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Christmas is coming fast and I am faced with another problem that I cannot cope with (in addition to the one I can cope with...), that is the annual telephone call from my former landlords in Wales.

The problem is that they will want me to speak in Welsh and my conversational Welsh has taken a rapid nosedive and I can no longer use the language. My wife says I'm being a coward but the fact is that I have no use Welsh anymore. I never hear it spoken around me, am not allowed to watch Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol any more, Radio Cymru is dreadful round here....and things move on. One thing that stays in situ is the annual phone call.

They mean very well and am genuinely concerned for me at Christmas, but if I insist to them the conversation be conducted in English, then I may lose them as friends (they aren't 'British' at all, they're 'Cymreig').

Oh Marge.....

If they worry about the standard of your Welsh more than how you are, they in't friends. Say how rusty your Welsh is and tell them to speak slowly an be patient.
Marge

I sometimes wonder why Christmas is the only time they want to know how we are. Mrs.Brum has old work colleagues whom have our details but only send a card at Christmas and nothing else at spring summer autumn or the rest of the winter.

I know no other Welsh speakers.

Dear Ms.Poops,

After all these years and reams of insight and knowledge, my piano practice is still a bl00dy chore.

I think 'Piano4Solihull' was right all along, why bother doing it if I don't enjoy it....but it is also not possible to MAKE yourself enjoy it? It has to be natural, or fostered - which has to be done as a child or young adult in the best case.

If only I was thirty years younger.......or had some sort of gratification that it is all worth all this effort?

Shut up whingeing ; play when you feel like it, don't if you don't! You're doing it for fun, so if you feel anxious or that you're not enjoying it, go and do something else to break the cycle that leads to disliking it.

That's just it. I play not because I feel like it, it's because I have to.....because I must......have to carry on. Not because I really enjoy doing it or because I get anything slightly resembling fun from it, although that would be good.

Think I need to do something else. Morale just seems to be too low and I don't know what is keeping me going apart from determination and stoicism.

It's a compulsion then. Just go with it and don 't get would up. If you have a bad practice session, go and do something else.

But, to come back to my earlier point, what is the point of going on if you don't enjoy it?

Part of you must enjoy it. I think you enjoy the intellectual challenge. And you enjoy moaning about it...

Actually, I don't. I shouldn't have to moan about it....only a small minority of piano learners are as disenchanted as I am - but most are children or teenagers anyway with fewer cares and commitments than old codgers like me. My frustration is that after ten years I cannot find the RIGHT way of doing it - and every time I try something new or fresh I go so far and there's always something that gets in the way - work, family commitments, social life, the lack of sunlight that makes me feel sluggish, whatever...and I falter. And the more I falter the more frustrated I become. People (including you, Gill) have told me that it is not to do with my age...could I know too LITTLE about the subject of pianos and serious music in general despite my many days of study and all the concerts?

Maybe I should just concentrate on something that I am good at that doesn't induce such a high degree of anxiety - such as handbells or faraging round charity shops looking for premium classical jazz and world CDs.