… en, tre, fem, seks, fem, tre, en…

It has been a while since I updated the blog so….

I haven’t been on any great adventures for a wee while but nonetheless I have been busy with various musical activities and finally sorting out some routine for myself.

The Kammerchor had a couple of rehearsals over the last week - the first one was a “house rehearsal” in Sandnessjøen. The choir covers a vast area so only have full rehearsals once a month (on a Friday evening and Saturday morning/afternoon) so the expectation is on the members to learn the music before the rehearsal so that more time can be spent on refining and nuance rather than note-bashing.

Not that I focus on these things but it is always nice to turn up to a rehearsal where there’s a lovely spread set out on the table!

The choir rehearse in a lovely little hall out in the countryside- it seemed a strange place for a hall so I asked about it. Apparently each little kommune has a community hall and this was quite a new one. But goodness me it was cold - think the heating was on the blink. A chap came in to look at it and fiddled with buttons etc but after he left I still saw the temperature dropping.

The rehearsals start with serious warm ups - and I mean serious. Friday night’s warm up took 37 minutes - not that I was counting… The conductor starts with the physical ones - some of which I occasionally did back in Dundee but there was a lot more Including bending over and hanging your arms and almost touching your toes (or in my case, ŵknees). The hardest ones for me are obviously the ones involving words/ numbers. I didn’t have a clue with the words obviously but I did slightly better with the numbers. Singing (on the scale) 1, 3, 5, 6, 5, 3, 1 would be fairly easy back home but in Norwegian (en, tre, fem, seks, fem, tre, en) I’m a tad slower as I translate each number in my head. It’s such a thorough work out my voice (which is not used to such singing these days) is fairly knackered. Still it’s fun music and the effort is worth it in the end.

I regard all these rehearsals (the choir and Dønnahorn wind band) as a chance to gradually expand my vocabulary and get used to the language. Though of course I should add that I actually enjoy the music as well! I now have my introduction quite well refined - My name is Graeme. I come from Dundee. I live in Stavseng, I’m 52. I’m not married. I have 3 children - 2 boys and a girl. I have a cat. His name is Londo. I can also add a bit more about the ages of the kids and where they are living. Course the sad thing is I can only use that once for each person I meet. Fortunately still not had to use “the bear is eating me” yet….

It transpired that I had double booked myself so was unable to attend the choir rehearsal on Saturday morning. I had agreed to play for…. At the Peter Dass Museum. Rather than catch the ferry back to Dønna and have to reverse the journey in the morning I joined a number of other members of the choir in staying at a hotel in Sandnessjøen.

I turned up at the museum in plenty of time but I fear I looked a tad out of place as the lady in charge thought I was a tourist who had wandered in by mistake as the museum wasn’t officially open yet. The group consists of very talented young players taught by Eva….And they performed a fun wee program of music by Vivaldi, Bach and Piazzolla etc to a packed out cafe.

On Wednesday evening Laila, Helga and I pottered across once again to Sandnessjøen for a concert at which a local group performed “Let it be” and “Abbey Road” in their entirety. It was a fabulous performance - I’ve always had a soft spot for “Abbey Road” and I particularly enjoyed the long medley at the end.

As far as day to day life is concerned, all the various bits of officialdom etc is starting to come together. I’ve got my ID card, tax thingy, Norwegian phone card is on it’s way and I finally got the bank card. It took slightly longer than necessary due to someone who shall remain nameless giving the bank his phone number incorrectly. I was so worried at the time it was taking that I sent a concerned email asking about it and they replied saying that they had messaged the following number much earlier and then I noticed….

I’ve even started to get my finger out with cooking again and finally made some soup again. Took a few days longer than necessary as I had bought the wrong sort of stock. Obviously everything is in a foreign language but even the picture of a fish on the box wasn’t enough for me to think that perhaps it wasn’t ham stock. Randi v kindly took us on a slight detour on the way to the Tuesday rehearsal and Laila came in with me just to make sure…..

Other exciting news that Elisabeth very kindly, and let’s be honest, miraculously, found my sun glasses that I’d lost after our hike. Obviously that gave another excuse to have coffee and chocolate and a lovely chat with her and her husband Patrick.

I’ve had a couple of Sundays off over the last couple of weeks but there are still regular services during the week and this Sunday we’ve got 2 - one in Nordvik and another on Husvær which looks like it may be interesting and I’m sure I’ll write about that next time.