What's Made You Happy Today???

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 27 Apr 2012, 14:47

dave brum wrote:The thought of lovely home made toad in the hole with caramelised onion gravy for dinner this evening....

Is that made by you or for you? I suppose if I asked you to save some for me, it would be cold by the time I got it. Oh, and of course they wouldn't be veggie sausages, would they. Oh well, forget it then. Make you fat anyway.

Gizzy in Cambridge

Nutroast · Post by **Nutroast** » 29 Apr 2012, 10:58

gizzy wrote:
dave brum wrote:The thought of lovely home made toad in the hole with caramelised onion gravy for dinner this evening....
Is that made by you or for you? I suppose if I asked you to save some for me, it would be cold by the time I got it. Oh, and of course they wouldn't be veggie sausages, would they. Oh well, forget it then. Make you fat anyway.

Gizzy in Cambridge

Veggie glamorgan sausages in a roll with fried onions. Gorgeous!

We had our usual Sunday Big Breakfast today with a little extra, some fresh asparagus. From our neighbouring farmer, sadly, as ours got killed by a late frost. So the full plate was:

Two poached eggs from our girls
A slice of toasted sourdough bread
Asparagus
Tomatoes from last year that we bottled with herbs
Fried mushrooms
Baked beans
A pint of tea

That's me set for the day!

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 10 Jun 2012, 16:09

##We're off to Glyndebourne!!!##

No, we're not, not really, but for a tiny fraction of the cost of dressing up posh and sitting in an opera house with a lot of other people also dressed up posh, with surtitles whch I can't see to read, and singers whose faces I definitely can't see, and taking 2 hours' brak in the middle to have your smoked salmon picnic in admittedly rather beautiful surroundings, you can get it in your local cinema by satellite relay. With close-ups and readable subtitles. And cameras showing the scenery being shifted as soon as the curtain comes down, if you like that sort of thing.

So we're going off into town to see the Cunning Little Vixen by Janacek. I only really know the overture, but I know that's beautiful. In August we go for two more slices of Glyndebourne (Figaro and a Ravel double bill) and for all those three we still pay about a third of what we'd pay to see just one of them live.

Just smiling at what one Absent Friend would make out of the title, particularly since it has a link with my real name

You can also get relays from Covent Garden, Paris Opera, the Bolshoi in Moscow (!!!) the National Theatre, and particularly the NY Metropolitan. The past few years there has almost been blood on the first day of booking for members, and a lot of bad feeling, and this year they said it had to be telephone booking only, starting on the... (just looked) 27th May. Bum. Missed it. Will now have to se if we can get returns.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 11 Jun 2012, 16:28

I had to turn down a free ticket to the Garsington Opera dress rehearsals (Offenbach)on Wednesday because I have to play for choir rehearsal...

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 12 Jun 2012, 12:48

Gill the Piano wrote:I had to turn down a free ticket to the Garsington Opera dress rehearsals (Offenbach)on Wednesday because I have to play for choir rehearsal...

Awww!

What were they doing? (The opera, I mean, not the choir)

On the (unmentionable other) forum they have an aaaaargh scream thread. Should we have started one here?

Gizzy in Cambridge

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 12 Jun 2012, 17:04

Dunno; my friend who was offering to take me knows bugger all squared in a box about music. I thought it was excellent that she'd remembered Offenbach, bless 'er!

doreen dangle · Post by **doreen dangle** » 13 Jun 2012, 10:54

Not being on benefits now for a few weeks which is lovely

We even reported a couple locally who were scamming way too many benefits, they had just brought a new TV and bluray and Wii and never worked for years and he was claiming disabilitie benefit when he was mowing the lawn and such like. He got investigated and he says he is angry as his income has dropped a lot! told him benefits were for people who needed them. I said too that too many benefit people get lazy and think they cannot work.
there I lived on the bare minimum and could not afford luxuries so why could they? I felt good as did my hubby

doreen dangle · Post by **doreen dangle** » 13 Jun 2012, 10:57

oh and piano wise I can play sunny day from my exam book without music. exam in 2 weeks and very excited about doing piano exam even with 2 lessons a month for now! I will not buy a piano until I have cleare d my debts

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 13 Jun 2012, 16:26

doreen dangle wrote:he was claiming disabilitie benefit when he was mowing the lawn and such like

Now, now, Doreen, I think you know that not all disability is physical.

I'm going to say this as nicely as I can manage, and in a forum post only because you have conveniently got Private Message disabled - but PLEASE can you stop posting on here about benefit cheats, perceived or otherwise? There is more than one registered member here who is disabled, or who has a family member who is disabkled, and therefore on benefits, and one person's perception of it is not necessarily the whole story.

