Money, Money, Money.....or lack thereof

Well, how's this for being on top of things? Two posts in one week. I can't promise that will happen every week (I'm sure you're breathing a sigh of relief as I write this) but I intend to use this as a kind of journal for 2023 so I am certainly aiming for two posts a week but am committing to one!

So why are you writing this at all? I hear you ask. Well as a freelancer, money is something that needs to be thought about quite a lot as the amount I have coming in can fluctuate from month to month. The past year I have been quite good at budgeting. Or so I thought. Suddenly I find myself teetering on a knife edge and having to scrimp and save more than I have had to in a long time.

I am not alone in this, I know. There are many a lot worse off than me. I still have enough money to buy cheese so I can not complain too loudly. In fact I'm not complaining at all. Prices for most things in life have gone up but I think this did not register with me fully until now. 

I have become a little obsessed with TikTok recently and two college girls did some daft TikTok about telling yourself "I am lucky. Everything goes right for me" or summat like that. I decided to try it as I have been thinking about trying some manifestation techniques in January. It can't hurt to try this new mantra every day, I thought. Well 2 days after starting this my printer gave up the ghost and I had to spend £200 to replace it. So I am done with that mantra. On to something else I say.

Manifestation aside, I am going to try spending no money throughout January and February. This does not include food and other essentials (although I intend to buy less cheese). I have a few vouchers for free coffees on my Costa and Nero apps so I can still have the odd treat but I won't have to pay for it. I may also tidy my flat properly so I can invite friends round and not have to go out to meet them. I have never done a proper budget before but I fully intend to now. As a single lady, NOT in want of a husband, I have to make sure I can look after myself (although I am lucky that the bank of Mum and Dad is still available to me should I find myself in dire straits (not the band)) and that means saving, and saving properly.

I must use all the willpower available to me to stop me buying frivolous nonsense anymore. A treat is just that, a treat! Not something to have everyday. It has taken me until, almost, 50 to realise this but, better late than never I say.

So, having said in the last post that I had no intention of making new years resolutions, I AM going to make a couple. One is to budget and to be slightly more financially secure by December 2023 and the other, completely unrelated to anything in this post, is to average 8000 steps a day in 2023. In 2022 I averaged 5200 steps per day so I reckon I can manage 8000 this year. More would be better but I am trying to be realistic.

I hope you are all OK and not struggling where money is concerned. These are strange days we are living in right now so I think the more we can find joy in things that cost nothing at all, the better! That said I do have a Ko-Fi account (link is somewhere on this page) so if you enjoy reading my nonsense and fancy paying for a coffee from time to time I would be most grateful. No pressure!

Dizzy! My head is spinning.....

Is anyone else binging on webinars right now? It seems the world and his wife are trying to sell online courses right now and they way they hook you is by offering you a free "workshop" to be a part of, but really they just want you to buy their course. I have watched A LOT of these free workshops recently and actually signed up to one course. I squeezed every last bit out of the original lockdown* in the hope that I would have plenty to show for the last 6 months. 

<a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/multitasking">Multitasking Vectors by Vecteezy</a>

Unfortunately I have a very short attention span and end up multitasking whilst I do anything these days. I can’t seem to concentrate on one task alone. I start doing one thing and then try to do something else at the same time. Then I find my brain is overloaded and I need to go and binge watch something on Netflix (it’s Cobra Kai at the moment. It’s very, very bad but makes me feel very nostalgic for the 1980s). I am about to get on my exercise bike to do some much needed exercise (lockdown has not been kind to my waistline) but whilst I am peddling I am going to watch a 23 minute video on using iMovie and a 20 minute video about creating Canva vision boards (homework from a social media webinar - part 3 is on Friday).

I don't know if anyone else is feeling like this at the moment but I am constantly tired and constantly annoyed with myself for not doing anything. I have very little get up and go right now. I get up and go out when I have to but the rest of the time I tend to stay in doing very little telling myself I'll do more tomorrow. I don't and then get annoyed with myself for not doing anything and then get annoyed for getting annoyed at myself. I have a constant headache that I can not blame on coffee anymore as I gave it up at the beginning of lockdown and have, on average, one Costa coffee a week now. I know something has to change but I don't know what.

I need to move, I know that. I have a neighbour who does not enjoy my singing, the word "piercing" was used to describe it by her, therefore, I can't practice at home anymore. Moving in the Greater London area is easier said than done. I need a house with, at least, one room unattached to any neighbouring house so I can sing at home whenever I want. I have a room I can hire at my local church hall but, as the country opens up, and the line dancing and art classes start again, the hall is getting more bookings and it will only be a matter of time until they can not accommodate me anymore. 

