choral music and a fox attack

I went last night to hear a performance of Haydn's The Seasons in Dedham Church by the Stour Choral Society.  I never even heard of The Seasons before, but I like Haydn.  It's probably true that I don't like his music so much that I would drive twelve miles in the pouring rain to hear an amateur choir perform a work I'd never heard of, if a friend hadn't been singing in it, but she was.  The Systems Administrator is pretty indifferent to Haydn, and opted for the stay at home in front of the fire alternative.  Several of us went, and opinions about abandoning one's spouse on a Saturday night varied.  One husband apparently didn't like it, and as The Seasons turned out to be quite a long piece, even in its cut-down form (it took an hour to get through Spring and Summer), her mobile phone came out during the ten minute interval and she shot off as soon as the applause died, asking me to give her best wishes to the performer.  The other married lady in the party took a more robust view, saying that she'd told him she was going out and he'd had his dinner.  I thought the SA would be quite happy reading a book, or watching some film I didn't want to see, but as the full magnitude of The Seasons struck me I consoled myself with the thought that since supper was reheated goulash that was already in the oven, the SA could always tuck in before I got back if too hungry.

Arriving at the church was slightly confusing, as I pushed open the door to be greeted by the sight of a lot of men in dinner jackets, and a woman in black who demanded to know whether I was a member of the public.  I thought I probably was a member of the public, since I was not a member of the choir, or a space alien.  It turned out that what she wanted to know was whether I was general audience, or a patron of the Stour Choral Society.  For a minimum annual donation of £25 I could have had a reserved seat (as I discovered once I'd managed to find a seat and read the notes in my programme).  Seats were reserved by dint of putting notices that said Patron at the ends of the pews, which confused most of the members of the public, including me, who could not work out whether that meant that the whole pew was off-limits, or just the place with the notice on it. This meant that my husband-not-too-happy friend and I ended up sitting nearer the back than we need have done, though that didn't really matter, since you  don't need to sit right on top of a choir anyway.

The Seasons is a rousing piece of music, most of the time, though I thought during Spring that Haydn was presenting an idealised view of that season, and we could do with a bit more bounteous sun rolling from Aries and Taurus.  Come gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come - yup, I'm with Franz Joseph on that one, could definitely do with some ethereal mildness and a few lovely charms unfolding in a fragrant scene.  Instrumental accompaniment was provided by an organ and a percussionist, and the organist was having a ball and pulling out all the stops.  Hunting horn?  Yes, I can do that.  Oh, you want a flute and a string section, no problem.  A couple of the music society committee members turned out to be in the choir.  Chatting to the treasurer in the interval I said I didn't know he was in that choir, and he said he wasn't, always, but his arm had been twisted.  It turns out there is a shortage of tenor voices for amateur choirs.  More women than men want to join, and most of the men are older chaps whose voices, if they were ever in the tenor range when they were younger, have since dropped down to baritone.  All the research I've seen shows that belonging to a choir confers enormous emotional and mental health benefits, and I don't know why men in the 30 to 55 age bracket are so reluctant to do it, when women aren't, but there you go.

One of the sopranos was blind, and sang from a braille score, her guide dog at her feet.  The dog had been to all the rehearsals, of course, and apparently behaved impeccably except during the warm-up exercises, when he joined in by howling.  It was the dog's birthday a couple of weeks ago (not the owner's), and the choir sang Happy Birthday to it.

I didn't get back until half past ten, and found a very hungry Systems Administrator who had waited supper for me to be sociable.  I realised that if I'd rung when I left Dedham there would have time to cook the rice while I was driving home.  We settled for brown bread.

This morning I discovered that at some point during the night something, presumably a fox, had tried hard to dig into the chicken run.  When the snow was lying we'd seen a set of tracks that came out of the wood, went to the pop-hole, and round to the other side of the run to that particular spot, so maybe Charlie has had an eye on it for some time.  The invader had not got all the way through, prevented partly by the roots of a self-sown hawthorn that I hadn't had the energy to dig out, and had just been cutting the regrowth off the top.  The roots were deep and obviously very obstinate, so that was a fortunately placed weed.  The wood at the base of the run that the wire was stapled to had rotted, and the SA is going to have to go out this afternoon in the rain and staple it to a new and larger piece of wood.  We've got some sections of beam left over from the old deck that should do nicely.  A bit of extra wire wouldn't come amiss either.

Foxes are at their most blatant and dangerous at this time of year, when they have cubs.  I have seen them around the chickens in the garden in broad daylight twice, during the summer.  As a precaution this morning I put the chicken gate we use to stop them wandering up to the meadow across the damaged section of run, with a large clay jar in front of it.

Addendum  After lunch I am going to make some coconut buns and then the gloss I did this morning will be ready for a second coat (overcoating time six hours).  You didn't think I was going to let the whole day go by without mentioning paint, did you?  I really do need to finish the painting today.  The cats are starting to go mad, with the rain and the doors locked at random and furniture and food in the wrong places, and in turn are starting to drive us slightly mad as well.