pensnest | (no subject)

I've spent the last few days in Yorkshire.

As we got off the coach, the first thing anyone did was to comment on how beautiful the trees were. Autumn is a little more advanced up there than here, and there was so much glorious golden yellow, and a fair bit of blush and peach and some red and copper and crimson. Lovely stuff.

I was in Harrogate with my ladies barbershop chorus for the LABBS 40th anniversary convention. Our actual performance, though we thought it went well, brought disappointing results in that we stayed pretty much exactly where we were last year in terms of both score and position relative to everyone else. However, there's more to Convention than how your competition goes, and there were some splendid performances to enjoy. We did ours just before lunch, but I didn't go straight back in to watch the entire afternoon's competitors, choosing instead a cup of overpriced tea and something to eat.

I did watch Amersham Acappella's magnificent, gold-medal-winning performance. There doesn't seem to be video available on the LABBS site at present, which is a pity, because it's well worth seeing.

Hard to follow the eventual champions, but the chorus that did follow them had us all absolutely delighted. They did a couple of songs from Toy Story, and boy, had they committed to the concept! They were dressed as Woody (the MD), Buzz, Mr and Mrs Potato Head, the Shepherdess, the weird little green aliens, the soldiers, the Prospector, Woody's horse, basically as all the characters from the films, and they were completely wonderful. Standing ovation from the entire house.

Much to everyone's delight, there was a special award available in celebration of the LABBS 40th anniversary, a price for Entertainment. As soon as it was announced the cheering began, because it couldn't have been given to anyone else. Second City Sound, you were amazing.

I had a better convention, this time around. Last year I wasn't altogether sure that barbershop was my Thing. Also, I met a friend who'd moved to the area and we had dinner together, so I missed some of the events. This year, I watched the shows on Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning (this was the reprise of the winning presentations by the bronze, silver and gold quartets and choruses). It's always nice to hear the men singing. They have, between them, so much more range than we can possibly manage. The star guests were The OC Times, international champion quartet from eight years ago—highly accomplished, of course, but I didn't altogether like their sound, which was very hard-edged.

After Saturday's show, most of us returned to our hotel rather than endure the crush at the convention centre (which is probably only okay if you know everyone). We sang, a bit, then sang some more. There was a charity event and, happily for us, several of the guests there came over to listen and encourage us to sing more—I think having Bohemian Rhapsody to sing really helps! We must have done that one about five times, getting progressively rougher as we went… but we were gifted two bottles of wine as a thank-you, and had a great deal of fun and many laughs.

On Sunday afternoon,

nopseud came to collect me and take me to her mother's place near Bradford, from whence we issued forth on Monday to visit potential Camp Sparkle cottages. We saw four altogether, a very useful trip. And it's always fun to spend time with

nopseud.

Train home, a pleasant and easy ride. And here I am once more with my cuddle supplier.