It's just possible that you don't do it in order for individuals to feel they're being threatened or victimised, but that has been the end result on more than one occasion, and at least one much-liked and very prolific member has left because of this, and you must have noticed that it's like a ghost town without them. Only two or three of us, it seems, trying to keep the place warm just in case! I have no idea whether they're lurking or not, but these people are not going to start posting again as long as this material is appearing in what has always been considered a place of safety and relaxation.

Result? This forum will either die on its feet or you will eventually be left talking to yourself. It's no fun after the first few hours. (I know, I do it a lot of the time and soon wonder if I'm actually listening)

Please don't reply on the forum to this post. It's no place for a slanging match. Unlike you, I do have PM enabled, so anything you have to say in response can be said direct.

That out of the way, best of luck with your exam next week. It's always a good thing when adult beginners (always assuming you're not the spotty teenage boy I suspected you of being last month) aren't afraid to start with the very early stages - from little acorns etc etc. How has your teacher predicted that you'll do?

(And btw, with so little money to spare, who pays for your exam fees? The exam costs more than a couple of lessons put together and you reckoned you could barely afford that...)

If you really want to post on this forum for the sake of getting good dialogue with other pianists, you'll be very welcome if it's about your piano playing. If you care about the future of this group, maybe the most discreet thing would be to withdraw the previous post of your own accord, and try to stay off the subject.

Gizzy in Cambridge

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 13 Jun 2012, 16:57

Don't forget what I said about getting free pianos on Freecycle, Doreen. There are good ones, but choose carefully.

doreen dangle · Post by **doreen dangle** » 15 Jun 2012, 21:15

will keep my little keyboard for now! exam was £25 its only a 5 min jobby but I`m too poor to care!
And yes my partner gets DLA and mows the lawn but then he is not seen galavanting around and about the town drinking beer! I believe in a fair world hence my awful little piano thing with no loud and soft

but I will save up for a touch one when I can, work is going well so my little pot of piano money is looking mighty grand.
I don`t even now what pm is?! or how to disable it (excuse the pun)

sorry if someone left perhaps I hit a nerve.

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 15 Jun 2012, 22:25

doreen dangle wrote: I don`t even now what pm is?! or how to disable it (excuse the pun) sorry if someone left perhaps I hit a nerve.

Under the solid blue box a little way above here ^^^ you'll find a paler blue box, and on the left of that you'll find User Control Panel. In that, look for Board Preferences, and there are a lot of buttons, one of which is "users can contact me by Private Message". I don't remember adjusting that one when I first joined, so I suspect that "yes" was the default. Yours must be set to "no". If you click on the name of the author of a post, you will see a brief profile, and part of it says "Contact gizzy" or whoever. It will give you the chance to email or to send private messages confined to this forum (which is preferable)

doreen dangle · Post by **doreen dangle** » 16 Jun 2012, 08:34

the weather here is incrediblely warm that has made us happy. walk to freshen up allotments to get our veg and a exam run through with my teacher later as i am ready now. she tells me that sight reading is on agenda next. she says alot of fuss just b4 exam grade 1 is not good so start a year in advance so you can read better all the time. God knows what it looks like

but need piano so saving hard by selling food from allotment! £34 so far. oh dear good god I`ll be 60 before I have nough

If anyone finds my disabled rants offensive, tough, my partner is disabled and takes him 20 minutes to walk what takes me 5. he certainly is unable to work and gets depression because of it. yet he does not moan on and on and he would be upset to see people claiming nd then getting drunk every weekend wearing new clothes!
I work now 30 hours a week for peanuts but I do feel better

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 16 Jun 2012, 17:01

I keep saying. LOOK ON FREECYCLE AND YOU MIGHT GET A GOOD FREEBIE.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 03 Dec 2013, 17:51

Selling some Christmas paraphernalia for £5, which will pay for 10 minutes of a piano lesson in January. Now to raise the other 50 minutes worth! Oh, and starting a craze for old Welsh pop music in our bookshop!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 03 Dec 2013, 19:10

My hen's new chick is thriving. Eggcellent!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 03 Dec 2013, 22:11

Gill the Piano wrote:My hen's new chick is thriving. Eggcellent!

I'll bet your cock is pleased

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 04 Dec 2013, 18:40

Both of them died this year actually... Hen went broody so I bought some fertile eggs on eBay and she hatched one and ditched the rest. Little Nugget is doing well!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 04 Dec 2013, 21:36

Went to Leicester and played some Christmas carols from an easy play book on a £1200 Broadwood piano at Sheehans music store there. Yes I can sight read, Gill!

Aah, a proper acoustic

, aah, the space to accomodate one!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 05 Dec 2013, 18:03

dave brum wrote: Yes I can sight read, Gill!

