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And yours; I thought I was quite heroic to still have your address!

Bought a newA++ tumble dryer today. Our old one is more of a rumble dryer these days.

Our cooker is going dolally; I reckon that will be our next expenditure. Good job I can't cook...

That's probably the reason why!

First Easter eggs came in today, 24th December.

Happy Christmas, absolutely no carols on the piano this year for the first time in ten years or so.

The older I get, the more unable I am to cope with Christmas pud.

And a happy Christmas to you, Gizzie!

The death of musician Greg Lake earlier this month has largely been ignored, what a powerful booming voice with excellent diction for a rock musician. And at the time of year when his most famous and recognisable song is played, despite him half inching its bridge from Lieutenant Kijé.

I'm typing on my tablet and I know not how to copy and paste a link to I Believe In Father Christmas or even Karn Evil 9. But I've always regarded From the Beginning as Lakes' best work, or Trilogy with Carl Palmer and the late Keith Emerson.

......I asked a work colleague how to spell Keynsham, Bristol the other day and she replied B.R.I.S.T.O.L.

Disgusting. We're raising a generation that is unable to spell bl00dy Keynsham.

Unable to spell, full stop. Thanks to spellcheck and txtspk. And their RIGHTS not to do homework.

So my old tumble dryer's going to the home by the sea tomorrow. The first step in de-faraging my spare room. I have way too much farage in my house and now I can't move for the stuff.

When the tumble dryer goes, the next biggest piece of farage will be the piano. An endless problem... I need a garage for my, erm.....

I had absolutely no idea that Colin Vearncombe, Colonel Abrams and Ian Mccaskill had passed away this year!

Aah, Mccaskill. 'HA-LOOOOOOO', 'FAHAHAHEHRENHEIT' so reminds me of Renton in Trainspotting. Or does Renton remind me of Mccaskill?

You'll be pleased to hear my New Year's Resolutions do not include pianos - but they do include cakes and singing at work.

Happy New, oooh, you know the word. Thingummybooble. That's it. Happy New Thingummybooble.

Et tu, Brute! (Et Mrs Brutus)

Possibility of a piano for sale here, well a plastic pig to use your terminology, Gill.

No, keep it. You've come back to it once - or maybe even twice - so save yourself some money later on!

I've got a wardrobe that I have to find a new home for as the room where that is I want to gut and drag by its bells into the 21st century this year. The only place I can put it is where the piano is now. And I cannot put the piano in the conservatory, it experiences as little as 4 degrees in the winter and 47 in the summer. Not good even for an oinking machine.

Having one of my sprouting snowdrops dug up by a neighbourhood cat has really made me irate today. For an SAD sufferer, crocuses and snowdrops mean relief.

From tomorrow, the mornings begin to get lighter as well as the afternoons. Sunrise (in Birmingham) today 0818, as it has been since 21st December. Tomorrow and for the rest of this week 0817. Sunday 0816. Spring is in sight.

Boo! Don't forget us weirdos who hate the summer and look forward to short days!

That too is a form of seasonal affective disorder that you suffer with, Gill. Osbourne's syndrome. Love for the dark!

I need sunshine and lightness, even snow makes me feel good as everything is white and bright!

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas and by tradition, down comes the tree and Christmas decorations. The twelve drummers drumming have just been delivered to my house by a green van with Fortnum & Mason on it.

Just suppose that the much clichéd song goes on and on and on....

On the thirteenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

Thirteen bills to settle.....

Like that Irish version of the Twelve Days of Christmas that Wogan used to play; fabulous!

Now listen, slurryhead!! That was the handiwork of one Frank Kelly otherwise known as Fr.Jack Hackett, who passed away last year.

Sometimes, I think we as a society are moving backwards, not forwards. Mike Read's Pop Quiz is back on BBC4. Poor old Mike Read. He really thinks the world came to an abrupt end when the Berlin Wall came down....

Why don't they make the Pop master Quiz a television show?

I think civilisation pinnacled in the late 1950s and we have been on the downward slope ever since.

Not having been alive in 1958 or thereabouts, I cannot possibly comment. Now, I feel so young, haha!!,

Of course, there were more piano players around then!!!

What a wonderfully interesting name for one's piano teacher?

https://www.gumtree.com/p/singing-class ... 1209134904

With his carefully designed topless swimsuit, Peter Sarstedt begins 2017's musical death list:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k010JKRtUHc

Prefer Where Do You Go To. I had forgotten his Jason King moustache!

