A first time for everything

The unprecedented happened at my birthday party on Saturday. Peter had mentioned to me during the course of the evening that I had a gift for bringing groups of disparate people together, and a couple of hours later a huge disagreement arose between two of my friends. Coming as the proceedings were drawing to a close (at around 4am), it could have spoilt the evening as a whole, but thankfully things had gone so well until that point that my memory of the occasion is, on the whole, as a happy one. It just saddens me that tempers should have got the better of my guests ...

My mother and brother returned home this morning after a short week here which took in a walk around Arthur's Seat on my birthday, a trip to see Les liaisons dangereuses at the Lyceum on Friday, the party on Saturday and, considering the Pimm's and G&T I'd drunk the previous evening, some pretty good solos on my part at the eucharist on Sunday. I arrived at the church just in time to launch into the Agnus Dei from Kodaly's Missa brevis which opened the rehearsal - soaking wet, my glasses steamed up and (crucially) my voice not in any way warmed up. I'm still not entirely clear how, come the service, I managed top G sharps mezzo piano without going into falsetto.

Now I'm back and ready to blog on the delights of Lully and his contemporaries, whose music I'm singing this Saturday.