Choir and Handbags

Last night I took my first rehearsal with the Mountbatten choir, and it was great. The Mountbatten choir sing every Wednesday evening at the Mountbatten Hospice in Newport. I'm drawn to hospices after being 'blown away' by the Hospice in the Weald in Kent who looked after my Mum in her final days, and I was pleased that the Mountbatten choir were foolish enough to appoint me as their new Choirmaster. 

The Mountbatten Hospice is an incredible place, where the arts are extremely highly valued. It's a ubiquitous presence on the Island, with minibuses dashing around hither (and sometimes thither) and has charity shops in every town.  The previous director, Fraser, sent me a spreadsheet detailing 335 members. Of those, only 130 or so are 'current'. That was a relief. I'm too short to take a choir of 300. Of the 130, around 90 appeared for my debut rehearsal: as usual there were more women than men - around a sixty:thirty split; but however you 'do the math' we were more than quorate. The choir and I thrashed through some Adele, Carpenters, 'Linden Lea' by Vaughan Williams and 'Consider Yourself' from 'Oliver'. It was the most fun couple of hours I've had since moving here, and I'm looking forward to Wednesday evenings, greatly.

Something to look forward to on a Wednesday to cast away the midweek blues is obviously fantastic. Unimaginatively, the order of my favourite days of the week is as follows: Saturday, Sunday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. What's yours? Some people are of the view that you get a post weekend 'bounce' and rank Monday higher, but I very definitely 'Don't Like Mondays'. Today, Friday, Mrs. Griffiths and I drove to Shanklin after work to charge our electric car - the Mer Ventnor car charge point is closed for maintenance which is a pain.

As we walked round Shanklin, Mrs. G. gravitating towards her natural lair - charity shops - we passed a travel agents. Previously I've wondered about the cliché that is often trotted out about the Island being 30 years behind; today I saw my first concrete evidence. The travel agents contained four tables; there were four uniformed ladies seated behind the four tables. No one else was in the shop. 

What sort of people still go to travel agents? Are they the same people who get their photos developed in Boots? It was very 1980s; I expect they wrote their appointments in a filofax and enjoyed prawn cocktail and Black Forest gateau for their lunch. The ladies inside looked very formal and busy, but goodness knows what with. 

My sister Clare, who occasionally proof reads this for me, (I don't really need it but I indulge her and it gives her something to do) tells me she uses travel agents, so maybe I'm wrong here. In fact we've just had a discussion about how 'travel agents' should be written. Should there be an apostrophe? Should the words be capitalised? Answers on a postcard, - which is presumably how people who book through travel agents communicate with people back home to let them know they're having a good time.

My hairdresser opposite, (for you can get quite a few things done when you charge a car) painted a depressing picture of Shanklin and other Island towns.

"It's all gone! Kaput!" he claimed. "There used to be banks. People would come in to the town and it was generally busy. Look at it now. It's dead. There are 12 hairdressers in the town but that's about it."

We agreed that a combination of the Internet, Covid and Austerity (which sadly deserves its capital 'A') were to blame. But in truth Shanklin is lovely and didn't seem to us quite as 'dead' as my pessimistic barber reckoned. And there was a Peacocks! Peacocks is Freya's favourite shop and she perked up considerably when we informed her that Shanklin had a branch. My hairdresser had been working in the town for 12 years and had witnessed a slow decline; we've been here a month, so his opinion may be more valid.

Before we returned to the car, Eve visited one more charity shop and speculatively picked up one or two tops from a clothes rail, muttering to herself "Freya would like this."

"Freya makes a significant contribution to Amazon's £500 billion turnover," I also mutter. (Generally I can hear Mrs. Griffiths's mutterings but she can't hear mine. I always ensure this is the case, and would advise other husbands to adhere to a similar protocol.)

Thankfully, Mrs. G. put the items back. Freya has enough 'stuff'. 

Recounting this and the presence of a Peacocks in the town that evening, I asked her how many handbags she owns. 

"Ten," the she casually admits.

"What!!!", I respond.

