25 March   Concert St. Neot’s

We are up and out of the coast area and head to our rendezvouses point with Jenny and a promised non-‘mengky’(Sue’s word for moldy/mildew-y mess) coach.  I still was having nose issues from the night before.  It is a nice, smaller coach, and halfway back a set of two dual facing table seats.  Jenny is in a happy mood.  We meander up through rural areas and grazing lands.  The trip takes a while.  St. Neot’s is a village built on a hillside—steep little narrow streets and the River Lovenly running through it.  It is right of the Bordin Moor.  The parish--1321 is named after the Saxon monk, Saint Neotus, which is Hebrew for "pleasant pasture". In the waning light it is cold and drizzling.  We take our clothes and music inside the old church—lots of graves stones through the churchyard. In the church it seems colder than outside.  We line up and practice.  

St.Neot's Methodist	Stone House	Village Hall

The programme will be the local choir: Heather, the Electrocardiologist, an operatic mezzo (very well trained), and us for four and five songs. Jason stretches in to six.  We have to walk three blocks to the Methodist churches social hall to change—women in the hall, the guys in the kitchen.  No one’s modest.  I was hoping the reception afterwards would be at the London Inn pub next door to the venue church, but it will be in the community hall across the street from the Methodist church. 

On the way back to the venue, Paul, Kathy, his wife, and I stop and talk to a middle-aged woman who owns the old house across the street from the London Inn.  She and her husband have bought the big old stone Victorian and are in the midst of renovations.  She is coming to the concert. 

The concert starts with another town crier.  We walk slowly with Paul and his cane back to the church, leaving Kathy in the pub.  The performance goes well even though I have a mid-range ‘frog’ on my vocal chords.  The biggest negative is the cold.  The church must be under 40^o—freezing!  We walk back to the village hall in the dark and rain.  There is another beautiful spread of food—so much food!  Mainly Cornish traditional. Soon both groups fill the space.  The town crier, a baritone in the local group, comes in with a pint of Doom Bar that he picked up on his way over at the London Inn.  It’s so hard to eat this much and drink milk tea this late.  The room is full of talk and laughter. 

Tonnie has pilfered two cupcakes to take back home with her.  She has made a traditional of taking a cupcake on the tours with her and photographing them in different locals.  I am now the carrier and guard of the cakes as we leave.  We walk back through the drizzle in the dark with our bags and two blocks past the venue church to where Jenny has been able to park the bus.  I sit with the Helppies at a table seat and hold the cupcakes while they play cribbage on the way back to St. Austell.  They are a kick to talk with and a great couple.  Kevin tells me about a Vocal Competition he attended in Llangollen in Wales (near Wrexham) several years back.  During the ride, Kathy grabs the cupcake that Tonnie had started to eat and takes it up Jenny.  Later, when we arrive at the Travelodge, Tonnie is stunned to hear what she did…”the eaten one?” 

We all go up to our rooms.  I check the laundry hanging in the window and decide I have got to wrap the socks in a towel and set it near the heater if I ever want them to be dry enough to pack into my bag in the morning.  I sleep soundly all night.