Argh.  Could there possibly be anything more irritating, in this land of order and regularity, than the ungrounded late-night bus timetable wibble?  All day, every day, the bus leaves that particular stop at seven minutes past the hour.  Sometimes there is another bus in between; during peak hours, maybe even two.  However, regularly at seven minutes past the hour, comes the bus.  My brain is pretty good at patterns, and that one had sunk in.  So after a première (good) and the party thereafter (managed to resist dancing competitions with the dancers, which is A Good Thing, and even held back from too much madness on the dance floor as I had forgotten to bring alternative (flatter; premières mean networking, which means showing  the best ankle you can... dancing in suitable première shoes can be quite literally crippling) shoes), I sauntered down to the bus stop (I normally cycle everywhere, but knew I'd have a couple of glasses of wine this evening so opted for public transport). Arrived smugly at three minutes past midnight.

Only to spot the blasted bus pulling away from the stop.

Closer inspection showed that - for absolutely NO reason that I can see - the bus just past midnight leaves at two minutes past the hour.  And the next one, at fifteen minutes past one.  Much gnashing of teeth!! I can see NO reason for these irregularities apart from sheer joy at disrupting passengers' journeys.  

I walked. Warmer evenings mean the scent of acacia blossom still hangs in the air, and with such an accompaniment, even stomping home annoyed in high stilettos is a pleasure - but still - irritating!

Currently full of the joys of... well, not spring exactly (that would be just a little optimistic, given the freezing fog which obscured most of the morning), but the passing of that phase of winter in which the paths are black ice and windchill means that walking at more than a snail's pace necessitates triple layers on all extremities.  In other words, I'm back on my bike, following an enforced hiatus due to freezing conditions.  Hooray!  I HATED waiting for buses late at night, in dark and miserable bus stops, having invariably miscalculated and missed the previous bus by a few minutes.  (In London I simply learned the bus timetables - say, at 3 minutes past the hour and 33 minutes past the hour, etc., and worked backwards; here, the transport authorities are more cunning, and they alter the timings according to whether it's a weekday, Saturday, Sunday, or past eight o'clock in the evening; just when I think I have it licked, I miss another blasted bus and have to stand and swear for a good long while.)

As a singer, I find that fifteen minutes' cycling in to the theatre is a great start to a warm-up, and is often enough on its own.  (Singers vary in their warm-up needs, from three seconds' nonchalant humming and then walking on to sing Tannhäuser, to over an hour of varied exercises before hitting the stage.  Personally, if I'm out there singing every day, I seldom need much in the way of vocal warm-up, but it's great to get my body moving, as it seems to kick-start the rest.)

It also means, hopefully, that the weather is pretty much bound to improve from now on, which can only be a Good Thing!

An unforgettable instance of audience participation in the performance of My Fair Lady a couple of nights ago.  During the scene in the foyer bar in which I am meant to natter gaily with whichever members of the public will helpfully stand still and allow this, before the dialogue resumes, I was accosted by a lady who accused me in all seriousness of stealing one of the glasses of champagne she'd ordered and paid for.  I was catapulted out of character into flabbergasted stuttering denial (as in, oh, not fair, I'm not even drinking real alcohol!!) and felt hugely awkward extricating myself from the situation upon hearing my cue to resume the dialogue.  Not helped ONE BIT by my dialogue partner, once we'd arrived at the designated table, bunging his elbows down so as to tilt the whole damned thing, sending everthing leaping into the air.  As I lunged for smoked salmon sandwiches with one hand, and a glass of "champagne" with the other, I was overcome with giggles, and had to take a huge gulp of air to smother the giggles long enough to utter the next sentence.  At such times, one is ACUTELY conscious of the video camera right in one's face, conveying every nuance to a fascinated audience...

As the photo says (it's a poster for an Italian circus performing in Germany, seen somewhere on my travels, which tickled my fancy):  All you need is laugh!

Apologies for recent radio silence.  It's been one of those "glamorous" weeks.  Glamorous in the sense that many people unconnected with the arts think that these rootless, restless travels are somewhat more enjoyable than they often appear from the inside.  As an example, I have stuck a picture of beautiful Munich up there.  Yes, it does look like an ice floe.  Because that's what I was concentrating on whilst trying to cross the road, rather than looking up at the fabulous architecture.  Seriously.  The snow was melting and many of the streets were inches deep in running water mixed with ice.  Not easy to find a decent crossing place, bearing in mind that frozen paws are NOT going to add to one's performance at an audition, on the whole.

