Result!

Thanks for all the kind comments, stars and hearts again! No more blip days for a year now -- phew.

I baked a loaf using B's starter today, and this is the result -- happy with that! My own starter is also showing signs of life -- there are bubbles -- but I'll be maintaining B's too. I'll make crackers with some of the excess, as there's no more room in the freezer.

Young choir members Jess and Anna volunteered to run some supplementary choir rehearsals to learn some of the many notes that we don't know very well. So this afternoon sopranos and altos trekked out to Nicole's house -- she lives in a vast farmhouse which turned out to be at the end of 3 km of winding single-track road with banks or hedges on either side. Somehow we all managed to cram into her dining room where Jess and Anna did a very good and patient job of going over some of the trickier bits of the programme. With plenty of laughs when Anna accidentally nudged switches on the unfamiliar borrowed keyboard and launched us into rock or disco versions of Laudamus te  with pounding beats (you wouldn't believe how well Poulenc lends himself to this). We also had a quick break to eat some of the eight galettes des rois that people had brought. My first slice this season -- it would have been rude not to try Nicole's home-made one, but I abstained from all the others.

I was glad we finished before it was completely dark -- I dashed along the track to make it to the main road while I could still see the twists and turns. From there it was an easy drive home.