Respecting Tradition.

You find me on a wet and cold Ash Wednesday at home amidst the chaos. It crossed my mind this morning that I wouldn't be able to keep up my tradition of listening to the Miserere on this day as I'd packed up all my recordings of it and shipped them to my neighbour's. Given how fragile my mind is stupidly little things like that play over endlessly but then I remembered it would be on Choral Evensong on Radio 3. So I got to hear it after all. It was a version I didn't know and was good in places but not fantastic.

As happened last time I heard it live in King's it occurred to me that these were little boys singing and can be forgiven for not being perfect. The bar was set so high when I was a little boy that it is easy to forget. The rage that sometimes accompanied our mistakes would not be tolerated now. It was wrong then too but the world was a very different place in the late 70s and early 80s. We certainly had our catastrophes singing, Palestrina's Stabat Mater collapsed once and we also floundered singing Tallis once.

On this dark and dismal day though I'm faring a little better than yesterday. The anxiety was crippling then. But I still didn't take a diazepam. A few more things are sorted which helps but I can quietly hear the tick tock of time slipping away from me.

Sleep remains a worry, I only got five hours in the night. Food remains a problem although I will try to cook tonight, lamb chop and roast potatoes.

In the indulgence of social media I posted something that I wouldn't normally do about my mental state and had a deluge of support come back to me. The trials and tribulations of my current situation has allowed me to reconnect to people I have perhaps neglected recently.

A small army of people has been mobilised to help on the day. Although many of you don't know me I'm only 5'6" and 10 stone, not very strong with it. So it was a huge help last night when two quite strong friends offered to help.

I popped into the agent today with a couple of queries, more ludicrous fears allayed. I've done some more packing and decluttering. Tired now though. So I will leave on the Valentine's Day, hope all you who have spouses, civil partners or just partners have a wonderful evening. I'm not even going to attempt to go out to eat tonight.

I Heard a Voice.