Desiccated Flip Flop

Sometimes when I write a blog I know exactly what I'm going to say and the title comes later.  Today, I have a title and nothing much.

It's a crazy time of year for a music teacher.

Most people in schools have decided that they want to or can do music now that the important work of testing children is over.  Concerts are organised, world record breaking attempts made, school fetes are opened and every ending must be celebrated in song.  Musicians who want to make a living rush round schools offering their services, giving workshops, being overly enthusiastic, covering enormous distances without hope of getting their mileage expenses covered and letting small children put snot on their instruments. Proper musicians spread themselves thinner than parchment.

The fakers, like me, do their best to accommodate all the musicians. A folk song workshop? Yes, why not? Steel Pans? That sounds exciting. A concert in a park? Oh yes, I have a spare Saturday. A singing workshop? Of course.  Welcome to my sauna.

We do this even though we are struggling to keep the lid on the bottle of songs buzzing around our heads.  Sometimes, in the Supermarket queue we can be heard singing, "Oh, I get by with a little help from our friends."  Walking the dog we get odd looks from dog walkers as we sing our modified version of Seven Years.  At 3am we wake in a cold sweat with all the lyrics to the end of year show running through our heads.  This morning I woke singing, "Our enemies and nemeses to use a metaphor." I followed this by shouting, "Ah, ha a metaphor that's something we've learnt.!"
The Long Suffering Husband snored and turned over. At least I wasn't going to have to explain my outburst.  This particular line in one of the end of year show songs has been bothering me. I'm not quite sure enemies and nemeses are metaphors.  I've been waiting for someone to ask the question with dread.  Someone has put their hand up and said, "Miss, what's a nemesis?" When I said that it's just another word for an enemy but stronger they were confused about why they needed to use two words but they didn't mention the metaphor question. They decided that it was because it rhymed and rhyming is important in music.  Metaphors are important in music. In fact most music is a metaphor except Cage, which is a sermon (I don't know whose quote that is). Maybe the reason I can't identify enemies and nemeses as metaphors is that my life is full of better ones.

When the visiting musician came to give a singing workshop that made one member of my choir say, "That was amazing, I don't even sound like me anymore," I took him through to the music room and said, "Welcome to the sauna." This is a metaphor. It's just a hot room that makes me sweat and causes children to cry because they have a 'really bad headache'. The musician laughed and thought that he had encountered another grumpy primary school teacher.  However, after two songs he was sweating, children were crying and he looked at me and said, "Blimey, it is hot in here.  I'm as dry as a desiccated flip-flop."

I had a title for a blog but didn't know what to write. There's probably a metaphor for that.