More Question Marks

Had a long chat with my brother in Australia, this evening. It really looks as if this story about our Dad being born in New York City was a red herring to throw the British Secret Services off the scent when he successfully applied for entry to MI6. Knowing that we are descended from Irish aristocracy, my brother's research turned up a certain Laval, Graf von Westmeath, a Field Marshall in the Austrian army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Born in Ireland, he enrolled in the Austrian army at the age of 16, moving up to Colonel by the age of 27. His grandson, Laval Llewellyn Wilhelm, Graf von Westmeath, was born in Siena in 1870, popping his clogs in Vienna a year after the Second World War had started. This timeline makes him a possible grandfather candidate. Maybe our father was born in 'enemy territory', a fact better hushed up by anyone wishing to work as a spy. Vaguely mentioning origins in a still-neutral country must have been infinitely preferable to saying 'Actually, the reason I speak fluent German is because I was raised in Austria'. I also remember my mother telling me when I was very young that my father also spoke Serbo-Croat. Only today, forty years on, does this seem to make a little sense. There's a picture of the original Laval on his Wikipedia page and the family resemblance is, I feel, quite marked. He died in 1862. In Croatia. His eldest son shares a birthday with Fingernail 1, but only psychogenealogists might find that even remotely significant.

Back Again

I know I'm not the most prolific blogger that ever set finger to key but that break was just a little too long. Things have happened: my choir sang magnificently, our bloody neighbours moved out, only to be replaced by an admittedly far superior version: speaks excellent French, has a job and is very considerate. He's a gem; we need to keep him. Unless we get the wherewithal to buy the place and extend ours, of course. Work has been enjoyable, the Fingernails have been mostly wonderful and Mrs. F has been temping, so bills haven't been quite a scary these last few months. We even managed to get away for a week. One short-lived, chronic illness on my part aside, it was a wonderful week.

And that's about it, or at least all I can summon up the energy to remember. Seeing as I'm the only one who ever reads this I might just as well note down the things that come to mind most readily.

Hmmm...

Looks like I've neglected my online diary for a while. November was a very busy month and, outside of work, short of paying our bloody neighbours some occasionally unsavoury visits, nothing much happened. We're getting a sound-measuring device from the town council, so I hope they don't decide to be very well-behaved for the 48 hours this thing will be installed in our flat and finally deliver the evidence we need to make a case either against them or, preferably, the neglectful owner of that property. Home ownership should be a pleasure on some level, but ours often tends to be mid- to long-term speculative. The place is worth quite a lot of money but, first and foremost, it's where we live, breathe, eat and sleep, so it needs to be somewhere we're comfortable. That hasn't been the case since September. Add to that a house management company that doesn't manage (except for when it sends us their bill) and a cleaning company that doesn't clean you can see there are a few areas of discontent. Still, you never get something for nothing in this life and if we don't fight for what we want then no-one is going to hand it to us on a plate.

Our drug-dealing neighbour on the ground floor doesn't appear to be coming back. Various Irish people have been coming and going, emptying the place of his possessions then leaving with a cheery wave, so I can only presume he's been repatriated or is in prison. Maybe the nice man who owns the other studio down there can now buy it up and extend his own place. It would be one concern fewer. One flat remains vacant and the girl in the one above is hardly ever there. When she is, we hear neither sight nor sound of her. Now that's a neighbour!

My Christmas Choir is in great voice. It's hard to think that this time last year we were struggling to get through basic repertoire and now they're trolling out much more advanced stuff as if it were Ducks and Drakes. Bearing in mind we meet only for a handful of rehearsals before Christmas and Easter their achievement is extraordinary. The numbers have swelled, too: I started with 15 and now have 24 regulars, including a strong tenor section. The Carol Service is in two weeks and it'll be a great success; I can feel it in my bones.

Christmas is starting to loom and it's good that we've got all our presents sorted out plus the tree, which got decorated in haste this afternoon by the Fingernails and Mrs. F. All that's left is Mrs. F's present plus the food. My Mum's coming over from England so she'll have a quality week with the girls. I'll be at work in the evening, but that's not so bad; animated evening conversation in our bijou shoebox is off-limits, anyway, at the risk of waking the little ones.

Family

Trying to find information on members of your family can be a long-winded process. Outside of my half-brother in Australia and my mother there's actually no-one I know who can tell me about my father. I last saw him when I was six and that certainly wasn't yesterday. My bro gave me a tip concerning a nephew who is now a high-powered New York lawyer, so I e-mailed him out of the blue and am awaiting his response, if any. His father (my uncle) was, like my mother, also a Mayor, so there is a bit of copy-cat career-mongering in our brood.

Mozart is progressing very slowly, mainly due to the fact the director spends hours on the recitatives like Felsenstein at the Komische Oper back in the '60's. I'm still immune to this as my colleague takes care of the secco department, leaving me free to practise Richard Strauss in the room next door. The cast is delightful and the conductor a joy, so I can't say it's a negative experience, especially seeing as this phase coinciding with the school holidays allows me to spend the mornings with the Fingernails whilst still getting my five hours' daily practice in.