Day 9

We awoke at the crack of dawn on Friday with the task of downing breakfast and getting 35 miles done in order to get to our venue in time for a bit of rehearsal in the space before our lunchtime concert at Wesley Chapel in Harrogate.

Our hosts extraordinaire were my friend Rob and his lovely grandma, Eileen. Susie, Andrea and myself were all a little in love with their loveliness and how grandson dotes on grandmother.

Bumpy road out of Wakefield accompanied by some rush hour traffic. Finally entered the splendid city of Harrogate at about 10.30 with plenty of time for tea, last minute rehearsal and some hasty mocking up of german song translations. Andrew Hitchin, concert manager at the Chapel, was right on the ball and along with Joan Pope had lined up a good audience to lend an ear to our delivery of Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder along with some Mozart, Puccini and Gershwin not to mention some ostentatious gavotte-ing from Manon. It is so heart-warming when people tell you afterwards how much they have been moved by the motivation for the project, by the performance and by the support Susie & I show for each other.

I'm sure Susie will agree that we are learning a huge amount about dealing with the unexpected, the uncertain, the last-minute, people (good, bad and difficult), learning, rehearsing, preparing, performing, addressing audiences, keeping to high standards but allowing for flex and reprogramming and accepting that the craziness of time constraints and resources for this project mean not everything can be perfect 100 % of the time. Back to the people from the list above. Everywhere we go is such generosity of spirit from SO many people. Without wanting to sound evangelical, it is easy to forget how much goodness there is out there and it is uplifting to come across it to the extent that we are.

After the concert, Andrew, being a proud Harrogate resident and something of an expert on the area gave us a mini guided tour of the city's Victorian spa day highlights. I was dying on my feet by the time we got back to the chapel. We had a quick power nap on the floor of the vestry before getting back on the bikes to get a few more miles towards Durham with a stop in Ripon for the night courtesy of the Horsey's (friends of friends of mum of my friend! - the power of word of mouth splendidly on display here).