Cologne

Well, here I am in Cologne. There is a massive trade fair here this week, so I´m staying in a hotel miles out, in Overath, but actually I don´t mind as it´s a nice country setting, fresh air and clean hotel, so that´s fine. We start recording Mattheson´s oratorio ´David´(The loving and patient David, in fact) this evening at the Deutschlandfunk studio, which is familiar territory. The orchestra, all the other singers and the producert and conductor are all old well known colleagues, so it´s in a nice comfort zone. It´s quite a demanding role and I was fighting off the winks´horrid cold all last week, so fingers firmly crossed. There were a few disasters in the run up to this project as the dates shifted slightly and the only way I could get here to start rehearsals on time was to leave home at 3.30am on Saturday morning. Above and beyond the call of duty I´d say. Anyway, I was very glad to be able to accompany spouse to the governers´dinner on Friday night as I wouldn´t have been prepared to let him down on this occasion.
The dinner was great, with a bond theme, so I got all dressed up in my bikini, but wimped out at the last minute and put on a glamourous frock instead. I did a lot of cheating in the quiz, but was outcheated by head´s wife!!!
Lovely to spend a fortnight at home, though did have a weekend away with winks. Did three performances of King Arthur in the newly renovated Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, but took nanny and the winks which was great fun. We stayed in a lovely place. I dropped my stick in the morris dance on the first night. But managed to do better in subsequent performances. Agent came, thanks agent!
I am promising to upload some pics to this blog.
Thanks to the sisters for the comments. Very good to feel that now at least four people aware of the existence of blog.
Will soon attach it to website and then will be forced to write intelligent and sage comments instead of rambling on about nothing.
Delighted to say am finally getting somewhere with my German and now am speaking quite a bit more.
Have just read good book, Mister Pip. Quite a book... it unfolds so slowly and gets better and better as it goes on.
Obviously not obliged to say anything intelligent about it yet as still top secret blog.
Must go now, off for the first recording session. Pray to God of voices to be with me. Also to God of German pronuciation and inspired interpretation. More soon.
Nicki