Angels

I've been preparing for our guests from Grenoble, who arrive tomorrow. I've removed the muddy floor coverings which were down because the landscape gardener was here path-making yesterday, checked recipes, cleaned, shopped, made beds, completely failed to find the mattress topper I made three months ago, setup my laptop in my bedroom as the study will become a bedroom, completely failed to find the UK-to-continental socket adapters I bought 18 months ago, answered questions from other hosts, breathed...

I took a break to sing some carols with other choir members at the Oxford Science Park's Christmas Fair. Nine of us in a large, high space probably had less impact than the stalls selling chocolate and knitted hats, but we got a little applause. For most of the carols I was sight-singing the tenor part, not very well, but I'm quite good at harmonising on the hoof so did a fair bit of that.

One of the carols we sang was 'This is the truth sent from above'. The second verse goes:
The first thing that I will relate,
that God at first did man create;
the next thing which to you I tell -
woman was made with him to dwell.

I found out later that in the original carol the next two verses are about being given a place in Paradise then being cast out for disobedience. But those two verses were, it emerged, missed out of the booklet we were singing from so we went straight into the verse which starts: 'Thus we were heirs to endless woes'.

Reader, I'm sorry, I laughed out loud. That's very foolish editing.