Busily Hallucinating

A music teacher wrote on Twitter yesterday, “I know everyone is tired and it’s not a competition but there’s no tired like a music teacher in December tired.”

It’s true and I’ve finally got to the hallucinating stage where nothing seems to make sense anymore. There are so many pieces and accompaniments going around in my head that I’m not sure what is real anymore. Did I really forget how the song the choir sang at a church service last night went or did the CD start in the middle?  It’s not surprising. Between the 29th November and 18th December I will have taken part in thirteen musical events, as well as my normal teaching, having flute pupils take exams and dealing with the stressful business of selling my parents’ house. A musical performance messes with your Adrenalin and makes sleep pretty difficult.

So, when, at the weekend, I did the most bizarre performance of my life, I wasn’t sure if it was real.
I took a smaller version of the Youth Orchestra to play some festive tunes at the museum of power.
The Long Suffering Husband came with me because he’d never been before and was curious.
We parked in a very muddy field and walked in, across a tiny bridge and miniature railway track to a huge turbine hall that smelled of machine grease.
“I’ve never been here before, “ the LSH said for the fifth time.
I reminded him that I had but as it was in the period that my traumatised brain has chosen to completely forget I couldn’t tell him anything about it, except what I’d written in my blog, which was that it was a place with grammatically incorrect signs threatening to smack badly behaved children and sell their parents.

They had left a little circle of chairs in an area in the middle of a few fed up looking stall holders, where we set up. It was rather quiet. Some of the stall holders perked up at the thought of being entertained.
“Can we make requests?” asked the lady with the nice make-up bags.
“Yes, almost any Christmas Carol,” I told her.
“Do you have a list?”
I gave her a music book to flip through. She chose Mission Impossible.
We started to play and a few more people appeared. I gave jingle bells to some stall holders and distracted the orchestra by waving my arms and talking about all the people in Christmas Carols.
“Let’s play David, then Wayne.”
They all knew that I meant Away in a Manger.
“Gerry, next. You know. Gerry Mentlemen.”
They started to join in.
“There’s Joy and Joyce. You could play Joyce twice and you’d get rejoice.”

After a little while the machines decided to join in with huge sighs and belches.
The stall holders had cheered up and a huge blue cat type thing tapped me on the shoulder. I gave it some jingle bells and it danced around me. I thought I had lost it. My mind totally gone for good. I had started hallucinating and then I looked at the orchestra, who were creasing up. The cat wasn’t in my head. I’m sure one of the older players mouthed words that fitted the acronym WTAF.

We finished our 45 minute set and started to pack up. They had played really well and people started to come over to say nice things.
“Are they all your children?” a man asked me and followed it up with, “Its nice to see a family group,” when I said, “No. They are from our local Youth Orchestra.”
That was quite bizarre. I’ve never thought I looked like someone who could have popped out 9 children between the ages of 11 and 18 and turned them into the VonTrapps but he wasn’t the only person to say it.

Next, a lady I knew asked me the same question.
I used her name and told her the name of the orchestra, which was also on our stand banners.
“Oh,” she said, repeating the name of the orchestra.
“Did you know Norman?”
I was a bit surprised and said nothing for a while, trying to work out how I was going to confess to knowing my own father.
In the pause she continued.
“Because he was wonderful, Norman. He set up the orchestra and ran it all on his own.”
I used her name again and told her that she knew me and that I was Norman’s daughter.
“Oh well, you would have known him then, I suppose,” she said.

I did and I also knew that he didn’t think he set it up and ran it on his own. We started it together, drove my mum mad by talking about it all time at every family gathering.  We wouldn’t have been able to do so without all the help we’ve had from so many people over the years. In the last two years it is the place me and my wobbly brain have felt the most supported.

On the walk home from the church last night I met a man who was frantically looking for a lost pet.
He was calling its name.
“Excuse me. Have you seen a cat. It’s a big blue. It just ran out and down the path.”
I looked back and swear I saw the big blue cat from Sunday disappear into the trees leaving only a smile.