Day 3 of Helena’s visit Sunday (Dec 11th) morning I had a pick-up to do for the choir, a wonderfully generous donation from a local store, Phoenicia. They graciously donated 300 Baklava pieces to our Holiday concert’s international food fest.
While we were there, Helena picked up a few bits and pieces – I swear, anyone who enters the doors of Phoenicia, fall in love, it’s such a great shop. For those of you new to Houston, or who have been here for a while and haven’t checked it out, please do.
My personal favourites?
Well, they sell lamb, no kidding! It’s hard to find lamb in Houston, it’s even harder to find good quality lamb. It’s expensive, but man is it worth it!
They also do the best pita EVER! It’s hot and fresh off the conveyer belt. Mix a little salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil, brush over it and stick it in the oven for a few minutes and it’s delicious!
They also have great quality cooking chocolate, for a VERY reasonable price.
You could easily drop $100 in this place, and I have (on a number of occasions), it’s a dangerous place to shop, but so, so, worth it!
After picking up Oatcakes from Magz at the Phoenicia cafe, we headed to the new HEB off HWY 6 to spend the $100 that they graciously donated to the choir. I picked up a bunch of sliced meats, crisps, breads and other things we needed for the food fest.
En route home, we headed to Genghis Grill for lunch. It’s one of the more ‘healthy’ alternatives for lunch here in Houston. It’s somewhere that Amber introduced me to, going back, like, 5 or more years. Speaking of Amber, on December 29th, we’ll have known each other for 7 years…seriously, that’s scary, it doesn’t feel like that long at all!
When we got home, we attempted the disastrous activity of trying to make scotch eggs (major fail!!) before we got ready and headed up to St Theresa’s for my concert.
Talk about a disgusting mishap. I thought I’d make mini ones, but we couldn’t get the blitzed egg to stick together so it was just a big ole mess!!!
The singing went o.k. some pieces we excelled at, some pieces were better in rehearsal, but one thing is for sure, I had an absolute FANTASTIC time singing, I even, finally, mastered Handel’s Messiah!!
Overall, the concert went fantastically and I’m so very proud of both myself, and the choir!
What made the night even better, was looking in to the audience, scattered among the 700+ people there, was 25 of my nearest and dearest friends, beaming up at me on the Altar. My sister kept giving me the thumbs up and big smiles and she looked truly proud as punch of me. It was amazing to have such support!
At the food festival after the concert, I got to introduce little Eve to some of my choir friends, I had a quick chat with Phillip, our Choir Master (while giving him a jar of chutney) and he tried to encourage me to get Col to audition for the choir (I’m trying!!)
It really was a festive, magical night. I’m so very honoured to be singing with such a talented bunch of people from all over the world – and I can’t WAIT for our next concert in May!!
