I sang

Cervantes (you know who I mean? The bloke who wrote Don Quixote) said, “He who sings frightens away his ills” and I definitely think he was right. I met with the singing group that I recently joined last night and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I’d had a long - but  rewarding - day at the course in Dunblane, followed by a mad rush to finish some work work when I got home, followed by some essential housework (yes, there is such a thing as essential housework; we were running out of dishes so the dishwasher had to be emptied and filled, and we were running out of clothes so the washing machine had to be emptied and filled. I did leave the basket of wet clothes slap bang in the middle of the living room floor before I went out, in the vain hope that some other member of the Milne clan might trip over it, realise it needed emptied and hang its contents on the clothes horse. As if!). So, I was a bit wound up when I flew out of the house to head into Stirling to sing.

I fought my way through a mini hurricane to get in to Stirling last week, but not many people had been quite so keen; only a handful of folk had turned up and I wasn’t quite sure if the group was for me. Two Burns’ songs and an instruction to sing soprano later and I definitely had my reservations. Last night, however, the weather didn’t put anyone off and it was a much busier affair. I was surprised to find myself not only remembering how the Burns stuff went, but actually enjoying singing it too. Och, my gran would’ve been so proud! But, better than that; one of the other songs we sang was ‘Barbara Ann’ by the Beach Boys. Aw man. I loved that. I was in the middle section so mostly just sang the monotonous “Ba Ba Ba Ba Bar Bar Ann” line, but that was fine because within a few minutes we were singing it all together will all the different parts and .. I know it sounds soft ..but it just gave me such a buzz!

Not everyone in the group’s a great singer – but I like that this group’s not about that. There don’t seem to be any prima donnas and it doesn’t seem to matter if you don’t quite get it right (I don’t know my F ♯ from my B♭, so being expected to follow the sheet music is a big ask!). It just seems to be about coming together for a couple of hours with some like-minded people and a music teacher to have a right good old sing song. That, in turn, gets the old endorphins flowing - which definitely helps to frighten away your ills.

So, even though a basket full of wet washing was waiting to greet me on my return, singing last night made me feel really good.

(There is a downside however; I can't get that bloody 'Ba Ba Ba Ba Bar Bar Ann' out of my head today........!)