Happiness is a warm egg

It's been a bit warmer these last few days and I think the chickens are liking it; today they laid three eggs, and two of them were still warm when I took them out of the chicken coop!  The other reason that they may be laying better is that we bought the more expensive feed for laying hens, rather than the cheaper one that we had been using before.  I think the new food has more protein and also more calcium.  They have access to the compost pile which is frequently replenished with dried eggshells and lots of kitchen vegetable waste as well.

The physiotherapy is going well, although the added movement with progressively heavier weights is making me feel a bit sore.  I went running two days in a row this week, which is a very rare occurance for me; usually I wait two days in between.  Wednesday was an 8km at 6:11/km with Yoshi here at home, and then yesterday morning a similar 8km with Lawrence, who was visiting, at a faster 5:53/km.  In both cases I never broke into the high heart rate zone, so that's a good sign.  We're getting to the time of thinking about signing up for trail races again, so I'm happy to log some kilometers.

I said that it has been a bit warmer, but we are all still loving the fire, especially in the evenings.

I have received the flight tickets and the Airbnb reservations for Maggie and I to go to the Canary Islands in April; that's a happy thought.  As well, I've had a couple of new things come in... the first is a request from a relatively new choir, mostly made up of expats who work at the European Commission, to come and do a half-day workshop for them on posture, breathing technique, singing diction, etc.  I haven't done much work with choirs but have had some tips from Bruce on how to help a group, rather than an individual singer, so I am looking forward to that very much.  It will happen on one of my increasingly rare free weekends, on Sunday March 3rd.

Secondly a conductor whom I admire but have never worked with before just asked if I am free to do a Matthäuspassion with him in Bruges on April 14th, with the rehearsal the weekend before.  Fortunately that doesn't conflict with the Canary Islands departure, which is on the 15th April, so of course I said yes.  That means four Johannespassions and two Matthäuspassions this year.  Thank you, JSB!

Good progress on the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle

"Forest Light" by Killian Shoenberger

I wrote on Sunday about La Chandeleur; this time of year is always an easy one for remembering special days.  Groundhog Day isn't significant, except that it coincides with the birthday of my paternal grandmother Rita, who passed away in 2012.  I can't believe that it's already been almost seven years since she left us.  The special birthdays continue in February: the 4th of September is the birthday of my youngest sister, Emily... and that is followed by the birthday of our middle sister, Heather, on the 5th (Happy Birthday, H!) which also coincides with the birthday of our late paternal grandfather Delbert, who passed away in 2005.  There are more extended family birthdays around this time: My aunt Barb Gillespie has hers on January 29th, and on the 23rd of February both my cousin David Hudson and my Aunt Lorraine Costello share a birthday as well.

It's interesting but as I get older the patterns of the year get more and more deeply grooved into my behaviour.  Of course some of that is being a singer, especially one who does a lot of Passion singing, so that my busiest time of the year is usually the month or so leading up to Easter, and I now habitually travel to Canada just after Easter to perform.  Having a wife who is a teacher, and two kids who are in school means that holidays are also nearly always spent together, so that also imposes a kind of pattern on the year.  We aren't rigorously faithful in our church attendance either, but the liturgical year is also a source of patterns.  And of course the changing seasons are things that I find myself more and more attuned to as I get older: having a garden again makes me think more about the passage of the year.

Yesterday I left Osa in Bousval, and took Yoshi with me in the car to go to my early physiotherapy appointment on my right shoulder.  They started with about five-ten minutes of ultrasound, followed by maybe ten-twenty minutes of microwave therapy.  These are similar treatments to those I had on my ankle injury a few months ago, and I understand that they are used to stimulate blood flow, loosen up cold muscles, improve fluid drainage, and soften tissues up for subsequent movement exercises.

Then I held a handle attached by a rope and pulley system to a 2kg weight, and made a repetitive movement to extend my oustretched arm upwards to reach for the sky, and then do a pull-up movement.  The weight allowed me to raise my arm much higher than I have been able to since early October, and then the pull up movement strengthens the shoulder and allows it to fall downwards again.  This lasted maybe 25 minutes, and by the end of it a lot of the tension and muscle guarding that has been plaguing me for months started to subside.  It really felt marvellous!  So I am looking forward to the next session tomorrow morning.  If all goes well I should manage to finish the treatment in three weeks, and hopefully won't need a cortisone shot.

After my physiotherapy I went home to feed the chickens and check in on the cats, then went back out to Bousval to throw the ball for the dogs, feed the fires, check the furnace for fuel and then warm up and sing.

