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Yes, my bingo wings are coming on a treat. Mustn't grumble...

As are my manboobs and non-alcoholic beer belly. I have the quality if one can call it that, of being able to rest a mug of tea on my stomach ledge whilst I'm sat in the armchair watching BBC4.

What made me happy yesterday is the fact that I did something I haven't done for 17 years yesterday. I applied for a job! That is down to my positive thinking course. I am not hopeful I will get the job...so okay, that's a negative thought. But I know that if I don't, it will not drive me to drink or feeling depressed for weeks on end. So that's good.

Excellent news. Hope you get it!

Lying naked in bed with the window open listening to the dawn chorus and the buzz of the bees (probably attracted by my 4 Lavender plants) and a gentle cooling breeze touching my body. Wish Januarys were like that.

When's your interview for the job?

Interviews are in the first week of June, though I don't yet know. I guess I will next week as the closing date is this Friday (23rd).

Going to keep fit and laughing out load at the instructor who told us to squat 'like a woman having a wee in the bushes'!

And yet another good piano lesson, but another long wait to the next one (10th June) and a very challenging piece of homework. Plus I now have to look out for Classics To Moderns 2, difficult when you live in une grande ville sans boutiques de musique!

musicroom.com, or even eBay - have a look.

or Opus 13 Music in Bristol, they are independent and offer a music by mail order service. My teacher uses Allegro Music, based in Herefordshire.

We're going to Bristol on Saturday for a treat as it's my mother in law's funeral the day before (neither of us want to go as we just want to attend to pay our respects, go to her graveside and just drive home, but my wifes' family have organised a family meal afterwards which is typical of them as they are shouters whilst we are simplistic whisperers) but to get back on topic, Opus 13 have a shop in central Bristol at the bottom of St.Michaels Hill, plus they've also been named as one of the Top 10 independent retailers in Bristol by The Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/ ... es-bristol

http://www.opus13.co.uk/

Can you not plead a cold/rabies/anthrax to avoid the meal afterward?

Can you not plead a cold/rabies/anthrax to avoid the meal afterward?

I only wish I could. It's a good job they're inviting me anyway as they despise me, but if they didn't, my wife would not go as we are a couple and if we do anything, we do so together.

Perhaps it'll be a buffet type job that you can sidle off early from. How good an actress is T? Could she collapse, overwrought and have to be taken home?

Hated every second of it, but glad I was there for T as she needed my support and understanding. She soon recovered emotionally but she was eager to get home last night. Not all over, we have to go again for the interment in a couple of wicks time. I suspect after that, that really will be that and the end of the book will be reached.

Making me happy was seeing the bright lights of the Second City welcoming me back home last night.

The worst is over, anyway. Play Fiona & relax!

One of my colleagues at the shop is called Fiona

We had 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' played on the organ by the vicar of the village that my wife's brother lives in. I really wanted to sing 'Why Was She Born So Beautiful' as her life story was incredibly one sided. However I was too busy consoling my wife, not necessarily because she is in mourning for her mother but she is still in mourning for her father, who passed away in January 2011. She told me so on the evening she popped orf, two weeks ago.

Anyway, made me happy to go to Bristol, visit Opus 13 music, and spend half an hour talking about music and pianos with owner Ruth, who also plays the piano to g8 standard. If only I was younger and had any business sense (or money), I would open a music shop in central Birmingham as there is a gap in the market as big as the flaming universe for something of the type in this city. Might get me off the dole.

My daughter passed her IAM Test this morning. She only passed her DSA test in October 2012, so I am a proud Mum today.

Is that some sort of advanced driving thing that emergency services drivers have to take? Congratulations, Caroline.

That might come in useful for me as I detest driving, especially parking up, however I always have to do it.

It is the Institute of Advanced Motorists Advanced Test. It is not up to Police Class 1 standard but it is a very demanding training then Test. My husband passed it 20 years ago and has now done Emergency Response Training in order to volunteer as a rider for Lifesavers Scotland. My son passed it last year too!

