Laurieston Hall. Thursday 2 Sept

With my darling husbands blessing, I booked a place on a little holiday with my choir (Body of Sound, or BOS for short) to sing and have a nice weekend with an Irish choir from Belfast (Sister choir, you could say) called Voca Loca.

I kept a diary of my doings, and I thought I would share it with you!

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Set off from Sheff at about 11am, piled into a minibus with 10 others. The trip was about Six hours, which included one long lunch break and one short pit stop just outside Dumfries.

Lauieston hall is an old not terribly stately home, (the current building is Victorian) about 26 people live here full time as part of a co-operative. They pay rent and do two and a half days work for the house.. Looking after the crops, animals and house. There is also a business side.. Groups like our choir come and stay through the year. Some of the residents work for the business side.. cooking, cleaning, organsing and playing host to each group.

We arrived here at about five- it was so good to un-concetina after a long journey. I have a room to my own .. Requested due to my snoring and not wanting to disturb Anyones sleep!!!

My room turned out to be huge with enough beds for about 8 people! I unpacked and had a shower (just a dribble of hot water but enough to freshen up). The rest of the group went to the local loch for a swim, so I read and chatted to a couple of the staff and a friendly resident dog. I hear there is a resident cat - a Ginger Tom called Percy who is friendly until he's had enough.. then he bites!!

Evening meal was at 6.30. It consisted of a gorgeous pizza (a special non mushroom one had been made for two of us) a delicious carrot salad and a green salad. Dessert was chocolate cake topped with icing and walnuts, a large bowl of whipped cream was also served.

We spent a while relaxing in the large hall which has sofas and a lovely open fire. Dora the dog was much in evidence enjoying the attention.

We gathered in a large room- Bos and a choir from n. Ireland called 'Voca Loca' I think this makes about 40 of us! We sang many simple songs, mainly rounds, starting with

Asalam asalam
A le cum asalam

It is from the Koran and means peace be with you.. It was beautiful. By ten I was falling asleep, singing at the same time. By this time, everyone had gathered and eaten so we went round introducing ourselves. I shall never remember all these names!!

After signing up for some jobs, I trundled up to bed, read for a bit and zonked out.