I didn't start with the Vaughan Williams yesterday but thought I'd revisit something that is coming up on the 9th of March: the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle.  I last sang this in 2016, and as I recall I coached it quite heavily with an Italian Rossini specialist that I had met at La Monnaie.  I was all alone in Bousval and so warmed up and let it rip.  Surprisingly a lot of it is all still there in my muscle memory, and some of the sections that I remembered being quite difficult to sing have now somehow become a bit easier, probably because my technique is continuing to evolve.

It is interesting to think about repeating patterns: I looked up a blog entry from the last time I sang Rossini.  I also talk in that post about the Passion Season, and there is a large section about staying and house-sitting in Bousval!  It's fun to look at the photos from less than three years ago, especially those of the boys, and realise how quickly they have grown over the last three years.  Also I realise that I was just at the beginning of my practice of running at that time, and had just run my first 8km.  I confess that in the cold weather I am back down to that distance on normal days, and only occasionally get in a longer 15km run.  But I hope that there will be opportunities to run longer distances when the weather gets warmer.

Today I'm meeting with a friend from church; we are brainstorming some ideas for a short video presentation on the St. Andrew's Church of Scotland in Brussels, to be used on the church website as an introductory document, and also to be shown to any prospective ministerial candidates...

Happy Tuesday (and again Happy birthdays to Emily and Heather)...

relaxed weekend

snowy drive from Bousval to Namur 

This last week or two has been very snowy and cold by Belgian standards; unlike Ontarians they don't have the plows or workforce to clear roads quickly as they so rarely get snowstorms. No one here has missed work or school yet because of the snow - much to Maggie's disappointment - but it's been chilly enough that we have kept the wood-stoves rolling.  I have managed to return to my routine of running every third day, and despite the cold and snow have lucked out with some really beautiful views of the forested countryside.  On Thursday I managed a quite fast 5:59 per km 8k, given that it was just below zero, and today in +3 weather I took both Yoshi and Osa out for the usual 8k Bousval circuit.  I can't swim because of my shoulder so running is pretty much all I have as a meditative exercise, so I'm glad that it can still happen.

Maggie and I were house-sitting in Bousval this weekend because Bryan and Kiana had a brief London trip, so we have been here most of the weekend, and also had Malcolm and Duncan here for a curry dinner this afternoon.  I'm the only one here at present as everyone else has to go back to school tomorrow morning, so I took Malcolm to the train right after an early dinner together, and Maggie and Duncan have gone home to Wavre.  The Hammer kids are farmed out with friends, so can take care of themselves, so it's just the dog, cats, and chickens to worry about.  K. gets back tomorrow afternoon so I will meet her at the station and then head home around dinner time.

Tomorrow morning I also have my first shoulder physiotherapy session... the MRI confirmed that there is a small tear in the supraspinal tendon in my shoulder, and the acromion bone pushes on the lesion when I try to lift my arm.  It's not something that requires surgery but rather intense anti-inflammatory meds, and nine sessions of physio, so that begins tomorrow morning at 8:30 in Wavre.  I should get a frequent-flyer card for the physio department!

Speaking about disabling non-crippling injuries, Yoshi was feeling a bit poorly this week as he scraped his paws pretty badly on Tuesday.  Lawrence and Tiffany have a tennis court at their place and the surface is so abrasive that if a larger dog runs on it, especially one that chases the ball as aggressively as he does, there is a good chance that that old pebbly court surface with act like sandpaper on his foot-pads.  That's what happened on Tuesday, to the point that he left bloody footprints on the tiles when he came inside, so "Doggles" has been benched from running all this week, which felt a bit weird.  To compound matters he also had a trio of vaccinations in his hindquarters at the veterinarian's on Wednesday, so he wasn't moving too nimbly for the remainder of the week.  I took him for a cautious 8km walk on Friday, and he seemed ok, so today I thought we'd try a run after I got back from church, and of course he was fine.

In music news, the Vaughan Williams is moving forward.  I really don't have that much to do in it but what I do have sits up in a high register, and VW often wants it sung piano, or softly, which means that one really has to have it in a good vocal place as there won't be an opportunity to just sing forcefully, which would actually be easier... it's hard but if one can manage it then the effect can be quite magical, so that's my task for this coming week.

As well I realise that Elijah also needs to get sung through soon.  Of course I've performed it before but that was some time ago, and when I start to look at what lies between now and May 5th, I don't actually have that much time to work on material, so I had better get cracking.  The good news is that after Dona nobis pacem and Elijah, the other material that I have to prepare is much more recently learned and performed, so it should already be in a decent place.  I'm still trying to figure out when I will go to Berlin to re-coach the Johannespassion.

Yesterday was La Chandeleur, or in North America, Groundhog Day.  I hope that wherever you are you noticed the return of the light... for us, it's been a dark winter so far.  December 2018 that was the darkest month since 1934, and in January we had 26 hours 59 minutes of visible sun, whereas the average is around 58 hours and 24 minutes.  I'm hoping that February will be brighter!