I have always been prone to a touch of anxiety but I'm at a new level right now. Unfortunately/fortunately my anxiety manifests itself by me burying my head in the sand, much like an ostrich but without the fantastic legs. I have ideas galore swimming in my head but I do not have the wherewithal to put any new plans into action. I think this is, in part, due to my fear of failure. If I don't try I won't fail but nothing will ever change and I will remain in this perpetual state of stagnation. 

So, what do I do about this? The most important thing to come from this post is that SOMETHING has to change. I am not enjoying everything I do at the moment (although I know I am in a fantastic position right now. I earn enough to pay my rent and buy the odd bottle of Malbec so I KNOW I am very lucky right now). The problem is I am restless. I know what I don't want to do, or rather, what I want to give up but I just don't feel like changing things is the way to go right now. 

Am I wrong, though? Is now precisely the time to change things up? I feel like I am existing rather than living most of the time right now but perhaps this is the best anyone should hope for at the moment. Maybe I should sit tight, stop fretting and keep watching the webinars. They are certainly an excellent way to waste time and, you never know, I might find something I really want to do with the rest of my life that way.

*at the time of writing we have only had one full on lockdown in Croydon. If we have another I am not going to waste a second of it (I know that's a lie. I'll be binge watching something by the second day).

Incompetent by name, incompetent by nature!

It’s been a while hasn’t it! So what has brought me out of the woodwork? Well I have more to say than would be acceptable in a normal Facebook post so I thought I would write a diary entry instead. 

Last time I threatened to talk about Brexit but I’m not going to do that. I could write about my choir but I don’t think I’ll do that either (well, perhaps in a roundabout way).  What I REALLY want to talk about is The Masked Singer but I have been SO appallingly bad at guessing who they are thus far that I won’t embarrass myself by telling you who I believe them all to be. All I will say is this, if Octopus is not Our Kath (Katherine Jenkins) I will eat ALL my hats.

Anyway enough of that. Presently, I feel like I’m in limbo. Once again, I’m not sure what I am meant to be doing. I’m just trundling along.

Just when I think things are going well something comes along and pulls the rug out from under me. Up until two weeks ago I was pretty content and then something happened that made me doubt myself and everything around me. Now I can’t get anything done and I have the worst brain fog known to man. I had to get out of the house this morning so am writing this in Costa (standard). I do wonder if I am about to reach that milestone most women reach at some point. No not the moment they try a green olive and think “hmm that’s rather delicious” no the M word (menopause). It would explain the constant forgetfulness, aforementioned brain fog, the crying at anything and everything (I heard a choir of children singing on the radio and that made me go) and the sudden weight gain (absolutely nothing to do with Christmas and zero exercise). Don’t worry boys that’s the last time I’ll mention that word. I really should read a book about it as it’s going to happen but unfortunately, and this could be another symptom, I just can’t be arsed.

Anyway, I’m not going to go into detail about what happened that dark, chilly January evening as someone who was there might read this and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m having a go (to be fair it was probably my fault that it went the way it did anyway). Last time I wrote about, essentially, not being satisfied with my lot. I work, a lot. Probably too much, but I am on my own, I have to pay the bills (London prices) and don’t want to resort to eating baked beans. I hate baked beans. 

The one thing I have done for myself is give myself a day off. This has helped but not enough. I enjoy what I do but the balance isn’t right and I want to create some time (can one create time?) that can be given over to working on my own creativity and not helping others be creative.

It’s now a few days later and I have moved to Caffè Nero. The main obstacle standing in my way right now is a lack of self belief. I have feelings of mediocrity in everything I do which leads me into a state of malaise and a total lack of enthusiasm in some aspects of my life. I think I know what I want but fear has a habit of stopping me in my tracks. I also have an awful tendency to let things carry on as they are which means nothing ever changes.

I read one of those inspirational quotes yesterday. It said “You are where you are meant to be!” Poppycock. Yes I am sure I’m supposed to be here on earth and alive but when you get down to the nitty gritty am I actually where I’m meant to be? Is anyone meant to be in Croydon? I often wonder, and I am really not sure I’m doing exactly what I am meant to be doing. I want to teach (a bit), I DEFINITELY want to run my choirs but I also fancy doing a bit of singing and at the moment I have no get up and go or drive to sort myself out. 

So, in these unstable, uncertain times I am thinking of ditching some regular paid work in order to do my own thing. This would free up time for creativity but shouldn’t leave me short financially, if I’m canny about it. Call me crazy but I think it is necessary for my sanity. I will keep you posted (although it could be another year before I write again - if you’re lucky!). 

What a difference a day makes....and a change of attitude.

