soon as I arrived in rehearsals I realised there was a major issue with my music writing software. All of the playback sounds were at randomly different volumes to the extent that it became impossible to do any arrangements. It is incredibly stressful to get so close to a show and realise that you can't do the task you desperately need to do because technology has ceased to serve you properly. What a ghastly irony for a show which relies so heavily on computers!

I was forced to leave rehearsals before lunch time to come home and deal with everything. As I travelled back to Highgate I could feel my stomach churning as I tried to think through all of the issues that were presenting themselves and the various ways I might be able to work around them. There was a pathetic hope bouncing around in the back of my brain which promised me if I called the Finale music software help line, some extraordinarily amazing geek in America would solve all my problems.

As I sat on the Northern Line, I got a little horrified by the sight of a bloke with an earlobe stretched so large that you could have run a sausage through the hole. I genuinely don't know why people mutilate themselves in this manner. When extreme piercers take the structural earring out, they must surely be aware of the terrible withered ear lobe which is left in its place, like some drooping old man's nipples. What does it achieve? Is it a form of self-loathing? Do you think they regret it?

So I got home and battled through the afternoon waiting for 8.30am in the Mountain Time Zone when I could call the help line in America. The man was calm, which I liked. He told me there wasn't a cure all, and that Finale were aware of the issue with their samples, but took me through a variety of different processes, some of which helped a little. I'm always amused by the concept of the Mountain Time Zone. It seems such a curious concept. I'm not sure I could name a single city which falls into its clutches. Places like Salt Lake City, I assume?

The day got a little stressful towards the evening as I started to buckle at the realisation of how much there still is to achieve on the show in terms of orchestration. I have also developed a shocking cold, so another layer of coping mechanism has been stripped back. My back has gone into spasms as well, so all in all I'm a bit of a physical mess, which is why I'm sweating the small stuff.

In the words of Julian of Norwich: "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Julian of Norwich was a woman, by the way. This was a fact I knew, but I did a little reading on the subject to discover that she was actually the first woman to write a book in the English language. What a blinkin' legend! I love the fact that she is known as a "mystic." I reckon this world could do with a few more mystics!