Why does she need ten handbags? Her Mum only has one handbag which seems quite sufficient. In fact, that one handbag has frequently had cause to increase my blood pressure.

My close encounters with said spouse's handbag are normally after I've tripped over it. It's my generous life insurance policy, I imagine, that causes her to leave it in the middle of the hall floor. Lying on the hard, cold laminate contemplating the handbag, cursing and rubbing various bruises, I often think of the 1970s children's programme, Mr. Benn. 

Readers of a certain age may recall this weird and wonderful programme. In every episode, the bowler-hatted title character leaves his house and visits a fancy-dress shop. He goes into the changing room to try on an outfit, but when he leaves via some kind of magic door he's transported to a totally different world; once there, he has some kind of adventure (it would be rude not to). 

The analogy between the wifely handbag and this eccentric programme is not perfect, I concede. For a start, to my knowledge said lady's handbag has not had a BBC TV series devoted to it. Also, Mr. Benn would typically bring back a souvenir from his adventure such as a postcard, a sombrero or a feather; souvenirs obtained from adventures in Mrs. G's handbag, however,  are altogether more prosaic: a used tissue, a squashed Kitkat (sell by date March 2014) and a sachet of tomato ketchup are the the normal fare on offer. If Mr. Benn had returned from a fairy tale land with a sachet of tomato ketchup, letters would undoubtedly have been sent to the BBC .

Mrs. G.'s handbag is black and plastic; two handles protrude from it, allowing its owner to carry it around with ease as she idly wanders around the Island's towns not answering her phone. (I don't know why she pays O2 for the privilege, really.) But the inside of the bag tells a different tale. When I have cause to do battle with it (with permission, you understand), I find myself encountering a whole new world - a world akin to Mr. Benn's world. I've had many adventures in Mrs. G.'s handbag: magical adventures, mystical adventures, but also annoying and frustrating adventures. 

Generally when Mrs. G has asked me to get something from it, the operation needs to be done with some expediency. It might be some sanitiser gel, some floss, or some other entirely unnecessary item manufactured purely for profit. (Floss is nonsense, recommended by dentists so they can line their pockets: discuss.) In this quest for expediency I am nearly always thwarted by the complexity of the network of compartments and cavities in the handbag.  There's a magic trick in which the magician pulls item after item out of a bag. The inner recesses of Mrs. G's  handbag would provide material for Paul Daniels for years (other, more modern magician's are available), and if time permitted I'd catalogue the items therein for your amazement and incredulity. 

If you'll permit me a literary analogy from 'The Importance of Being Ernest' instead of a perfunctory list, what I will suggest is that if Mrs. Griffiths's handbag is a typical one, when baby Ernest was discovered in a handbag in Oscar Wilde's play, no doubt he was extracted alongside alongside dirty tissues, a band-aid plaster (used), a phone charger for a previous phone and a collection of receipts from Poundland. Michael MacIntyre has his man drawer. Well Mrs. Griffiths has her handbag.

My darling wife's purse is not dissimilar - flaps galore, secret chambers, countless zipped compartments and crannies as well as nooks. To be fair she knows her way round it; to me it's unfathomable. I once had the misfortune to try and navigate the one way system of Braintree, which involved me passing the same Barclays Bank three times; I find myself referencing this torture whenever asked  by Mrs. G. to find something from her purse such as her Tesco Clubcard or Boots Disadvantage card

We all have a plethora of cards in our wallets or purses, but clubcards are for too ubiquitous for my liking. They are the scourge of wallets and purses up and down the land! I mean why do they call it a club? Are there meetings up and down the country in village halls in which members discuss the the discount they got on carrots. "There will be a meeting of the Tesco Clubcard in Pratt's Bottom Memorial Hall at 7pm on Wednesday. Tea and coffee will be provided if you have enough points on your card."

Mrs. Griffiths doesn't have the right to reply so we'll leave my implicit criticism of her accessories. There'll be 60 or so handbags for me to trip over next Wednesday at choir practice, so I'm off to practise my hop-scotch skills.