Organs and Royal Carriages

I love music – lots of different kinds of music. One thing that’s been on my to-do list for absolutely ages was to go see and hear an organ being played. The organs here – they’re MASSIVE. They’re built into the buildings. I’ve never seen anything like them. We must have some like them in America, somewhere, because some of the organists are American, but we don’t have them in little ol Bossier City, even though it’s the heart of the Bible belt.

Bridgewater Hall organ pipes

Bridgewater Hall organ pipes

The pipes are stunning enough to look at – always such a centerpiece to any building they’re in. These are in the Bridgewater Hall – Manchester’s premier concert venue for acoustics. There are 5,500 pipes there.

Bridgewater Hall organ console

Bridgewater Hall organ console

However, anytime I see the console (controller) for the organ, I just stand there, mouth agape, wondering how on Earth one person manages to control all that.

Finally, I found a concert I could get to – Bridgewater Hall put on a series, and I could get to one, called Dancing Feet. Last week, I went. Boy, what an appropriate title! His feet did move across the foot keyboard so much – and his hands across the four other keyboards – and THE SOUND coming out of that thing was unreal; it was like an entire orchestra!!!

Well, I was gobsmacked; absolutely blown away. Jonathan Scott, the organist, has a number of videos on YouTube. Here’s one (at the Bridgewater, no less!) for a taster:

Wowza.

So, while I’m figuring out what I’d like to do when I visit London next week, I came across an organ recital. Oh, right. The timing was a bit tight for my garden party, but – not knowing anything about where things are (after all, that’s what maps are for) – I was vaguely hopeful that perhaps the chapel was perhaps very near Buckingham Palace, so I could do both.

St George’s Chapel is the chapel attached to Windsor Castle, so I duly went to Google Maps and typed in directions from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Castle, as you do. I clicked on the public transport option, of course.

RoyalCarraigeMap

And what option should appear, but “Take the Royal Carriage!” As you do!

“Oy, Queeny, can I blag a lift?” ;-P

Told this to a friend of mine today, after showing her the HAT I’d found (yes! I found one! they’ll let me in! phew!), and she reckoned that with that hat I’d be alright, actually. After she left, I found a picture of the new royal carriage:

RoyalCarraige

The hat might pass inspection, but I’m less sure about my dress, up against that contraption of gold leaf!

Happy Music

I was feeling kinda down earlier today.

Whine, whine, whine …

I’d missed two events yesterday I’d have liked to have gone to, because the latest medication I’m trying (in my effort to not have a face that randomly hurts half the time) makes me extra sleepy, so I couldn’t get up in time for the first, and I was so overwhelmingly tired I napped through the second.

Then this morning, I woke up to a glorious blue sky and sunshine – absolutely perfect for the bluebell morning a friend was putting on in her fabulous garden, which I was looking forward to a great deal – with a back in such pain I could barely move. At one point this morning, I stood up and nearly blacked out from the pain. I couldn’t really face being social while in that much pain, so I gave it a miss.

Yesterday and today both I’ve dealt with customer service workers who were ineffective at their jobs, always a thing which grates. Yesterday’s completely unexpected car repairs came out to quite a hefty amount, too, so that was certainly lingering.

But I decided around lunchtime that that was enough, and sought to turn my day around. I filed complaints about the service workers with their respective companies. I enjoyed the sunshine. I revelled in no longer being uncontrollably tired all the time (I started halving the dose last night). Chris had massaged my back, and it was doing a bit better. We swapped the mattresses to see if the guest bed mattress would do my back better.

Happy music! …

Making lunch helped me change gears, and then while eating it I browsed the latest videos from some of my favorite artists. Happily, Alex Boyé has just released a new one, and that really did the trick. The message he wrote in the Description section was really wonderful, and the song is so brilliant for that particular moment. I just have to share:

When my career seemed like it was going nowhere, a few moms and mom bloggers began sharing my videos, and my career was suddenly revitalized. YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE. DON’T STOP BLOGGING!!!!

I thought about sharing that, and then I thought, why not make a post collecting a few of my happy songs together? Peponi remains my favorite song and video of Alex Boyé’s:

Lindsey Stirling’s music also always picks me up. This is my favorite video of hers – when have you ever seen a violinist rock out? 🙂

Artie Hemphill is one of my new favorite country singers, and this is a fun song:

And last but certainly not least, no list of happy music could be complete without the song “Happy”!

Hope you enjoyed! 🙂