With your carefully designed top less swimsuit
You get an even sun tan
on your back
and on your legs
and on your bum.

Had another pianistic epiphany today following on from realising my sight reading ability.

I CAN play the piano.
I CAN put a simple tune on paper into a piece of music.

But

I CANNOT do neither with confidence.

Good; just stay within your comfort zone until you feel like pushing a boundary then!

Just sticking with easy stuff now, the stuff I was doing with my last teacher. Forsyths sent me some music yesterday, along with the Pauline Hall Piano Time SR-ing book 1.

I have been made to discover my confidence inadequacies for myself. Mabel, Fanny etc. never once told me that I had a confidence issue, they allowed me to develop an almighty hangup about my playing that has snowballed and festered - until recent weeks.

I wish my piano was down in the lounge, in the warm rather than up in the cold cold.

Get a little fan heater or ceramic halogen one. Warms a room quickly.

Daring to scrutinise Donald Trump (before his election as USA President) got me banned from the ABRSM forum. I dedicate this to all ABRSM moderators as much as I do to the President-elect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysGtBZX32I0

I feel quite important today, I've just emailed Tom Dyckhoff!

Oo?

I love reading those 'Let's Move To....' articles he writes in the Guardian and online....even the comments are quite unoffensive and tolerable, which is a refreshing change on the guardian.com!

He wrote about somewhere recently describing it as a place where George rather than Mildred would aspire to live!

I've just had a look at the ''other side'', and successfully. It seems my total blackout has now expired.

Music for the elite.....or what?

You mean the AB forum?

That's the one. The web planet where you are immediately excommunicated for dissidence. Stalin and Khruschev had absolutely nothing on the ABRSM moderation team (maybe Mr. Donald Trump has some sort of 'Power Game-esque influence on them too as they don't like criticism of him on there).

Thank goodness we aren't like that at all.

Talking of Donald Trump, we know that absolutely everything he has acquired in the past he has put his name to. Trump Hotel, Trump Turnberry Resort, Trump Tower etc. So does this mean that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC USA (otherwise known as the White House) is now rebranded as 'Trump Presidential Retreat and Resort?' And the very capital city is now known as Trumpton DC??

I thought I saw someone drop a Clanger in church today, but apparently it was a Pepper Pig that was dropped by the baby en route for communion and not the toy aliens with swanee whistles for larynxes.

I got them worried at Dibley today; turned up at a service where I wasn't playing! I think they thought there might be a knife fight...but I was there to meet a gride and broom to see what music they wanted.

Playing......Just remind me again.

Had a phone call a couple of hours ago, my friend and colleague Kayleigh at work is unwell and on sick leave for the foreseeable future, so I'm now on permanent earlies for the foreseeable future. Normally I wouldn't mind, but the dazzle of the sunlight and the brightness at 5.30am is too much for me to cope with at my age.

At the Co-op where I work, we sell on my section small sugary pastries known as Yum Yums, which I have seen in other supermarket chains as well.

We need to start selling Peep Bo's and Pitty Sings as well as what use is one without the other two.

I love yumyums but have to avoid them unless I want the diabetic nurse after my blood.,,no idea what the others are - reference to an obscure song?

Reference to the 'three little maids' in The Mikado, Yum-Yum, Peep-Bo and Pitty Sing.

If you remember the old sitcom 'Fresh Fields', when Hester's amateur operatic group did the song Three Little Maids from School, and the rehearsal when husband William (played by Anton Rodgers) dressing up as a little maid, the piano rehearsal when they went through the song. One, two, three, Four Little Maids from school are we, pert as a schoolgirl well can be, etc.

If like me, your eyesight is a bit on the wane, you will have a job differentiating between Christmas cards and Christmas carols. So with that in mind, happy Bums night.

That would explain my iggerance; I hate G&S!

I love Gilbert and Sullivan, so quirky, so unique and so outrageously anti-establishment and mocking in a very British fashion (Stay close to your desks and don't go to sea. And one day you'll be ruler of the Queen's Navy!)

If only they were around to do an operetta based on the almighty farce that is 'Brexit'....well, it would be interesting. The Fresh Fields episode is on YouTube and I watched it last night after piano practice. It really was a good decision that I emptied my bladder beforehand, the laughter that was produced!