Cricket in Finland in April: playing on a gravel ground in drizzle wearing a woolen hat.
That was the morning. Right now I am stuck in a cricket umpires’ course. This is very enlightening from the point of view of my work – now I am the one giving up my spare time. Note to self #1, keep the intro short. We are 15 minutes into the session and we are still in the introductory phase.
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Note to self #2: people think the rules of cricket are complex. They are. A classical case of trying to cover all loopholes. And once you’ve done that for 150 years, you have a lot of laws and sublaws and sublaws of sublaws. ‘If the ball is delivered on the full, hits the batsman who is taking evasive action on the shoulder and goes to boundary, what signals does the umpire give and when?’ First world problems.
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This is like many of my rehearsals – starts in leisurely manner, gets stuck on a juicy detail and then desperately runs through millions of important things with cut-off time approaching. While I desperately say: ‘look at this before next time’, here it is ‘you can read this on your own’. Note to self #3: remember this.
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Note to self: despite all of the above, I quite had good time. I honestly hope my singers go home as happy I did just now, even after a less than perfect rehearsal! Not one professional idea (beside the above;) has crossed my mind today. I really needed a day like this to relax.
Kari Turunen 