I will admit, however, to succumbing, occasionally and in giggles, to the "oh lord, it's Tuesday, is this Düsseldorf?" syndrome.  Thank goodness for online calendars and for good friends around the world who put up with me when travelling!

While I think about it, a few pointers for those embarking on similar journeys:

• modern phones are terrible wimps when it comes to running out of juice.   Chargers are a MUST when travelling.
• saving copies of all your arias in PDF format on a gmail account or similar is a life-saver.  Unexpected auditions can be hellishly stressful without the additional worry of not being able to find copies of your (in my case) non-standard repertoire for the pianist.
• the effect of repeated journeys will be to concertina the time you have available to do stuff like, say, Christmas shopping.  You will suddenly and heart-stoppingly realise that you only have two hours to buy thoughtful and individual presents for all your loved ones... and you're in the middle of nowhere and what's more, all the darned shops are shut because it's Sunday.
• whilst wearing all your clothes on a Ryanair flight saves hand-luggage weight and sticks one in the eye of the Irish cheapskate, if you are then seated next to a sweaty drunkard on the flight, following a four-hour delay in which he's taken full advantage of the bar, you will spend a horribly uncomfortable flight worrying about when he will vomit over every single item of clothing (bar underwear) you have brought with you.  Leave one dress in the case!!  (It didn't happen, by the way.  Phew.)
• slithering sideways to a half-hour Thai massage on impulse is never a bad thing.  Especially relaxing when one's masseuse has a terribly talkative stomach, causing her first to apologise and later to fall flat over one in a fit of giggles, which are naturally catching...

Like most situations in life, I suppose, the thing that helps the most when one is belting around like a mad thing is to retain one's sense of humour.  I am hanging on to mine with scratched and bloody nails, but it hasn't got away yet...

A trip across the border

I have just returned from visiting dear friends in Alsace, whom I'd been threatening to drop in on since I moved here. It's only a matter of about two and a half hours by car, so I thought it would be reasonably simple to figure out some affordable way of tootling down and bothering them.

It's not quite as simple as that! For a start, I had to ask the man in charge of organising all the music rehearsals if it would be OK to disappear for a few days (as we only know the schedule for any given day at half past one the previous day, this can't be taken for granted). Permission gracefully granted, I had to fill in an absence slip, because I was going further than 50 kilometres from the theatre; this to be signed and double-countersigned...

Relieved I'd got the bureacratic bit over with, I settled down to browse the internet for cunning ways to get from A to B for as little money as possible. I pride myself on being a bit of an internet devil, and certainly, travelling within England and flying from England to various destinations, I've always been able to sniff out the best prices. I wasn't particularly in a hurry this time, and was indifferent to the means of transport.

It totally foxed me! Going by train was pretty blasted expensive, and the Deutsche Bahn (German railway) site had kittens every time I shyly suggested I might want to cross over into France - wouldn't give me timetables, refused to give ticket costs, etc etc. Sure, I could get to Strasbourg, for a hefty fee, but I didn't want to go quite as far as that, and Deutsche Bahn did not wish to help me get anywhere else. Fine, thought I, I'll see about coaches. Nope. Now it's quite possible I'm simply unable to navigate these sites properly as yet, but it would appear that the national coach network is (a) not set up to go the way I really wanted to, and (b) nearly as expensive as the train. They don't appear to have a cheap alternative, as we do in Britain. The expat forums suggest that the only way to travel without shelling out too much is to carshare, and I couldn't find a female driver going anywhere near on the dates I wanted to travel. Much frustration ensued! Eventually I chose the least-worst option and started to book a return to Saarbrücken, being the nearest border town to my friends, they having kindly offered to pick me up.

Well, firstly, the cheaper options available turned out not to be quite as available as I thought, not being available to print out online - they had to be posted and required quite a few days' notice. Hmm. Never mind. I chose the bog-standard return fare and pressed "pay now". It then wanted me to sign up; well, fine, I thought, I'll be making more trips throughout the year - no harm in storing my details. So I did. These included the number of my bank card and my German address, and I tried to proceed to payment. It wasn't playing ball. Despite having taken my debit card details, it also required a credit card for payment. (What?? Why?)

