Days of summer

Wow, and there goes another month – I did so well blogging all through June, started out in July…. and then Real Life took over!  What a shock to the system that’s been ;-)  Seriously though, it really has been a pretty good summer.  The “busy day” to come that I mentioned about two posts / six weeks ago way back on 5th July was the day that I had an interview for a volunteering “job”, and I’ve been doing that ever since.  Not every day, I mean.  Just once a week.  I’m really enjoying it!  (I’d better not go into specifics just yet.  I’ll check with them first if they mind me blogging about it a bit.  I’ve been almost-burned with that before, when a manager at my job up north told me I should remove all references to work.  And none of that was specific stuff about the company at all, if I remember rightly, and certainly didn’t name anything or anyone.  Just occasional anecdotes about colleagues and work life.  So, double-check first, blog later!)

Other than that, I’ve been going to the Bipolar Course, which is nearly over now.  That’s also been really good.  I hadn’t been going to choir for a while because I’d been ill, but I’ll be going again when rehearsals start back up in September so I’m looking forward to that.  And I’ve also taken up Geocaching!  What-y What-ing?  Well, in case you haven’t heard of it, it’s a sort of a cross between orienteering and treasure hunting, done with GPS.  In my case, I use the GPS thingy in my phone rather than a dedicated device, and it’s been spot on every time so far.  It’s getting me out and about and giving me a reason to go for walks, and it was surprising the first few times how much glee and satisfaction I felt when I found the caches.

Right, I must be getting on.  I’ll try to remember to blog more about geocaching, update my knitting and spinning stuff… um…. oh, and talk about Pirate Day, Promming,  and how much I liked the BBC’s new “Sherlock” adaptation!  I think that’s about it.  Probably.


All Hands on Deck

I haven’t blogged much recently because I’ve been knitting.  Which means I don’t have enough hands to type at the same time!  I should at least be mostly done with the things I’m knitting as Christmas presents.  Ahem.  I might be completely done, who knows?  I probably would have been fine, but Mum asked me for mittens which I then had to factor in… and it all went a little bit wonky.  Not too much though.

Other than present knitting, I’ve finished my gloves (pictures soon), done a bit of spinning at the 1066 Spinners group, and of course have been Christmas shopping.  There’s an open air ice rink in town for the festive season, so Jo and I are hoping to go down there at some point.  Although it’s just started snowing today, so I spose it depends how bad that gets.  I also did an hour of carolling at the local hospital last night with choir.  I really love singing carols, so that was lots of fun.  Even though I did have to stand in the front row where people can – oh no!!! – see me!  Happily for my ridiculous stage fright, most people didn’t stop and stare: we were in the foyer, so the majority of the people just passed through.

Anyway, I’d better go and have dinner before KnitJam tonight.  I’m sure there was something else I was planning to blog about, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me.  If not, it probably wasn’t important!

I killed it!

My photo album, that is.  Ooops.  And yes, this time I think it really is gone – I was attempting to set up the new version of it using the NextGEN Gallery plugin within WordPress, and I guess that clashed somehow with the Coppermine script, because it’s all fallen down and the photos themselves won’t even show up as direct links.  They’re definitely physically there on the server, but I’m getting 404s when I try to reach them.  I don’t know why that is (though I have a suspicion).  So strange.

Anyway, that means that pretty much all of the photos on the blog are broken for the time being.  I’m going to try to get that fixed over the next couple of days, but I doubt it’ll happen tonight.  I have a concert to sing in!  But I might be wide awake after that, so I might make a start then after all.  Now, though, I’d better finish getting ready.  Concert blacks, here I come…

Is Oratoria the plural of Oratorio?

Actually, I’m fairly sure it’s just “Oratorios”.  Which is what I’ve mostly been singing lately, now that I’m a member of Battle Choral Society.  For any non-local people: no, we don’t wear chain mail, we don’t carry weaponry other than the heavy music, and we don’t make war on other local choral societies (although wouldn’t that be kind of fun? *g*).  Just like Battle Wool Shop doesn’t sell combative  yarn and needles (although, again…) and Battle Golf Club doesn’t practice an outdoor form of battle chess (I bet there is a Battle Chess Club, though, which may play normal or battle chess), it’s just that it’s based in the small town (large village?) of Battle.  Which is so named because it’s where the Battle of Hastings took place, with the abbey being built and then the town growing around that in the last thousand years or so.

Anyway, history lesson over.  I’ve been really enjoying being part of the choir, and would have been at rehearsals tonight if not for going down with this stupid cold – I’ve just got to the sneezy part, so I can’t very well go along and germify everyone else.  Bah.  At the moment we’re rehearsing for Haydn’s “The Creation” – concert at the end of the month!  And just a couple of weeks ago was the first concert I’ve done with the choir: Handel’s “Messiah”, which is one of my all time favourites, and luckily something I’ve sung many many times, since much of the practice for it was done before I joined!

Right, if I want to be well enough for KnitJam on Wednesday, not to mention choir next week, I’d better take myself back to bed.   I’m tempted to take my knitting with me, but I might be better off just trying to get some sleep.  Early night vs knitting?  Hmm, we’ll see.