HOORAY!!!!!!!!!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 05 Dec 2013, 18:24

But only if I do it SLOWLY. I realised I was doing it at Amanda's house during the lesson and she never said a word. Had she done so, I probably would have become anxious like I used to get.

Just finished six more clips for Youtube, and two carols. However, in honour of the very helpful member of staff at Sheehan's Music in Leicester, I should call them carolines!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 11 Dec 2013, 18:00

Over the past week there has been a group of carollers dressed in Victorian apparel in our local supermarket. Every time I've gone down there, and I go down every day sometimes more than once, there's been this stage piano but nobody has ever played it. Up until this afternoon that is, the thing was actually being used and a woman was playing (from sight) Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, amongst other seasonal evergreenies, for the carollers to carol along to. That's made me happy!

Post by **Feg** » 11 Dec 2013, 20:57

Tuning a 1879 Kaps grand

Post by **Feg** » 12 Dec 2013, 23:27

The arrival of my new carbon fibre tuning lever from across the pond

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 13 Dec 2013, 12:21

The thought of a nice pre-Christmas trip to (as the Anglo-Saxons named the place)Snottingham where there is a huge Oxfam Books and Music and a fantastic piano and sheet music store, where I can entertain a few passers by with a selection of easy play Christmas carols on the stock pianos. Plus a Waitrose where, as we're both My Waitrose members we'll get a nice cup of hot latte for nowt. Yay!

When we went there last Christmas it was about -2 degrees during the day.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 13 Dec 2013, 19:16

What's so good about carbon fibre, Feg? Is it noticeably different to use?
Snottingham had better brace itself then, Dave - hope you find some bargains!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 13 Dec 2013, 19:41

There's a part of me that wants to train to become a piano tuner, you know. I'm sick to the back teeth of being on the dole. Trouble is, I need the space in my house to accommodate an acoustic so I can get a good look at the inner workings...

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 13 Dec 2013, 20:53

Takes at least two years...and college costs a lot these days unfortunately. And customers can drive you mad; apparently Christmas is early this year and has caught everyone unawares. And although they haven't had the piano tuned for ten years, it is IMPERATIVE that it's done before Christmas. And they are AMAZED to find that I'm booked up solid...after all, I should have kept my diary clear for the last ten years on the offchance that they might call...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 13 Dec 2013, 21:03

Hmmm, dole it is then.

Post by **Feg** » 13 Dec 2013, 22:53

Gill the Piano wrote:What's so good about carbon fibre, Feg? Is it noticeably different to use?
Snottingham had better brace itself then, Dave - hope you find some bargains!

It is much lighter than a traditional lever with very little flex. Very controllable. It's going take a bit of getting used to but after using it today, I like it.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 14 Dec 2013, 18:36

Braving the crowds in Nottingham and buying 2 easy piano books for £3 (which I can't bl~~dy play!)

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 15 Dec 2013, 14:11

dave brum wrote:Braving the crowds in Nottingham and buying 2 easy piano books for £3 (which I can't bl~~dy play!)

YET!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 15 Dec 2013, 17:22

Gill the Piano wrote:
dave brum wrote:Braving the crowds in Nottingham and buying 2 easy piano books for £3 (which I can't bl~~dy play!)
YET!

and there was a nice reconditioned acoustic in Cranes in Worcester today that sounded good. A bit bashed but it's not looks but sounds to go on I think, especially when you have cats.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 16 Dec 2013, 18:04

Absolutely!!!! I wish everyone thought as you do; it's so hard to get people to look beyond a pretty box to the clapped out instrument inside - they fall in love with a box and then people like me and Feg have to try to resuscitate them...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 16 Dec 2013, 18:51

There are loads of acoustics that look grubby but sound great/okay. Unfortunately you still have to tune ones that look and sound cr*ppy with too many broken moving parts and soundboards (ooh, I'm using trade terms!!!)

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 16 Dec 2013, 21:42

Finding this old Runrig album again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8nVXrUrk8I

Going to download it when I have four hours to spare.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 18 Dec 2013, 04:18

I have customers who bought a monstrous beaten up upright; sounds like a grand! Fabulous...they've had it rebuilt and repolished and it's truly a stunning instrument now.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 18 Dec 2013, 22:24

Finding an 'Easiest 5 Finger Piano' book of classical favourites that is in fact, easy enough for me (didn't buy it as too much a cowardy custard to have a go). And a music edition of the BBC Hymn Book in Oxfam Books and Music in Chester. Didn't have the popular arrangement of the Snogs of Praise theme tho...

gizzy · Post by **gizzy** » 19 Dec 2013, 00:18

Gill the Piano wrote:apparently Christmas is early this year and has caught everyone unawares. And although they haven't had the piano tuned for ten years, it is IMPERATIVE that it's done before Christmas. And they are AMAZED to find that I'm booked up solid...after all, I should have kept my diary clear for the last ten years on the offchance that they might call...

