Thursday: Stage Competition (2)

I’m finding it very hard to believe that I’m barely through Thursday morning, and that first post is so long.

After we three sang, the show went on – other competitions began, finished, began, finished. We were asked to stay close for the next few runs, because they were going to announce the mezzo soprano lineup after the adjudicators had finished… adjudicating. We sat near for awhile and watched the activity from offstage, but ended up dragged away by that very nice Morris girl with the BBC Radio and interviewed (I think live!) backstage. She was very sweet and interviewed me in English, but for several moments I was terrified, trying to think what I would say if she turned to me and rattled off more Welsh. But she didn’t! And she smiled and she was very friendly. It was fun to be interviewed!

And then after that, the three of us were led on further down into the competitor’s area for a television spot. I have no idea what it was for, what it was about – I saw the same fellow on television later that night, but I didn’t notice what channel, just general Eisteddfod coverage. He switched to English for me too, and was very excited that I was so excited! He was a really neat guy. His name, I believe, was Gareth.

After that we all parted ways; I found my father and I ducked into the restroom, and eventually I went back to stage right and sat down to wait. I watched some singing and a lot of folk dancing. Eleri came and sat with me, Elin stood nearby. I talked a lot to Eleri, and a little to Elin. Eleri told me more about the Eisteddfod, and other competitions she’s been in – we were friendly and laughed and had a very nice conversation, at least partially transcending the competition-induced barrier. (There was much less of that, I noticed, once I started interacting with contestents. We were all very friendly to one another.) Elin grinned and laughed and told me how impressed she was that I had gotten to the stage on my first try – she said that Eleri would probably win, she always does, but most competitors would not have gotten past preliminaries on their first try and it was a great honor for me to be competing on stage! I grinned back, she was very nice and we talked briefly. We all wished each other luck, in our separate ways, and waited.

The last folk dancing competition ended. The host went out on stage. He spoke in Welsh, smiled and talked and the audience responded, and he said more. More and more, what was he going to say? I didn’t know – I just didn’t know what was going to happen. Logically I was pretty sure I needed to be third, but judging from our performances… I just couldn’t decide what the judges could be thinking. And of course, I was uncertain as to the real quality of my Welsh – that was a big question mark in my head, what they might think of that. Obviously it had been good enough to get me through the preliminaries, but I didn’t know.

Eleri won first, to go on to the Rhuban Glas on Friday. She’d done this before – won this same competition and competed in the Rhuban Glas – at least once before, last year. She didn’t seem surprised to win this time. And the host, he called my name next! And in English, he said to me, you won second place, congratulations! And I stood next to Eleri, and grinned my fool head off. The crowd applauded. Elin came out, third. I felt flabbergasted and fantastic. Third would have been my default! What had I done to deserve second!? I felt fabulous! Second!

We went offstage and were carried away to collect our certificates and adjudication sheets and prizes, which we ended up having to wait just a bit for. Dad and I hung around and talked to lots of people. We were ambushed here and there, finally found the family, decided to take a separate taxi. I stood in the foyer and took pictures. I felt so good. I felt like… I had justified everyone’s faith in me! It hadn’t all been for nothing! Because, look what I did!!

I’m going to leave this here, because as the day went on things got fairly interesting. But I am so grateful for all the good vibes, for Marty staying up all night waiting for me to call him and let him know how it went, for the prayers and thoughts and comments and wonderfulness. It makes me all gurgly just thinking about it, I know I keep repeating this, I just can’t help it! My wonderful internet people are so integral to me having been able to do this, you’re all so important! If only I could have had you in my hotel room instead of having to schlep down to the lobby to talk to you! Smooches all around, you wonderful, wonderful people!

There will be more… but thank god I am almost caught up! Second!! How about THAT!