I am so tired today. This is unsurprising as the festive season was, for me, utterly exhausting. That’s what comes of working in a venue I suppose. Highlights of the Christmas madness include:

The music rehearsal room being broken into during the second half of “Messiah”, ensuring that my colleagues & I had to try and stop 60 angry musicians from entering after the concert. One of these elected himself as ringleader of the music rebels and informed us loudly and repeatedly that he was ex-Scotland Yard and following police orders was “a waste of time.” I did indeed let them in after about half an hour of this, only to find that when the police turned up they couldn’t care less if people had entered or not. Chuh. We live and learn.

Finding that the South Gallery ceiling had collapsed and the fire exit was blocked by plaster & rubble 20 minutes before we were due to open the doors for a sell-out New Year’s Day concert. It was lucky that Helsy was working for me that day. She swept up all the plaster like a whirling dervish whilst singing “Chim Chimeney, Chim Chimeney ,Chim Chim Cheroo” and we were able to open on time.

Last but certainly not least, I have a strange memory of my Wonderful Boss suddenly going mad around December the 20th and standing in the middle of the office singing carols in German with this odd, superfast voice, as if she had inhaled Helium. As I tried to ignore it and carry on typing, I knew then that there would be tears before the season was over…. And there were.