Friday was my day off and I spent a bit of it relaxing at the beach as I felt unwell for anything else. Later I got the urge to meet up with friends for a drink. During the evening I became feverish and started popping some vitamin supplements recommended by others who were suffering the same symptoms and went to bed early.

On the Saturday I went into work during the morning. This week ahead would be one of additional events which would keep me from preparation time so whatever I could do at the start of the working week would be a bonus. I had a choir rehearsal at 1.30pm by which time I became fully aware that I was really ill but dare not cancel the rehearsal which was a focal one for the Christmas repertoire. Many of my choir are challenged in the short-term memory department so there was only one alto rather than the usual seven or eight. Sopranos were also in shorter supply but the men excelled in their attendance! It was a good rehearsal and we got through my Canticle of Tobias, Bernadette Farrell’s ‘So Certain Star’ and ‘Jesus Christ the Apple Tree’.

The vigil Mass followed immediately and I was grateful for the arrival of the Cantor to relieve me somewhat. Still feeling sorry for myself I dropped into my local Goodwill charity store. You know that expression ‘if it looks too good to be true it probably isn’t’? Well a month ago I bought for work a digital recording studio. It cost quite a bit but I considered it to be a good long-term investment as we are expanding our use of the website here and I wanted to provide some resources so that parishioners and particularly newcomers could learn the music at home.. On Saturday I dropped into my local charity store and discovered the same software (Presonus Studio One Artist) together with interface, cables, microphone and headphones. It appeared unused so I bought it all for $49!

On Sunday the choir excelled in their singing of my ‘Our hearts are restless’ Farrell’s ‘Blessed and holy’ and Quigley’s ‘There is a longing’. The whole Mass went well. There was something in the air because this whole weekend the people really responded well. They often do but this was surprisingly good.

During the afternoon I load the software I had bought from Goodwill but it did not load because it had already been loaded (presumably by a previous owner). It was all confusing because despite the price being so low it did appear unused. So I wrote to the manufacturer to see what could be done and resigned myself to the possibility of there being money wasted and no bargain!

This morning being Monday was a day off. I awoke early enough to remember that I had a funeral for which unusually there had been no contact re the music requirements. On closer scrutiny the funeral turned out to be the following week. So this left me the complete day to piddle around the apartment. I skyped my best friend Mark and his wife in Spain and then did some ironing. Then I got a reply about the recording software. They had just solved the problem and sent me the most recent software at no cost and it all works … yippee!

Then I got the chance to skype my brother Richard and his new wife Camille. I asked him to phone my mum and warn her that I wanted to speak to her on skype too. It was great to see and speak with her because she had not been too well recently. She appears to be taking doctor’s orders seriously and is responding positively!

With all this good news I cannot keep from celebrating in the customary manner at the local bar!