The rhythm of life is a wonderful thing, possibly.

For those of you curious about the photos in my previous post: the boats are Dartmouth, but taken from the castle and looking upriver. The second picture, taken into the sun, is Prawle Point, and the last is Start Point - from the west (so taking the footpath that takes you away from the path to the car park).

Here we go again - September. No more reading in the garden till gone nine in the evening. No more waking to the song of the mistle thrush. No more playing in the river or hunting for wild strawberries. Soon it will be crumpets for tea and the shops full of sparkles.

I'm not, as you know, good at winter. And I'm not good at picking up the rhythm of life in the autumn. I love the anarchy of summer, the feeling that anything can happen any time - just because it's light and the sun is shining (some of the time). Now the schools are back the term-time routines have resumed and I am, unwillingly, picking up the threads again. The writing group, the book group, the choir.

I know I need these rhythms. However much I love the freedoms of summer life can't be like that all the time. I need to wake up and know that, just because it's Tuesday, I need to get up and get out on time. I don't have to like the discipline of it. But I know that, if months stretched ahead of me without any sort of routine, I might slip into complete lethargy and become the doddery old soul in the corner drooling into my tea long before the years dictate.

Which is why, reluctantly, I am embracing September. It is an opportunity - I know that - to be more purposeful. And I do my best to see it like that. Even so, I can't help feeling as I did at the beginning of every school year as a child: do I really have to do this just because it's good for me.

Yes, I do. (At least until January, when I can go AWOL again!)

Singing, just for the fun of it.

As some of you know, I sing in a choir. And I love it - because it's impossible to sing and think about anything else. Music fills my head and reaches right down to my toes, and somehow all the bits in between join in the fun.

Unlike some choirs, we have no auditions - so no scary standing in front of everyone singing Over the Rainbow and missing the top note. But everyone can read music - so we all have a musical background, though some of it is rudimentary and unused since primary school. Our average age - is probably over sixty-five. But we are undeterred; the joy of singing together is enough to keep us meeting, week after week, in a draughty hall.

We have some wonderful singers. Everyone tries to sit close to one of them, as they can be relied upon to hit the right notes in the difficult buts. And we have some weaker singers - there is the person who is going deaf, but has perfect timing. He watches the conductor, never misses a beat, but his note can be, well, approximate. We have the enthusiast, who has forgotten the art of singing quietly, and so enjoys herself that she joins in with everyone else's part when hers is silent. Nothing will stop us enjoying ourselves  - and when we sang Mozart's Requiem in Malmesbury Abbey we surprised ourselves how wonderful we were. And we are always better in concert than we are in rehearsal - the acoustics change in a space that is full of people. In rehearsal - I hate to mention cats ...

Next Saturday, we are singing in a concert.

And we are singing O Magnum Mysterium - which is one of the most wonderful pieces of music in the world, and can make me cry when we get it right. But each part (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses) split into at least two, to make those wonderful chords. With a shortage of tenors some of the altos (including me) are trying to sing first tenor (this time I will admit to sounding like a cat, albeit a growling one)

So - here is what it should sound like.

If anyone should be coming to see us, close your eyes and pretend we sound like this. Forgive us our wobbly bits ... (classical music alert - and you can stop it at the talky bit at the end, but this is the best version of it I could find).