Vague ambitions

I think most people have a mental list of ambitious things they’d really like to achieve at some point in their lives, but just not yet. I’m not talking about home improvements or even the dreaded Bucket List, just vague thoughts lurking in the back of your mind about rather lovely, but somewhat challenging activities you’ll definitely take up at some point, once all the planets have aligned. As time marches on, however, I’ve found that I have started to think very differently about my time and what I’m doing with it. Or not doing with it.

For instance, I’ve always thought that I’d like to join a choir. It’s probably nostalgia for my childhood, when we started every school day with a rousing hymn. Looking back, I can see that joining together to sing was a wonderful, joyous way to start the day, even though a number of those old hymns seemed to be encouraging us to enlist in God’s Army. Onward Christian Soldiers and Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus spring to mind. Our children learnt much kinder, gentler hymns like Give Me Oil in My Lamp and One More Step Along the World I Go. Who wouldn’t want to start the day by belting out SING HOSANNA, SING HOSANNA, SING HOSANNA TO THE KING OF KINGS? I might try it tomorrow.

Another vague ambition of mine was to walk the Thames Path. We have been planning to do this for years and fortunately our friends have finally managed to chivvy us all into action and we actually started last week. I think many people start in London and work west to end up at the source in Gloucestershire, which seems illogical, so we decided to do it the other way round and I’m very glad we did. The source of the Thames must be one of life’s biggest disappointments, following the discovery that there is no Father Christmas. It’s a modest pile of rocks and it’s not even damp. You have to walk miles from that point to discover anything that resembles a river at all. Can you imagine walking 185.2 miles only to be greeted by a pile of rocks at the end? At least this way, we’ll end up at the Thames Barrier in Woolwich, which is much more impressive. Although I don’t understand why the Thames Path ends (or perhaps begins) in East London rather than continuing to the point where the river flows into the sea. Now, that would be a fitting finale.

Things are looking good for the Thames Walk – you know what they say about a job begun being half done – and we even have two more walking days scheduled. I’m sure that we’ll eventually arrive at something that looks like a river. To be honest, although the Thames winds through some lovely countryside, as well as beautiful towns and villages, even at full flow it’s not exactly a mighty torrent. Still, something larger than a stream would be nice.

Encouraged, I’ve even started looking into joining a choir, but I didn’t imagine there’d be so many to choose from. I thought that there’d be a rock choir sort of thing, where you’re guaranteed to sing ELO’s Mr Blue Sky and a serious choral society where they plough through Handel’s Messiah every Christmas, and that would be all. There are, in fact, at least a dozen in the local area alone, ranging from serious choral societies with formal auditions to the “just-show-up and-have-a-good-time” groups. I’ve never been a fan of ELO and I can’t imagine that any choral society would welcome my scratchy, slightly off-key voice. It’s a dilemma and I might have to skip to my next vague ambition: speak fluent French. I think the Seine might be calling, although I won’t be looking for the source.