Back from Perth

Posted on | April 16, 2007 | 1 Comment

I had a great time in Perth. The weather was fantastic, I did lots of touristy things, the singing was good, and I even got to know some sopranos!

The first day was quite tiring. I had to drop Tilda off with Monika in time to catch my flight at 10 AM, so that was a much earlier morning than Tilda and I were used to. She let me go quite happily, which was a bit of a surprise, and I got to the airport in plenty of time. We got to Perth in the early afternoon, which gave us a chance to check into the hotel and then wander around a bit. Catherine and I chose to go searching for provisions, and we found the slowest, most crowded Woolworths in all of Australia, where we both bought brie and various bits of produce that didn’t end up being eaten.

We had 5 hours of rehearsal starting later in the afternoon, broken up by an hour for dinner. This meant that we didn’t finish until 10 PM, which felt like midnight to us. Surprisingly, the person who fainted during rehearsal (to much dramatic effect) was from the WASO Chorus, not one of ours.

After that, we were only singing in the evenings, which left us plenty of time to look around. There was a breakfast on Thursday morning at a sailing club, hosted by the Patrons and Friends of WASO. (The most memorable thing about the breakfast was actually the rather astonishing commentary provided by our friendly coach driver, who may or may not have known the difference between “third-world” and “third-rate” countries.)

Afterwards I joined a group of people on a trip to Cottesloe Beach, led by a former local who planned our bus journeys carefully and made sure that we swam between the flags.

On Friday there was an organized tour of the Swan Valley. We stopped at 3 wineries for tastings, followed by a lovely lunch, followed by nougat tasting, followed by chocolate tasting. It was a bit surprising that we were awake during our first concert on Friday night. I gather that some people were awake for many, many hours afterwards as well. I’m very glad that I wasn’t staying on their floor.

A lot of people ended up taking a ferry to Fremantle on Saturday morning, and I was one of them. I split off from the group to sit for a while, drinking coffee on ‘Cappuccino Strip’ and reading a newspaper. Afterwards I wandered around for a bit, to the markets and to the water. I also found a woman’s hat that fit my head, which may actually be a first for me, so that was pretty thrilling. Then it was back to Perth for the second concert, which may be broadcast in June. If you’re lucky you’ll hear my little solo, which sounds something like “Wha”, followed a bar later by the rest of the altos singing “What’s a saint?” Concerts can be so exciting.

And then today, after a nice breakfast down by the river, it was time to come home. I picked up Tilda, who was happy to see me and who seems to have had a good time, apart from a bit of a meltdown on Wednesday afternoon, which was probably brought on by tiredness as much as anything. We go to pick up George in the morning. I expect that he will be very excited.

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