That sort of day…
You know the sort of day: when you get up in a bad mood already after a sleepless night, turn on your computer, and find urgent messages from musicians preparing to travel from afar, asking with understandable urgency whether the concert we’re all supposed to give in a few days’ time is actually going to happen in the new lockdown. You give them your standard answer: ‘I don’t know.’ (Turns out later that it should indeed be happening, despite everything – the only bright spot in the day.) Then someone without warning issues an all-too-public Twitter challenge, to which people are urging you to rise; but you don’t feel like it, refuse and come off as churlish. Then you start to practise, and the cello is cold and unresponsive – but of course there’s nothing you can do about it because the violin shop is closed. Then – as you’re trying to practise – an urgent message arrives from your accountant with complex questions needing immediate answers. And as you’re trying to answer those, and to find the relevant documents, something pops up on your screen telling you have a (routine) eye appointment, which you thought was cancelled, in half an hour; so you call the hospital and find out that it is indeed not cancelled. So you rush around and call an Uber and get to the hospital just in time, spending the ride calling a friend to cancel the rehearsal you had planned together for later in the afternoon. You arrive and are told to sit in the waiting-room; and as you sit down your phone buzzes – a message from your credit card company telling you that for some reason they couldn’t honour your Uber charge, and asking you to call them urgently. This is, of course, swiftly followed by a message from Uber telling you that the payment hasn’t gone through – which wouldn’t be a problem except that unfortunately your other credit card has been blocked because there was fraud on it a few days ago. Then, as you’re pondering that situation, another message comes through from one of the musicians saying that alas he has been in contact with someone who has since tested positive, and therefore can’t travel after all. So you have to tell everyone involved with the concert, and ask someone else if they can step in at short notice – so a flurry of emails, squeezed in between trips to various offices in the hospital and various tests (which are at least fine). And then, when the hospital is finally finished with you, you go out, but of course can’t get an Uber now, so you have to walk; and it’s pouring with rain. Eventually, soaked, you come to a bus stop, and with a sigh of relief see a bus approaching almost immediately. You stick out your hand; but the driver points at something and drives on – and you see that the bus stop is, for no visible reason, closed. So off you trudge again, ever more the drowned rat, until you reach the next stop – where, rummaging in your bag, you realise that you had an umbrella in there the whole time. Eventually another bus comes on – and as you take your seat, your phone buzzes again: someone wishing to discuss as soon as possible a series of five concerts next month which are now likely to bite the dust.
And so on – this was all before 4 pm, so there’s plenty of scope for more excitement as the hours roll along.
You know – that sort of day…