So, I know I only posted a diary entry a couple of days ago but I thought you might like a quick update. As expected, I did not get recalled from the audition I did on Monday. Quite right too, I would have questioned their sanity if they wanted to see me again after my disastrous showing. I just hope the casting director, the highly prolific casting director, whom I had never auditioned for before, does not hold it against me to the point that she never calls me in again.

Anyway, yesterday I had another audition, so on Monday, when I returned home, I immediately started practicing. Monday was not going to be repeated on Wednesday. I had songs and script to learn for this one. I had already done most of the work but I thought, with my ever-aging and deteriorating memory I needed to do more. I wish I still had the memory I had when I was 10 or that one day the audition song requested will be "Wake me up before you go-go". I still know that one. Unfortunately Wham does not feature in the musical I was up for yesterday but you can't have everything.

So over the course of Monday afternoon, Tuesday between students and Wednesday morning I crammed the songs and script into my tiny brain. I felt, for a change, totally prepared. I got up early on Wednesday, I warmed up, got dressed, warmed up a bit more, ran through the material, forgot to eat and was ready to leave the house with and hour and forty five minutes to get to the audition.

My journey was uneventful, apart from a fight I had to have with a ticket machine in the car park I parked at, I arrived with 35 minutes to spare so I had a coffee in the Costa not far from the audition venue and then finished my journey arriving with 15 minutes to spare. I was, once again, faced with 4 flights of stairs but it was OK, I had time to recover this time. More than enough time as it turned out as I didn't get in until 10 minutes after he time I had been given.

I won't bore you with the actual audition which was the best one I have, possibly, ever done. However, it doesn't look like I have been recalled for that one either. This annoys me a little but I know I sang really, really well so it must be I just wasn't what they were looking for. Nothing I can do about that. Onwards and upwards.

Another milestone reached and what do I want to talk about?....John "flipping" Rutter.

So, here we are at the quarter century of diary entries. Whoever would have thought I would have enough of this trash to fill that many! I am celebrating this fact by writing this in Purley Cross Tesco's Costa overlooking the veg display with the dry ice thingy in it. I have my favourite sandwich (Emmental and mushroom - no mistake this time! See [title of show] is the title of show?.....My brain hurts for details) and THE best Christmas coffee, discovered by myself and Madame Giry whilst in Milton Keynes with the Phantom of the Opera tour (that tour had some plus sides), the salted caramel latte (sans cream otherwise I would undo all the good work I have done with Zumba and Body Combat). This would be my idea of heaven if I was not in Tesco but, hey, you really can't have it all.

Right then, Rutter! I promised in the last entry to talk a little more about the concert I did a couple of weeks ago. To be fair there is no more to say about my contribution. If you blinked, albeit twice, at the wrong time you would have missed me so I have eked all possible dirt out of that aspect of the concert. However, there is more to say about my good friend Helen Withers. She had the joy/misfortune, depending on your thoughts about Rutter (the old Marmite adage comes in to play here), to be the soprano soloist in the concert's second half offering, Rutter's "Requiem".

I am not a Rutter fan. I don't like Marmite either. In fact I would go so far as to say I loathe the stuff. Not in the way I used to hate gin, coffee and olives, all of which I love now. I will NEVER like Marmite. Oh dear, I must tell you, a woman has sat down on the table adjacent and is eating her sandwich with her mouth open. I can not stay here. I must leave before I am arrested for murder! I will return shortly.

Ok, I have retreated to the comfort of my sofa. So, Rutter, not my cup of tea but I thought I might as well stay for the second half of the concert for 3 reasons:

1) To support my most excellent friend

2) To be able to go for a nice glass of red with said excellent friend following the concert and

3) To hear a bit of Rutter live.

It occurred to me that I had never actually listened to a whole choral work by Rutter. This is partly because, up until this moment, I had refused to. Having heard the terrible word setting of his version of "All things Bright and Beautiful" I just could not bring myself to let my ears be violated by his schmaltzy mediocrity. I had been totally put off by the line "all creatures great a a and small" have a listen and you will understand (or not, if you are a fan). Now you may think "schmaltzy mediocrity" is a little harsh but I was 18 when I first heard examples of his work and, of course, I knew everything so surely everyone would agree with me! If not it must mean they were totally stupid. I no longer feel the same. He is still never going to make it onto any playlist on my iPod but I do "get it". I understand the appeal and would never think anyone "stupid" for enjoying his back catalogue.

His "Requiem" did not make me want to break things. It was perfectly pleasant and I let it wash over me. There were interesting moments but I am not about to go to my local HMV (not quite so local any more) to buy any of his output but I now know I can endure a little Rutter if it is in the programme. The piece was made even more bearable by the inclusion of Helen Withers as the soloist. She will probably hate me for saying it but she was in stunning voice and her contributions, in the 2 movements that include a soprano soloist, were quite magical. The pianissimo she is able to produce at the very top of her voice is simply divine. I used to have that facility, sadly no longer. I am still contemplating moving down to mezzo. Life would be so much easier. Which is ironic because......