What makes my daughter's pass special is that she only passed her bike test less than 2 years ago. Husband had been riding for 10 years and my son for 5 years when they sat the test.

dave brum wrote:One of my colleagues at the shop is called Fiona

Um...perhaps she ought to change her name then!
Feg, excellent news. What a clever family! I often think about doing the IAM course, but have rather a lot on my plate at the moment so...perhaps one day!

Being told yet again I play piano proffessionally, and being on the last line of Hyfrydol.

Go for it, bach/Bach!

Just a couple more bars now and I'll be there! But there's also the tiny matter of my HW piece I'm still trying to get to grips with, however progress report on that: I'm now into the first phrase of the second half of the tune where it goes into the dominant (it's in G so that would be D). And to think I never used the pedal before apart from a doomed occasion another piano teacher (who shall be nameless) gave me Gymnopedie and I couldn't play it (from CTM 3).

Plus also planning with my wife what we'll be doing and where we'll be going in London next Monday. Baker Street, Marylebone High Street (RAM and Oxfam Books and Music), Portland Place (Radio 3 HQ), Oxford Street (John Lewis) or maybe take the tube to Sloane Square for lunch in Peter Jones and a gawp at the Cadogan. Being married to a Londoner I've only got to see how her face lights up each time I roll these places off my tongue like an enthusiastic, but unusually liberal London taxi driver!!

Just a couple more bars now and I'll be there! But there's also the tiny matter of my HW piece I'm still trying to get to grips with, however progress report on that: I'm now into the first phrase of the second half of the tune where it goes into the dominant (it's in G so that would be D). And to think I never used the pedal before apart from a doomed occasion another piano teacher (who shall be nameless) gave me Gymnopedie and I couldn't play it (from CTM 3).

Plus also planning with my wife what we'll be doing and where we'll be going in London next Monday. Baker Street, Marylebone High Street (RAM and Oxfam Books and Music), Portland Place (Radio 3 HQ), Oxford Street (John Lewis) or maybe take the tube to Sloane Square for lunch in Peter Jones and a gawp at the Cadogan. Being married to a Londoner I've only got to see how her face lights up each time I roll these places off my tongue like an enthusiastic, but unusually liberal London taxi driver!!

Getting a mail from Waitrose saying the My Waitrose free paper offer, raised to a min. £10 spend a few weeks back is reverting back to £5, by popular request. Still £10 on Saturday though.

Ooo, we have a Waitrose card. Glad they've rethought it. I spent under 10 quid in there last week and the 5 year old at the till said 'I'm afraid you won't get your free paper.' But the till liked the look of me and knocked it off anyway. The Child and I agreed we wouldn't tell anyone but that if JLPartnership goes under it'll be All My Fault.

Seeing a large (but unplayable) reed organ straight out of a chapel in the window of the Sue Ryder shop in King's Heath for £90, a couple of days after seeing a Cramer piano that's playable and I would guess tuneable apart from a ropey sounding middle range in the British Heartichoke Foundation in Northfield for £100, reduced from £150.

If it's ropey in one area could be the tuning plank is knackered. Run away!

If I see a piano in a charity shop or on Freecycle, the first thing I ask myself is why it was donated/posted in the first place?

Gill the Piano wrote:If it's ropey in one area could be the tuning plank is knackered. Run away!

No 'could be' about it, Gill - that one screams loose pins!

I was once asked to 'tune' a piano which the unsuspecting customer had purchased from a charity shop for £120 plus the cost of delivery. It was a nice looking thing with original candle sconces and a new back cloth. It really did look the part in the living room with their antique furniture.

Inside, however, the piano was a disaster zone. It had everything from loose pins to mouse damage and a lot of missing bits and dodgy DIY repairs. I gave them chapter and verse, declined to do anything more than replace the casework, charged them for my time and left.

That reed organ was in an even more shocking state, keys broken, bellows knackered, but a lovely piece of furniture nonetheless. Similar to the thing what Michaela Strachan played on a recent Celebrity Antiques Road Trip.

Feg wrote: I gave them chapter and verse, declined to do anything more than replace the casework, charged them for my time and left.

Been there, done that. 'But what does it neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed?' they wailed. 'A gallon of petrol and a match,' I said kindly. My not so kind tuner friend sometimes says 'Well look on the bright side; it'll soon be November the fifth...'

