That was the summer that was . .

Hey! What was that 'whooshing' sound?

Oh, that was the summer mate. Whoosh - gone in a flash. Blink and you missed it. No sooner had I donned my shorts, shades and factor 50 (not an entirely pretty sight I can assure you) then bless my soul - summer was all but over and it was time once again for rehearsals with the Loughborough Male Voice choir.

So, while I mourn the sad passing of what we Brits laughingly call 'summer', I can at least rejoice in the fact that Thursday evenings are again filled with 'song'. It seemed rather strange when we 'broke up' for summer as I found myself wondering what to do with myself and indeed wondered quite what it was that I used to do on a Thursday evening prior to the LMVC descending upon my life.

Sadly, my promise to use Thursday evenings to practice running through such tricky numbers as 'Amarillo' never quite materialised, what with bathrooms to be plastered and tiled and sundry DIY tasks to be undertaken. Not that the vocal chords have been entirely idle you understand, as you will know if you have 'tuned in' to this blog during the last six weeks. Saturday afternoons have been filled with singing at several weddings in Prestwold and the latest was on Saturday 27th August. Unlike the previous wedding I sang at, this time the choir's ranks had swelled to a whopping 16. Thankfully consigned to the bin were the quite shockingly 'pink' ties that us chaps were asked to wear earlier in  the summer. They were ditched in favour of some splendid new ones fashioned from the remains of some exqusite material originally intended to form new dresses for Enchanted. Please don't ask! - No really, it's best not to, honestly!

Aren't weddings the most bizarre things? The more I go to, the more I appreciate the simplicity of my own Quaker wedding to Ruth back in 2004. I won't comment on the specifics of recent events for fear of causing offence but to me, a wedding should be about the bride and groom and what they are saying to one another and less about the lavishness of the outfits of groom, bridemaids and bride. Oh dear, wedding dresses. Oh dear, oh dear . . .   Better not go there. Moving swiftly on . . . .

I think this latest wedding 'sing-song' was my best yet - no blunders this time and I gather many favourable comments were received on the choir's performance. Indeed, so well have things been going that Caroline has decided to 'formalise' the choir. A small bunch of selected individuals have been invited to join 'The Caroline Sharpe Singers'. Astonishingly, I am one of them and we will be rehearsing fortnightly on Saturday mornings with the aim of performing at a gig in November. As the 'token bloke' this should be interesting and something of a challenge. Bring it on! I fear nothing, err, except singing solos, obviously!

Alongside all this of course, my singing lessons with Caroline have continued. I'm now trying to concentrate my efforts into mastering 'Moondance', as sung by Michael Buble and Van Morrison and also 'Where e're You Walk' by Handel - two very different styles of music, but variety is the spice of life as they say.

Some sad news to report - the first LMVC rehearsal of the new season started with Ray Archer announcing that he felt that he could no longer continue in the choir for health reasons. It's such a shame as he's been the choir's librarian for many years, keeping track of the multitude of copies of all the choirs repertoire of music. He'll be greatly missed and I'm sure his service will be marked appropriately in due course.

Meanwhile, the countdown to the LOROS concert on October 15th continues and boy oh boy, have I got a lot of work to do to get up to scratch. Better get down to it!

See you next time,

Alyn.