First for some music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRHJXDxQJL4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gwS6pawdU. I'm probably singing the former at a concert coming up in September: my first solo performance for many years; and hoping to sing the second at my brother-in-law's wedding (hurry up and set a date, you two!). I just wish I could find a decent local counter-tenor for the duet, as I prefer it sung by a counter-tenor and soprano rather than a tenor and soprano or two sopranos.
Lascia ch'io pianga, I also realised yesterday when surfing YouTube, was sung in Farinelli, Il Castrato - a film I watched at least twice many years ago and which is full of beautiful music (as well as two beautiful young men, brothers - one of them the castrato of the title). Seeing this particular scene again brought tears to my eyes: partly because it's so beautifully performed but also because the scene of the aria being performed in the opera house is offset by scenes of the young boy singer having a bath just after having been castrated. From what I remember the film is very much about contradictions: the main contradiction that being a castrato has brought him great fame and wealth, but that he still has the sexual appetite of a man and is therefore impoverished in that respect.
Quite how I move from there to the events of today I'm not sure! It's been an excellent day. I nearly got annoyed at the Job Centre as they said I hadn't attended an appointment, but the clerk - or whatever job title he has - accepted that I was telling the truth when I said I'd never received a letter with an appointment time. I'm now going to have to go in next week and take both children with me, which will be fun (not) - but I'm not in a position to be able to afford childcare for them, so tough! Obviously if it was a job interview it would be a different matter and I'd pull out all the stops to get some childcare sorted out.
The nice people at Smiths Gore were carrying out more interviews today so I wait to see whether I get invited back for a second interview. As Husband said, it will probably depend whether they can see that I may have a future in the company anyway. Talking of nice people, I also went up to Carlisle Leisure as I've been giving them a bit of informal property advice. While up there I met the new MD, who seems great: relatively young, dynamic and keen. Not that Jim wasn't but I think he'd obviously got to the stage where he was ready, emotionally, to retire. I think the interview panel have probably found a suitable replacement, and I hope he and his family like it up here as much as we do: they were going to have a look round Brampton this evening.
I've left the big news of the day to last, which is my amniocentisis result. I still hadn't heard from the hospital with my results this afternoon (they had said they would phone yesterday) so it was with some trepidation that I telephoned the hospital myself. There was a long delay while the person who answered the phone went to fetch a midwife to talk to me: a delay which made my heart beat all the harder. Anyway, the first result is that everything is fine in terms of Downs, Edwards and Patau's syndromes: and I also now know that I am expecting a boy. So it's not Phoebe, and having discussed it further with Husband we think we are probably going to revert to Frederick Arthur, which was what Daughter would have been if she'd been a boy. Whenever we spoke about a possible third child I always said, or thought 'yes, we don't have Frederick Arthur yet' and I feel as if his soul was sitting up in on a cloud wondering when on earth he was going to be invited down. The names are quite old-fashioned but suit the 'house style' as Friend-in-Bristol would say. I like the meaning of Frederick - 'peaceful ruler'; Arthur is thought possibly to mean 'bear': and he'll probably be called Freddie anyway (Son immediately made a reference to Drop Dead Fred so we hope he won't be as naughty as that).
There were tears of relief and happiness in my eyes when I heard that everything was fine. More detailed results will follow in a couple of weeks, and the anomaly scan is in about 3 weeks' time: so I'm optimistic that all will be well with those results as well, or that if anything is wrong it will be something which is minor and remediable rather than a life-affecting disability. Rightly or wrongly I feel far more relaxed about everything now: I feel as if we're over the biggest hurdle.
The only word I can think of to describe how I feel is 'blessed': 'lucky' is true but not quite as fully appropriate. It seems so unfair that Husband and I, who went into child-producing in such a relaxed and laissez-faire way, already have two gorgeous children and now, through very little effort on our part, have a third on the way: whereas people desperate to have children sometimes have such awful problems. I wonder what I've done to deserve the fortune...
Having said that it's 10 past 9 and Daughter, who was meant to go to bed well over an hour ago, is still up.......
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