Followers

Saturday 20 October 2007

Street Music

Saturday afternoon and I was off into town once again (I only get let out once a week on my own when not earning money). It was a cold and windy day but the sun was shining. Even my cats decided to spend the day indoors with their favourite hobby, so all 3 were curled up somewhere comfortable and sleeping. Well I think they were sleeping but with cats you never really know. There is always an ear twitching or a stand up, make a circle, lay down and carry on sleeping. I sometimes wish I could sleep like a cat. They never seem to have problems with actually falling asleep. Even when they wake up, the just stretch a bit and then they are off full speed.

Where was I? - ah yes Saturday afternoon. I decided to take the car as it's not one of my favourite pastimes taking a one kilometer walk into town when the temperature is 6°C. I was lucky in the park house, I found 2 parking spaces empty next to each other, which is always a good thing if driving an S90 Volvo and having problems with fitting it into one parking space. Funny, hubby never has a problem, but I always seem to have to drive back and forth a few times until the car fits. Not that I am showing off with the S90 Volvo, but someone in the family worked for the company for many years and you could always take advantage of a special offer. I am sure the car will remain in the family for the next 20 years during which time I will probably give back my driving licence voluntarily.

Today I managed to get everything done I have wanted to for some time. I picked up a book I had ordered which had been on order for 3 weeks (another one of those obscure books from an English publisher) and I even managed to buy a German book I have wanted to read for some time. I also bought someone a birthday present (my other half tomorrow) and then went on to our cathederal.

I am not catholic, I do not belong to any religion actually but this doesn't mean that I am not interested in other religions, especially when our catholic cathedral is such an imposing building. Today there were no weddings so the church was open for members, tourists and people taking photographs like me, although I was the only person taking photographs.

My youngest son sang in the cathederal choir for a few years until his voice broke and even appeared on the Swiss tv with them one Christmas. The choir had to go to the TV studios in Zürich where they were filmed. Each Sunday in advent they were on the TV singing some Christmas Carols. The choir leader was my son's teacher at school, so he always listened to the boys singing when he took over a new class to see if he had material for his choir. Every year they went on a trip abroad somewhere where they stayed mainly with private families in the different countries, which I think was a good idea to learn how life is in other countries. My son even saw the pope in Rome, although from a distance as he drove through on his papa mobil. He was in St. Pauls in England where they sang a few songs and also in Czechoslovakia (which doesn't exist any more as one country) and in Austria and Germany. I noticed the choir now has an interesting web site which is also in English. I can hardly believe that my 1meter 86cm tall son was once singing as a choir boy dressed in a blue plush pullover as shown on the photos.

After leaving the cathedral I had to walk through town. It was quite busy with shoppers and we also had a group of street musicians. We often have them in Solothurn. A few are quite well known. Our usual guitarrist, who cannot play the guitar was also there. He lives in the local clinic and is quite well known. He takes his music very seriously and really believes in what he does. His main repertoire is Swiss German songs, and although he can't sing or play, he knows all the words. He usually introduces the songs by telling everyone that he had a special wish from someone that wanted to hear a certain song. Another regular musician to be seen is a man playing the bazooki, a strange looking Greek guitar. He has been around for years and even featured in our local newspaper. He can play quite well and it seems that actually he is from one time Jugoslavia and belonged to the army where he got his musical training on the guitar. He then left Jugoslavia (and his wife and two children which actually bothered me a bit) and arrived in our town. He decided the bazooki was a better instrument to play as everyone could play the guitar (and he got more money by playing bazooki) so he is still here playing his bazooki. In the meanwhile he has equipped himself with a loudspeaker.

Today there was a group of Africans, I think, so I did a small film with the camera. I tried to load it up into YouTube, but since they have made progress with their loading programme, it doesn't seem to work anymore. After applying some colourful language, both in english and german, I decided to try with Photobucket and succeeded, although it does take a time, so here is what I heard and saw. Unfortunately passers-by kept getting between my camera and the singers, but I think you can follow all the same.


My Video


So, it is now Saturday evening and I have a video to watch - The Devil wears Prada. I read the book some time ago, so now want to see if the film does justice to the book. I just hope I don't fall asleep before the film is finished.

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