Helen and I were at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama together where we both survived the opera course from 2000-2002. She was Dorabella to my Fiordiligi in "Cosi fan tutte" from which the more knowledgable among you may deduce that Helen might have been a mezzo once upon a time (not necessarily as I know sopranos have been known to do this rôle too). However, you are right, she was, but she has worked hard and made the transition to soprano and is an awful lot better than she thinks she is! In my humble opinion she should never be out of work but then I could say that about a lot of people, probably some of you reading this right now. I urge you to click on the following link, that will take you to her website, and have a listen to some of her music clips to see what I mean.
www.helenwithers.com

I won't embarrass Helen further with anymore gushing opinions concerning her talent (that sounds rude doesn't it? I think you know what I mean though) but I wanted to share with you the way age has helped me to become more tolerant of those things I would, in days gone by, refuse to give any sort of a chance to. This does NOT apply to Marmite, though, and never will.

Oh, by the way as we are into December now it seems only right that I leave you with the link to the best rendition of "O Holy Night" you will ever hear. I have been bothering people with this on Facebook so chances are you have heard it. However, if not, you HAVE to listen to the end. Do not think you have heard enough by the end of the first chorus it gets SO much better.

O, Holy Night - you are welcome!

Merry Christmas!

[title of show] is the title of show?........My brain hurts.

I have never been to the Landor before. For those not totally au fait with London's fringe theatre venues, the Landor is a pub in South London near Clapham North station that has converted an area upstairs into a theatre. It is a popular ploy in these depressing economic times to do such a thing and, although some of these venues have been around for for a while, more and more are popping up.

So, Thursday night's offering was the musical "[title of show]"and was the 2nd preview showing of the London premiere of the show (they were beaten to the UK premiere by a matter of days as there is another professional production going on right now at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I say right now, it depends when you are reading this as to whether or not they are performing right now). I should point out that, as I write, I am sitting in Purley's branch of Costa where I have just received the toastie I ordered. I have a huge addiction to their Emmental and mushroom toastie so I was looking forward to treating myself whilst I write, what is bound to be, a thrilling diary entry. Unfortunately their fridge is broken so I had to ask for the toastie I wanted at the counter and the barista went to get it for me from some other, working, fridge. Imagine my dismay when the sandwich brought to me was not filled with delicious Emmantal cheese and mushrooms but boring old cheddar and tomato (I could make that at home). I am not happy but, me being me, can not muster up the courage/will to take it back. I will try my best not to let it cloud my opinion of what I thought about the show.

For those who do not know the piece (which is probably a fair few of you; I know I didn't) it is a musical about writing a musical. Jeff and Hunter want to write a musical to enter into some musical theatre competition and as they don't know what to write about decide to write about writing this particular musical for the competition. Their day to day lives become the subject and everything they do and say is included. It is a quirky and clever concept handled superbly by the 4 actors and the MD (just in case some non-musically minded people are reading this, and not meaning to be patronising, MD is musical director not medical doctor or some other job with the same initials). 

The first hour is an absolute joy but the last half hour feels a bit laborious and as if the writers didn't know how best to get to the ending. As everything the actors say is part of the musical there really is only one way it CAN end but I won't spoil it (actually it could end with some Apocolyptic event but I think that would be a step too far).

The thing I really loved about the whole experience was the sound (and as this is a diary about singing this is exceedingly fortuitous). The actors did not have mics so, for a change, we could hear the true tone of each singer's voice. The space is of a size that means, I imagine, mics are not often used and are unecessary and it was so refreshing to see a show, a musical no less, where the singers had no "help" and yet every single word was delivered with crystal clarity. I can honestly say I heard everything and it was all fabulous. It is such an intimate space but the actors managed to help us, as an audience, feel incredibly comfortable and like we were part of the writing process. The only criticism, as I mentioned earlier, was with the development of the last section of the piece but the actors did their absolute best to keep it fizzing along. As there were only 5 performers, I will name (but not shame) them; Simon Bailey, Scott Garnham, Sophie Ragavelas, Sarah Galbraith and, MD, Michael Webborn (who was allowed to speak and even had a character name). I can not single any one performer out as the show would not have worked as well as it did if any one of them had not been there (having said that the "Blank Page" character, performed by Scott Garnham, was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time).

The show is on at the Landor until the 14th of September and is well worth a look if you have the time and opportunity. Oh, btw, the cheese and tomato toastie was scrummy but will never hold a candle to the Emmental and mushroom.