Cat drama

Before I get onto the main event – Bobby: the last few weeks – can I just do a plug for my inaugural organ recital this coming Sunday at 3pm. It’s inaugural because it’s the first recital on the very recently renovated Church organ. The £55k project was completed at the very beginning of January, but organs are complex instruments and things take time to settle and to ‘bed-in’. This Friday the builders are coming in to put a few things straight and to give it a fine tune before my recital on Sunday.

My programme is:

Buxtehude: Preludium, Fugue & Ciaccona in C – which opens with a dramatic pedal solo
Buxtehude: Chorale Prelude Durch Adams fall – showing off the beautiful Flute stops
Bridge: Adagio in E – his most popular organ piece
Bridge: Allegro con spirito in B flat – the name says it all
Faure: Berceuse – think Listen with Mother
Bach: Prelude & Fugue in C minor BWV 546 – a masterpiece, recently played at the end of the funeral of Prince Phillip. 
Fricker: Pastorale – a piece I’ve loved since I was a chorister at Coventry Cathedral and of about the same period (1960’s)
Mushel: Toccata – just a fun piece to end

Please do come if you’d like to. Tickets are free (as with all the Sunday Series) but as we still have some restrictions on audience size, it’s best to book a ticket here on Eventbrite. I expect you can just turn up on the door without booking, but you never know!!

Bobby: Several posts ago, I said that we had decided to look for our own cat, as opposed to borrowing Bobby from downstairs. A few days later, when we told downstairs what we had decided, they said they would like us to adopt Bobby as they already have 3 other cats and Bobby really doesn’t like going downstairs and encountering the other (very nice) cats. We were delighted, adopted him and bought a cat flap so he can come in and out at will.

Then about 10 days later, he became ill, moaning in the night and not looking at all good. It was a Sunday and I went off to Lewes to play for two services, followed by a rehearsal and concert in Arundel Cathedral with John Hancorn’s Chichester Uni Chamber Choir, leaving Robin with no car! Soon after I left he worsened and Robin started trying to get some advice from a vet. Only one vet seemed to be open in Eastbourne so the nice man from downstairs had to drive Robin and Bobby to Vets at Home.

Apparently he had a blocked urethra and needed an operation – you can imagine I don’t really want to think about it!

The next day he went in again to have the catheter & head cone removed and to check he was OK. Unfortunately he then leaked all over the house where the catheter had been, but thankfully, that seems to have stopped now and he’s perked up. Now he needs to be on a special Urinary diet (twice the cost of  other cat food) but initial findings would suggest that he loves it – he licked the bowl clean instead of pushing half of it aside.

Evensong at Westminster Abbey

Yesterday Robin & I went to London, principally to see the Tracey Emin and Edvard Munch Exhibition at the Royal Academy, but we also attended Evensong at the Abbey. London still has very few tourists and I think I counted about 40 people at Evensong instead of the usual several hundred. We’ve been several times before, but this was the first time I’ve actually seen James O’Donnell (the choirmaster) in action. We heard canticles by Purcell. The anthem was Blow: Salvator Mundi, and it was really lovely to see 20 boy choristers and 6 lay clerks in action.

Do go to London while it’s still quiet. In fact, thinking about it, the Lewes Singers are due to sing Evensong there on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 August, so you could come and hear us. And I think there are some very good deals on hotels in London at the moment. And if you do go, beware the elephants in Green Park

 

with all good wishes.

Nick

2 Comments

  1. So glad to hear Bobby is on the mend!

  2. Intrigued by the elephants! Glad the cat is feeling more himself . Good luck with the recital. We shall be thinking of you during the first Offenbach rehearsal.

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