Bleeding organist ...

You must forgive me, indulging in sensationalist headlines (or hinting at expletive ones): I have a tale to tell which leaves me no choice ...

After my forebodings about having to sing three more pieces of music into a mask this morning at church, it was suggested that as I'd been "the choir" for the past 18 months I should continue so to do, so I ended up removing my mask and stepping over to the organ console to sing, safely removed from everyone else. 

Everyone else, that is, except for Mr PB, aka the organist. For our communion music today we were singing a Taize piece in two parts and two languages, a French verse and then the English version. All seemed to be going well when I realised there were ... infelicities creeping into the organ accompaniment, and the odd fluff in the other vocal line. Was it the dread slippy hand sanitiser again? (Some weeks, as today, it is wildly runny and takes an age to stop being wet). I sneaked a quick glance to my left, and realised that the keyboard was turning red under Himself's left hand. I kept singing, aware that all was far from well, and arrived safely - and not a little triumphantly - at the end of the last, solo verse. Usually the last few minutes of the ablutions at the altar are covered by some organ music, but not today. There seemed to be blood everywhere.

Somehow, while rubbing his hands together to evaporate the runny sanitiser, Himself had caught the pad of his finger with the corner of a fingernail and punctured it neatly. Despite being able to sit for about 5 minutes with a tissue tightly round it, he hadn't stopped the bleeding by the last hymn, but launched boldly into it. By the end of the service, final voluntary and all, the organ looked as if Lady Macbeth had been playing it.

So my blip today shows the aftermath (you'll understand I wasn't really able to capture the full drama at the time) with the church First Aid kit being broached for the first time in its history by one of several nurses in the congregation, while Mr PB, now with a plaster on the offending finger, cleans the organ keys with one of the church sanitising wipes. Needless to say, we had some great hilarity outside, where people were able to drink coffee after the service for the first time since March '20 and were in sufficiently jubilant spirits to be up for a good laugh. Seriously, it's amazing what music can do, even in masks.

The rest of the day was relatively quiet. My pal came down for coffee as usual and to share a horrid situation she finds herself in through no fault of her own. I hope we sent her away more cheerful. After that, I did a spot of work in the garden that involved trying to be about a foot taller than I am to prune some random shoots, and lugged the odd flowerpot around. I finished the day by taking an hour to look over and annotate an academic submission on the verge of being handed in by our shopping angel from last year - not being the kind of writing I'm used to in literature, it did my head in. I hope I've been some help.

So there you go. A day that began with me feeling distinctly fed up seems to have been quite action packed after all, and more productive than I thought it would be. 

And while I'm at it: when I'm tempted to moan from this day on, I'm going to try to remember something: I could be in Kabul.