Lovely bright sunshine.

Two loads of washing out drying in the sun.

My car is not as poorly as I thought so the bill will not be horrendous.

I'm well into my second hour of violin practice

Roof down on the car today; all sweet wrappers have gone. Splendid.

Two gin and tonics up - first ones of the year as it is decreed a Summer Drink in this house!

Gill the Piano wrote:Roof down on the car today; all sweet wrappers have gone. Splendid.

I had some nice Norwegian violin music on in the 20 degree heat as I drove through Farthinghoe today....

Now I know what they mean by those in peril on the sea, I've just played it - from sight. Think the tune is called Melita.

The EFP easy hymn book is in two parts rather than 3 or 4, something I was on about on here not that long ago.

I love that hymn tune; rarely get to play it though.

Reading a piece in Pianist Magazine from the one and only Teddy Testicles, bless his cotton socks. Doesn't say how he got on with his AB grade 3, from what I can gather therein, he did it in the spring. Oh, and replacing my low energy lightbulbs with much brighter 1800 lumen bulbs (equivalent to an old fashioned 100w). For an idea, low energy 20w bulbs equivalent to 100w (supposedly) only produce 1200 lumens.

Gill the Piano wrote:I love that hymn tune; rarely get to play it though.

Doesn't the Church of Elizabeth Windsor, Justin Welby and the Tory Party/Ukip have a 'Sea Sunday' in their Church Calendar, in which those at sea, be it in peril or not in peril on it, are 'bigged up'?

dave brum wrote:Reading a piece in Pianist Magazine from the one and only Teddy Testicles, bless his cotton socks. Doesn't say how he got on with his AB grade 3, from what I can gather therein, he did it in the spring. Oh, and replacing my low energy lightbulbs with much brighter 1800 lumen bulbs (equivalent to an old fashioned 100w). For an idea, low energy 20w bulbs equivalent to 100w (supposedly) only produce 1200 lumens.

Low energy bulbs are the work of the devil! They are no use at all for anything - can't read, sew, knit, or even see with them.

Television sets on standby, cellphone chargers and patio heaters use much more energy than simple 100w lightbulbs producing all that lovely light. If Eon wish me to save energy, they can deal with the profits their board and shareholders made in the last financial year...

Lights and radios are not comparable to, say tumble dryers and heaters in the sense that 'using them in an energy efficient fashion' is really an option. It's just the culture created by the energy companies and the weak-kneed Department for Energy to make us users all feel guilty when the guilt really should be upon the rich profiteers at the top.

I've sold my 'Okki Tokki Unga' over a month after I put it out, for £1.99. Funny innit, that it sells on the day I'm there! I still need loads and loads more sheet music to flog. I also notice the church at the end of the row of shops where my shop is is no longer an ABRSM exam venue.

Making contact via social media with some of 'my boy's' from 30+ years ago. Friends at the time used to introduce me as "an unmarried mother of 27 boys" - and yes, they are still friends

What, boys you were at school with, or looking after? It's wonderful catching up after a long break.
Glad someone else appreciates Okki Tokki! I wish you were nearer as I've got quite a bit of music to recycle.

Ooo, I forgot; went to see Joanna Macgregor on Sunday evening playing Ravel's Piano Concerto - brilliant. As an encore she played her own arrangement of a bit of Piazzolla which was fabulous - loved it. Feel utterly inadequate about my own playing now, of course...

Being told by Mabel, after I expressed my concerns about being a spazzo sight reader that a) I don't believe a word of that David and b) you're actually my best adult sight reader, better than my 13/14 year old boys and c) you raise the bar too high.

I still have negative tendencies when it comes to the piano, which need to be worked upon. And I have a habit of telling myself I'm defeated whenever something common in learners happens- again, because I raise the bar too high.

Gill the Piano wrote:Ooo, I forgot; went to see Joanna Macgregor on Sunday evening playing Ravel's Piano Concerto - brilliant. As an encore she played her own arrangement of a bit of Piazzolla which was fabulous - loved it. Feel utterly inadequate about my own playing now, of course...

Where - in London?? I'd love to see Kathryn Stott and Paul Lewis.