Category: Personal

It started with a suggestion. Our church had received news that a choir from Arkansas was touring Europe and would be in Dublin for one day during which time they would perform a concert. We could donate the proceeds to whatever charity we wanted, they would charge nothing, we just needed to organise the venue and sell the tickets. I have a soft spot for Barretstown so I piped up that they might be a good charity to benefit from this event. I agreed to help out with the organisation…I mean, what could be so difficult about finding a venue and selling a few seats? Ha! How naive was I?

Five months down the line, with just hours to go before the concert, I’m swearing I will never do this again. I’m just not cut out for the stress. If it wasn’t for family and friends jumping in and helping me I would have succumbed to a heart attack by now. It’s not just the organisation…we found a lovely church in Dalkey that is willing to let us stage the concert there. My father made up some brilliant posters and my mother and I blitzed the area with them a few weeks ago. On top of that 500 fliers were posted through people’s doors in the Dalkey area. Advertisements have appeared in both the Church of Ireland and the Catholic parish bulletins. All those things went to plan. It’s more the one thing I can’t control that’s keeping me awake at night: is anyone going to actually show up? I’ve been having those dreams like the ones I had before I got married…you know the ones where you arrive at the church and you’re wearing only a giant pair of granny knickers and a boob tube and you can’t find the door and then you realise that all your exes are in the audience…hmm, ok….that was only me then? Nevermind.

The church will hold two hundred and fifty people…in my optimistic moments I’m hoping that we’ll have a hundred which would be respectable. At least that was what I was telling myself until I heard that they sang to an audience of nine hundred people in Aberdeen the night before last! I just have no way of knowing and it’s killing me. At times like this I realise just what a control freak I really am.

The thing is I know this choir is going to be amazing. I’ve listened to some of their songs on their website and having spent some time in the church in Dalkey I can tell that it’s going to sound beautiful in there. Forty five people singing old southern spirituals and classical pieces on Midsummer’s Eve. I just hope there are plenty of people there to hear it.

Of course if there’s anyone reading this who is interested in coming along please do! Admission is €15 and it starts at 8pm. Map.

Wow, I swear I could hear the squeak of rust as I opened this page! I have been so neglectful I hang my head in shame. So what’s been keeping me from posting? Well:

1. Work! Long hours, no breaks at the weekend, endless stream of animations. Good for my bank balance but not great for my life balance.
2. Moving house. Yes, we are leaving County Dublin as rent has finally moved beyond us for the size of house we need and we’re becoming Wicklowites…Wicklowers…Wicklownians. Hmm, I suppose I’d better find out the correct term.
3. The Harding Choir. I’ve been busy organising a concert for June 21st (ahhh! that’s two weeks time!) in aid of Barretstown…and I’m new to this event organisation stuff so it’s somewhat scary to me. Sure I have posters, a beautiful venue in St Patrick’s Church in Dalkey, a 50-strong choir who will be performing spirituals and classics…now all I need is an audience. The thought of an empty church is enough to wake me at night in a cold sweat.
4. Add to all that a showreel/portfolio that must be worked on and a toddler who has discovered the phrase “Stop it!” and can deliver it red-faced, fists clenched and at a decibel that weakens the knees.

Ah, well. The sun is shining, there’s a soft summer breeze blowing through my window. I’m taking a break in the packing while Matt goes to get some Pad Thai from the Thai House in Dalkey. Oh, and my sister is minding Eve until tomorrow evening. Bliss.

A break-in around these parts is not so unusual. In fact, if we’ve not had something happen on our little street in a month or so then we start to feel very paranoid. Usually the thieves will be local kids and they will use our backgarden (being the end house) as the entryway to all the other backgardens in our row, jumping fences until they find a house with an unlocked kitchen door.

Well, this afternoon they managed to get past our high-tech security (a sliding lock on an old wooden gate) and broke into our shed. They must have had a skeleton key because the padlock was still intact and was hanging from the open door when Matt discovered the scene. It makes me smile to think of the sight that met the would-be burglars when they finally managed to get inside:

I wouldn’t be surprised if they took one look and decided it just wasn’t worth the effort. If anything has been taken they’re welcome to it because it just frees up space for more clutter.

OK, I’m back! I’ve not been ill in a very long time and that flu really knocked me out; every time I thought I was getting over it it would hit me again and I was back to the Night Nurse.

It’s times like the past fortnight that highlight the downside of freelance…if you don’t work you don’t get paid. So I dragged my diseased self to my computer monitor everyday because there was no way I was going to take two weeks of unpaid time off if I wasn’t going to be spending it on a beach somewhere balmy with a large fruity cocktail in my hand. On the whole, freelance is a positive experience: I’m a pretty easygoing boss. I’m not picky about punctuality, if I decide to start work at 11am instead of 10 then that’s just peachy. If I hit a wall at 1pm and feel like having an extended lunch break then I take myself off to the beach or go play with my daughter and nobody gives me any dirty looks. If I get through a lot of animation and finish up at 3pm then I pack up and go downstairs and nobody gives me “the talk” about being a teamplayer and staying late with everyone else for the sake of team solidarity.

On the other hand, communicating with workmates via MSN can be kind of lonely compared to long chats over the desks, especially when they all sign off to go to the pub on Thursday evening with a long weekend ahead of them.

Am I the only one working today?