Drill and organ; the exciting things in my life

Somebody recently said that they had read my blog, which reminded me that my job is to write it. Not my only job, fortunately, although I would probably be more prolific if it were.

Right now, my big news is that I have a brand new cordless drill of my very own. It makes me feel slightly sad that this is my big news, but I am sure that the novelty will have worn off by the middle of next week. I expect it to reappear when I actually get to use the thing. Which has two batteries! This means that it can be used even when the first battery goes flat! Hooray! Just something Daddy had lying around the house, unused. Natch.

Of course, I have inflicted some damage with it. I stood it up on its battery, which is a pretty standard manoeuvre to perform with the drills owned by my colleagues, and it fell over and made a dent in Mother's shiny wonder-table. Also a couple of other marks. Apparently my drill is a bit more top-heavy than its peers. That is because it is a Black and Decker, while my colleagues' drills start at Bosch and work up. Still, it is free and doesn't smell as though something died in it, which is what the old one (donated by a kindly colleague) would do had its battery not recently given up the ghost.

My next task is to adapt the case to hold the extra battery. This will involve some cutting and some swearing, I expect. It will be done somewhere Daddy cannot see; it might make him cry, then take back the drill. This is, of course, assuming that the case is big enough height-wise; there's no way it will fit sideways.

What else is going on?

My church is open again! Beforehand, some of my colleagues spent a couple of days inside the organ, and managed to get rid of loads of faults, and to get it into tune again. Then the humidity dropped by a long way, and it broke again. Big, loud faults, with the big, loud pipes involved (although they were just transmitting news of the faults; they were not actually involved. Thank goodness!). Also, an elephant noise from a quiet, important stop. Fortunately, a colleague was able to fix both these problems, and another one which was just waiting to show itself. Unfortunately, the day before the church opened again, another stop failed. The bit which broke is particularly inaccessible; when we pay our £8,500, this will be fixed, along with a lot of other problems just waiting to happen. Until then, we just have to hope for tall, thin, flexible and dedicated organ builders!

On Sunday I played my first hymn in a service on a church organ for a very long time; over a year, in fact. The introduction went quite well, actually. Verse 1 started badly and finished badly, which led to verse 2 starting badly, but after that it sounded as though I actually knew how to play the organ. Verses 3-5 were absolutely fine. And nobody complained. The organist sympathised with me. It should only get better...

Which leads to next Sunday. Not tomorrow; the one after that. I shall be playing the full service on my own, on the organ. Music beforehand, five hymns and music afterwards. I think that Charpentier's Te Deum Prelude is what will be happening afterwards, because I can more or less play it, but beforehand has not yet been decided. Probably the random crap I used to play before the service at St Isidore's. That should be easy enough to brush up; I must actually do that beforehand.

The five hymns may well turn out well. One of them is one I learned a while ago, and the other four are not. I must go and practise in a minute! Wish me luck!