Got my Morley done last week, whew - been putting it off for months but a damper fell off the week before, so I coulodn't leave it any longer. It's one thing for pupils to have an out-of-tune joanna but it's a bit shameful for the teacher. And Mr Donovan said most of the groans and growls weren't actually coming from the strings or the action at all so it probably was something on the top (I have a whole audience sitting on my piano including Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare, two angel fish, a gargoyle, a penguin, a puffin, a seagull, a cast iron conductor and a red nose with teeth). He said in his book it said he'd put two dampers back on last time he'd cme, so it was probably tired glue; perhaps I'd better get them replaced.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 19 Dec 2013, 18:23

Make sure the room isn't too dry; that can cause glue to give up.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 20 Dec 2013, 19:12

Getting my Internet connection sorted with the help of BT and running at a speed it should be running at (ie over 3 Mbps). I am listening online to Radio Nan Gaidheal as i type!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 21 Dec 2013, 14:32

Are you going to learn Gaelic? Do you watch BBC Alba? It has language lessons on it.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 21 Dec 2013, 15:17

I've seen Beag an Bheag' on BBC Alba online. I also used to watch a lot of BBC Alba (and S4C and BBC4 etc). However, television viewing in this house seems to be centred upon only one person, and that isn't me. I don't have digital satellite but it's a possibility TG4 (Irish language TV channel) is available on that platform in England, Scotland and Wales. I know it's available on that platform in all 32 Irish counties.

Learning Gaelic is something that I can do. The bit I read online about broad and slender consonants took root easily in my mind and made a million percent more sense than all these silly piano and sight reading things I've been struggling with frustratingly for all of eight years!

I'm going to download some more Runrig Capercaillie and Julie Fowlis for the shop on Monday after dinner. Though I really wish I could go to Scotland, or more specifically to a Gaelic speaking area such as Lewis Harris or Uist. I would also imagine Gaelic may be heard and learned in Celtic supporters clubs in the Lowlands also. I shall put it into my dreams file along with the Leeds Piano Competition in 2015.

If I'm going to be typing Gaidhlig on here, at least I'm going to have to work out how to do accented vowels. I can't write words like Cead Mile Failte without accents.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 21 Dec 2013, 20:31

Just gotten myself mentioned on Jazz FM91 Toronto Canada. Deejay remarks 'I believe they call Birmingham 'Brum'' Yeah man, thats it.

Oh yes, and learning my first Gaelic greeting. Ciamar a tha sibh?

http://www.learngaelic.net/sol/episodes/1/1.jsp

Do you know any Gaelic, Fiona?? I would imagine as you live near the Scottish capital, you may hear it spoken occasionally from government/civil service and media people on the streets of Edinburgh, like you do with Welsh in Cardiff. Would imagine if the Scots say YES next year, it would be heard more as the London influence weakens.

And another thing I learned, the English name for the language is pronounced Gah-lick. Gaidhlig sounds like that.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 22 Dec 2013, 13:55

Don't go to Uist, they kill hedgehogs...
Well you're on your own with the Gaelic; I'm having enough trouble - er, fun, I mean - with Cymraeg!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 22 Dec 2013, 17:37

It never makes me happy to visit the grave of my father in law, especially as he was the only person in Teresa's family that accepted me. But I had to take note of the fact that he now has a neighbour in his row, merrily decomposing away to his left. His name???

JOHN INNES!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 23 Dec 2013, 18:35

What number? Nine, isn't it?

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 23 Dec 2013, 20:06

Well, it wasn't number two that's for sure as that was on my father in law's grave. Still he always loved animals si it's just what he would have wanted.

Been a very productive day at the shop, got a guide to Gaelic, Jibbidy-F and A-C-E by Lela Hoover Ward and a Tony Buzan book all for £6.47, made a new friend, served a pianist with some sheet music, and sold lots of classical CDs. And from January I will be there all day on Monday! Books Books Books!!!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 26 Dec 2013, 16:10

Finding this old relic from an old bunch of Loiners that I haven't heard since the thing was played on John Peel in the days I used to wear a younger man's jockstrap....

https://myspace.com/thelegendarylen/

and select track "Yuri's Hair Salon'.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 02 Jan 2014, 10:26

Downloading Steeleye's first album from 1970 Hark! The Village Wait....

The harmonies are amazing. Early stereo albums were truly in stereo, binaurally and all.