Of course I don't have a credit card in Germany, and if I had put in the details of one of my English ones, gathering dust at the bottom of my handbag and only used for emergencies, the computer would doubtless have jibbed at the mismatching addresses and probably arrested me on the spot. I banged my head hard on the desk and took myself off to the station. The ticket machine there eventually dispensed what I needed, but I resented having to make the unnecessary trip. I did ask one of the helpful ladies at the travel centre why, if the machines at the station would take my money happily from my debit card, the online site would not. If there was a coherent explanation, however, I'm afraid I didn't understand it!!

After all that, of course, I had a lovely time at my friends' place, throwing myself into family life and bottles of light, fresh Gewürtztraminer with a vengeance. I cleaned out rabbit hutches, helped with French homework, was fed royally, reciprocated with a rabbit dish with spätzle (egg noodles) with a tomato sauce thickened with dark chocolate (not the same rabbit, I hasten to add, and I had some nifty lying to do to the younger girls at the last minute...), and generally had a ball. We even managed to fit in a supermarket trip, where I stocked up rather desperately on everything I find lacking in German shops. I returned bent almost double under the weight of my purchases, but it was worth it!

An interesting occurrence in the supermarket - evidently the German is worming its way into my consciousness, but it was jolly embarrassing! We'd bumped into an extremely voluble French friend and her daughter, and had joined them for coffee in the supermarket coffee shop (I was impressed to note the variety of alcohol on offer!). I was happily nattering away in French, and at some point the conversation moved to cross-border travel. I was explaining the above complications, but as soon as I hit the word "Saarbrücken", my tongue flipped immediately into German. I started to apologise - aargh, it was still in German!! I took a deep breath, started again in French - and the same thing happened - TWICE!- when I hit the German place name. I was mortified; the others, naturally, were in stitches...

A last, slightly surreal note. Returning, I realised I could get a train from their village to Saarbrücken (this had not been at all obvious from my internet searches, due to the dratted border being in between). This was an unmanned station, so I went to the ticket machine to buy my ticket. It wouldn't let me buy a ticket to my destination!! I wondered about getting on anyway and buying a ticket from the inspector, but thought it prudent to at least get a ticket for the last station on the French side. French ticket inspectors are notoriously strict about such matters; you have to definitely get their attention before they try to get yours, otherwise you're fined within an inch of your life for trying to travel ticketless.

Not the ones I met!! The first one strolled along, grinned, and said he hoped I didn't have any ticket problems as his mate with the machine thought I was too good-looking to talk to and had skedaddled to the other half of the train. I started to say I hadn't a ticket to my actual destination; he laughed and whistled for the other guard, and I had to explain about the errant ticket machine to a background of toothless flirting on the one side and crimson-faced and silent embarrassment on the other. They had a look at my ticket, then explained that, as they were employed by the Alsace railways, they couldn't issue a ticket for the German bit either. Perplexed, I asked what I needed to do. Oh, said the voluble one, and winked, don't worry love, you're fine. Which I was, thankfully, saving eight euros; but I have to say, I reckon that's a slightly atypical brush with French bureaucracy!!

A sweet disorder in the dress...

...seems to be pretty unavoidable, actually, if one combines a penchant for flowing, ground-trailing skirts and riding a bike. Well, either a little disorder, or (which has not YET happened, but I can see how it might) a full-scale magnificent crash off the bike in a welter of velvet and greasy chains.

Thus far I've avoided the issue as far as possible by knotting up my skirts on front and wearing bicycle leggings underneath. The trouble is that somehow it seems indecent to oik up or unknot my skirts in public, and wearing only the cycle leggings I feel naked! (I do NOT. DO. trousers.)

This is only going to get worse, I feel; a kind lady pointed out to me today in the market, after I'd gone to buy flowers and vegetables, that my dress was knotted around my thighs and looked a little strange... Bless her! I'd cycled in and completely forgotten to normalise myself.

At least, however, it just feels like a practical problem. The people here, thank goodness, don't seem to give a damn what anyone wears. Sure, most of them wear jeans and T-shirts all the time, as far as I can see, but they don't bat an eyelid at whatever I've chosen to wear, which is gloriously restful. I indulged in a daytrip to Wiesbaden last week, because I'd heard it was gorgeous; well, my main impression was, it felt exactly like one of those hyper-snob Italian spa towns (what is it about spa towns? something in the water, maybe...) (incidentally, the photo is of the Schiller statue in front of the opera house). Lots of extremely thin ladies in skinny white jeans, eyeing me disdainfully due to the lack of designer clothes and superabundance of flesh! Luckily I managed to confuse them with brilliant Italian earrings and matching hair flower... but I have to admit, I felt so much better coming back here!

