Today’s adventure in gigging:
A funeral. In a church in Suffolk. In January. Very very cold, even with a fan heater oscillating at us all the time.
Funerals involve very little playing and quite a lot of waiting. Did I mention it was cold?
We did our bits. The vicar went off-piste in the middle and gave a little sermon where none was listed on the order of battle service, then skipped a printed hymn, which helped move towards the end, but went back for it. Fingers icing up all the while.
It was really cold. I could see my breath, is how cold it was. Something something minimum working temperature laws. (It’s 16° for indoors, but probably the C of E classifies churches as outdoor venues: I would.)
Anyway, as we left, the organist told us that the woman who had booked us (daughter of the deceased) is a composer whose work you will have heard without knowing her name.
We had no idea, probably just as well.