Hello, nice to be back!

[dave brum]

Hopefully it'll be for good this time. How are we all??

Missed you all...especially you, Gill.

[Gill the Piano]

Hoooooo, a blast from the past!!! How the devil are you, bach? And how's the dreaded s***t r*****g?

[dave brum]

Well Gill, you'll be pleased to know I've conquered my fear of s**** r***......sight reading. I'm actually studying for my Grade 5, which I'm due to take on the 2nd December. I play the organ every other week at my new Roman Catholic church, I've shaken the hand of Paul Lewis, and I organise monthly concerts for piano learners in the Birmingham area.

Of course I'm joking. I do not play the piano any more.

I looked at this page for the first time in around 18 months last week and I could not believe that the last post in the Piano Lounge was on the 16th June, so I thought I HAD to return!

How are you and Eric keeping? And do you still insist on the mobile convector heater effectively placed next to the organ every Sunday at Fingest with both bars on?

[Gill the Piano]

do you still insist on the mobile convector heater effectively placed next to the organ every Sunday at Fingest with both bars on?

Don't be soft, you're talking to a woman whose body thermostat regularly rockets up to 180 degrees - I revel in cold churches!
Who's Paul Lewis?
You MUST keep playing, even if it's just for your own amazement, as an old friend of mine used to say...

[dave brum]

http://www.paullewispiano.co.uk/

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lewis_(pianist)

This is Britain's got proper talent, no chavs who can't sing dance or play. He was playing a live session on In Tune last week as I was preparing a chili con carne for our evening meal and he was absolutely supercalorfragilistically expialidocious, as the Sherman brothers may have articulated!

[Gill the Piano]

I haven't heard of him before; nice to know there's new stuff out there!

[dave brum]

Hope that's American Fahrenheit because you'd be coagulated throughout otherwise. Was your fuel bill any more than mine last January?? (£378).

No negativity on this thread, or whingeing on about not being able to play the piano etc. I have a one day a week job at an Oxfam Books and Music shop and I've been put 'in charge' so to speak, of the classical CDs and sheet music. Since I've been there the number of shelves of CD's have increased from three to four shelves full. The sheet music has been sorted into categories (piano, violin, learn piano, learn violin, choral/scores etc) and was dramatically increased last week. Old ABRSM piano and violin stuff would be perfect for a music student in Brum and a fisherman making his living in cyclone-hit India. For 49p! There's also loads of Pauline Hall Piano Time teaching material, didn't work for me but would probably work for someone else....again for 49p a go. The shop manager has been cajoled into getting a small filing cabinet for sheet music, which means MUCH MORE of the stuff. That new OB&M in Solihull has competition!

So being a former pianist certainly has its uses in some particular fields!

So stopping there, not wishing to advertise the shop as the destination for cheap music in Birmingham, I also have become a good cook. I bake my own loaves, rolls and biscuits. I've done curries, meat pies (from scratch), lasagne al forno and all manner of tasty cakes...and so much more filling that anything that's sold down the supermarket!

[dave brum]

I still can't get your user avatar Gill. Is it both of my computers or do you have the same problem, chuckies??

Yesterday, I had the honour (if honour is the correct word) of visiting my mother-in-law and taking her out to a pub lunch. We arrived at the care home in which she lived and the local (Anglican) vicar was half way through doing a church service, indispersed with the odd hymn or two played on his portable 'Mitsusushi electronic raw-fish corporation' CD player. Afterwards, the vicar and his wife came over to me and we got into a conversation about Benjamin Britten and Coventry Cathedral, in which he sang, and then about choirs in general. I asked Mrs.Rev if the music on the hymn CD was in fact from the choir of their village church and she said no, the Church choir folded months ago because they just could not get a pianist to play for choir practice, following the popping orf of their last one.

It seems that in ecclesiastical circles, the availability of pianists and organists is dwindling, much to the commercial gain of the in-house of God audio industry. Increase those fees, Gill!

[Gill the Piano]

My avatar has vanished and I have no idea how to install it again. A grownup (Blessed Barrie, I think) did it for me last time...my technological ability seems to dwindle with each passing day...
A churchwarden told me he stood up at a Synod meeting and asked if anyone had a spare organist. He said the laughter didn't stop for a good 5 minutes.

[dave brum]

That's a great statement of misfortune. I miss that little picture of that bubblecar with the piano design on it. Have you still got said bubblecar??

You must get a few looks driving that to chapel on a Sunday to play! Any organ gigs this weekend then??

[Gill the Piano]

Yep, two. And it's a smart car, not a bubble! (No reverse on a bubble car, apparently. Well, not the Isetta, anyway. And not on the Messerschmidt either I think, although I'm not 100% sure... Anyway, you deffo need reverse in our little lanes, particularly since big shiny Chelsea Tractors don't seem to have a reverse gear either.)
As it's sign written leaving it outside the churches is like leaving up a noticeboard - I've had a few tunings from it!

[dave brum]

Oh, I think I know the sort of things you're on about! We now have hireable smartcars in Birmingham, they're blue and white. here's a link:

https://www.car2go.com/en/birmingham/

I think they're cool!

[dave brum]

How was the gigs then, Gill? Plenty of time to get the offertory plate round all the pews and blessed by priesty? Or was it a bit of a gallop??

I used my hands in a different way, eight dinner rolls (two of which will be our lunch tomorrow) and 48 ginger nuts this afternoon. Unlike Mr.McVitie, you cannot get them into your cakehole cos' they're so large and you can actually taste the stem ginger in them.

[Gill the Piano]

Hundred mile an hour gigs; left early because of flooded roads and possibility of fallen trees (none - though had I left later the law of sod dictates that there would have been fallen trees every 2 yards), had to leg ot quick to second ig and then had to leg it quick FROM second gig because The Mothership wasn't well...

[dave brum]

My word, none of that in the Midlands apart from a spot of typical autumn rain this morning. And it was the Great Birmingham Run this morning...wonder if there were any additional water jumps a-la Army assault course this morning?

The Mothership eh?? The same one who used to make you relentlessly practice your scales and arpeggios instead of a spot of the old Bill and Ben?????

[Gill the Piano]

The very same....
Yes, it was raining old women and sticks here all night and most of this morning. And there was an oxymoronic 'fun' run this morning in which the rector was participating. I bet he wished he was warm and toasty and dry in the church dishing out communion!

[dave brum]

Maybe next time he should consider the bath of rice pudding then??

[Gill the Piano]

I have never understood people who run when nobody is chasing them...I'd take the rice pud any day of the week!

[dave brum]

...I'd take the rice pud any day of the week!

It's usually cold rice pud, you know!

[Gill the Piano]

I'll eat cold rice pud...but a bath of it might be a different ball of fish...

[dave brum]

I knew it, you're a baked bean person! Rector might be too.

[Gill the Piano]

Nah; baked beans will turn you orange...can't imagine an oompah loompah in the pulpit!

[dave brum]

I'd imagine many of Buckinghamshire's traditionalist conservative congregations would be happier with an Oompa Loompa than say a female.