Today the theatre had a Theaterfest, where the doors were flung open to the public. There was a costume fashion show, guided tours, scene painting for children, brilliant jazz concerts, enough unexpected sunshine to *really* enjoy beer and sausages in the open air, a wonderful opera highlights concert... oh, I had fun! Most of all, though, I appreciated the way the town and the theatre interreacted. The entertainments were all free. The costume show I attended was packed to the roof, and I was next to several entranced children, being instructed by their parents or grandparents, and evidently close to getting hooked on this idiotic art. People wandered in and out. Catching up with some singer friends later, they were assailed on all sides by friendly supporters. Evidently the town is proud of, and feels part of, its theatre. (I need to do a bit of thinking as to how one could extend this to, say, England, but it's a nice example to follow.)

The clothing dilemma can only get more complicated as the seasons close in; but I have to admit I'm actually enjoying it! The worst options are endurable; all I need now is a waterproof cape, and I'm Superwoman!

Oh, good lord, I bought a bike! I reckon I must have been completely undone by the lovely fresh air here, and by having walked yesterday along the banks of the Rhine for a good distance, then longing to go further, and being overtaken by hordes of cyclists of all ages and degrees of fitness. I was then consumed by the urge to lay my paws on one of these marvels; luckily I had sniffed out a second-hand-books-and-bric-a-brac place, and knew just where to go.

En route, I stopped off to buy a lock at a cycle shop (having failed at the Proper Cycle-Enthusiasts' Shop, where either I asked for completely the wrong item, or they innately disdained the very idea of locks - I mean, what would you need a lock for when you have taken your beloved cycle to bed with you?). I spent a bit more than the minimum, meaning I now have a lock which requires me to wrestle with it as with a python, so tightly and securely is it coiled. Evidently part of the fitness thing, balancing the excessive use of the muscles of the lower limbs in cycling...

Actually I'd previously wandered through Lidl, wondering if they might have a cycle lock. They didn't, but had all manner of wonders relating to cycling. I sniggered at the padded cycle leggings* and strolled on, undeterred (but with a jar of vegetables which I couldn't find in my dictionary and therefore couldn't resist).

Having snagged my prize from the sweet, gangly, absent-minded bookseller, I wheeled it cautiously through the streets. A wave of ohmygodwhathaveyoudoneNOW? swept through me - after all, it has been a couple of decades (aargh) since I last rode a bike. I had one at Cambridge - and in my three years there I had three accidents and it got stolen four times, despite me having painted it in lurid and revolting shades of fluorescent green and yellow. The last time, I thought, they can damn well have it. (Mother was relieved, I think; one less thing to cart back when I graduated.)

However the trepidation was soon overtaken by a ferocious desire to hop on and conquer the world. It is TRUE! Once you've learned to ride a bike, the knowledge never leaves your body. Emboldened, I swept past the flat and on to the river bank I'd walked down before. Along I whooshed, (OK well snailed a bit at first, and got overtaken by pensioners and very small children, but I soon remembered how to change up gears) and felt a glorious sense of freedom. (I would say, surely there is no better way to see the countryside, but I actually still think that the best way is on horseback. However common sense prevails and I am sticking with a bike for the moment.)

I cycled about 5K downriver (or maybe upriver - not quite sure yet!) before turning, and realising that whilst the cycling motion came naturally, I'd unfortunately forgotten how to change down gears. The way back felt rather longer...** This moment is recorded for posterity in the photo above. Please note the bike is not abandoned, simply resting attractively against the railings whilst I contemplated the distance home through the viewfinder.

Well, that's it. I own a cycle and have worn flat shoes all day. Never mind the dratted language, I am now Officially German.

* now on To-Buy list, given state of behind; I thought I'd learned my lesson vis-à-vis saddle sores last time I pinched a friend's horse and headed off into the countryside for the afternoon, only to be forced to limp the last couple of miles back to the stable leading said horse by the reins. It would appear not.

** although much enlivened by my first glass of local wine - see next entry!