Don't rub it in - that's most unkind

Oh you haven't missed too much, we've had not so good weather for the last few weeks...very windy and rainy. But it feels like the temperature has gone up over the last couple of days, spring is here!

Well a novice violinist from the beginners' orchestra came over this afternoon and evening. She's an experienced musician, but in the world of folk music on ukelele and guitar, so a violin is a very strange beast, as is reading the dots. She is having lessons, but can't afford very many at the moment.

Just helping to get some basics right - getting her to play full length bows, get the bow parallel to the bridge, getting left hand tuning right. We played through some of the orchestra music, fixed a few bowing things and she was playing so much better - and she's going to book some more lessons as she felt more comfortable with the instrument (I don't think anyone had explained the mechanics of bowing to her).

For fun, I played along with her part on the tenor viol (tuned up to A440) which conveniently has a G, D, and A string, although not necessarily at the right octave . Used the cello as well.

It was quite good fun overall and she really seemed to enjoy it, and got something out of it too.

A lovely little PM. You know who you are.........

No work today

Ditto - I'm having a lazy day today

We brought our choir robes and surplices home on Sunday so they could be washed and ironed ahead of our visit to Westminster Abbey on Saturday. The robes are hanging out on the line to dry, and are now a gorgeous scarlet colour.

Mind you; I had never realised how much they smelt of incense before we brought them home.

SB

Hope you've enjoyed your lazy day I've enjoyed mine

You want to try being a thurifer

Finding this:

My next challenge!

I can imagine; although the church in question is very keen on its bells and smells, and there have been many occasions when choir members could hardly see one another, let alone the clergy or conductor!

SB

What's made me happy today?? Giving my Mk.1 GT6 some serious stick round the B roads, all good fun, all under the speed limit of 60mph. Best part getting paid for the pleasure of showing the moderns a thing or two in my 45 year old car.

Music teaching, it's awesome. Oh and not forgetting to mention I have an interview for a paid position of musical director at a local band, wooooo and YAY.

Sounds fab P*P


My happy: got my hair trimmed

Lots of things. I'm just happy today

Woooooooooo Here's to being happy

A lovely chat with the very happy Lottie has made me happy

Back from cello lesson. I'm still undecided about grades, but somehow I appear to have selected pieces from the A, B, and C list for G5 How did that happen?
A - Allegro (4th movt) from cello sonata by Pincinetti,
B - Standchen by Schubert, you'll have to imagine the umlaut over the a, and
C - Robot's March by Jacob.

The Pincinetti I've been looking at since my last lesson - tricky little number that requires a harmonic octave D on the D string and a lot of string crossing, not to mention fistfulls of quaver triplets.

New work laptop...it's OK, but the bit that has made me happy is that I've brought it home, set it up in my office with my KVM switch, wireless keyboard/mouse, home wireless broadband, etc, etc, and it has all worked This has made me very happy, mainly because it is so unexpected - was anticipating a day of battling cables, routers and getting everything talking to each other

Next: See if I can get new cheap corded phone and old work-provided headset to talk to one another

Let me see ;_
1) my friend with cancer had a good day yesterday- a first in a long dark week
2) I took her daughter, my daughter and another gymnast (plus son and lodger) to see Cirque du Ceil and it was amazing..... a really good night's entertainment.....
3) I had a catch up day yesterday after a lovely, but busy weekend!
4) I met someone from a forum friend for coffee yesterday- so that was lovely too.

All in all a good day!

tea - it's the simple things in life that make me happy

Is that why you like me?

a very large bowl of strawberries with cream. and a spoonful of linseed

eek - I misread that as linseed oil - I was wondering if you were a cricket bat

Noooooo





or a park bench

Seeing husband and the cats peacefully lying in bed when I had to leave the house this morning.

corenfa is not a cricket bench or park bat or any other item of wooden apparatus

Packing for London
Not sure how it's all going to fit, though

I still don't know when you're coming or what you're doing

What, not even a piano?

LOL I arrive on Sat but that's about all I know!! I will have internet so I'll keep in touch. I honestly don't know anything until we have done the first parade and see how it goes...we may need extra rehearsals!!

http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/2...ia_ops_word.pdf this tells you when we are on duty....but there are other bits too!

OK : and you have my mobile number, Sunrise. Let me know as and when, and I'll see if I can sweep a few other forum people together too.

Cool

Hope it all goes well Sunrise


Making plans for the weekend and beginning to plan my first camping trip of the year has made me happy today

It's that word that begins with 'camp' and ends with 'ing' again...

it's a fabby word b-c and the site looks gorgeous with a lovely farmshop close by selling local produce perfect for barbecuing

Just perfect

Can they cook the food first?

Would you like them to eat it for you too?

Noooooo, I'm only little, I'll disappear if they eat it for me...

Nope, that's the job of the campers

Discovering that it's my lovely friend and student playing the guitar (and adding a few vocals) on the M&S 'Here Comes the Sun' advert. (Baz and Lou - you've met him!)

I don't usually take much notice of adverts as they generally drive me insane but I'm making an exception for this one!

I rather like that song now.....

My happy, the sun is shining (bit chilly though, still need a coat) and I'm off out for the day

I've just finished and published the choral society's newsletter, having done the chamber choir's last week. At least with DTP software, a computer and a PDF file, it's a lot easier than the first tiem I did this sort of thing in the 70s with a Roneo stencil machine, an Imperial typewriter, wax stencils and a bottle of printer's ink...

Singing Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey yesterday afternoon (Saturday). I am sure that memory will keep a big grin on my face for a while to come.

The superbly played Postlude (the Final from Symphonie No 1 by Louis Vierne) seemed especially fitting, given that Vierne spent a lot of time in and around Westminster!

SB

a lovely day out with someone very special

Ooh - that sounds good! I've never visited Westminster Abbey - keep meaning to. I've been asked to dep in a choir visiting Bangor Cathedral next weekend. I can't do the Saturday Evensong, but I should be there all day Sunday.

I was listening to the Vierne in the car yesterday (it's on my iPOD)

Sadly it's getting very expensive to visit Westminster Abbey these days. I think I saw an admission charge of ?18.00 a head for adults somewhere.

Mind you, there was a long queue of people wanting to come in for Evensong.

SB

I don't agree with admission "donations". I know why they do it, but I don't agree. I've always put money in the box when visiting churches/cahedrals. I'm a firm believer that the nation should pay for national heritage. Mind you, I've seen what happens in France where there is no state support and there's no traditon of supporting either - delapidated Medieval cathedrals....

This was yesterday but even so it has made me happy again today remembering it.

Was out in my parents garden in Ealing, London the other day when I looked up and saw a great big Heron being chased through the sky by a group of parakeets whilst the pigeons looked on by.

I'm used to the parakeets now (we have some living in a tree near our flat) but I don't think I've ever seen a heron in London before.

There's quite a few in Cheshire. At some times of the year I regularly have a pterodactyl experience seeing one flap it's way slowly through the air.

At home, we've got a fair few buzzards. Occasionally, red kites make it this far over for a day out from mid-Wales - I had three circling over my house one Sunday afternoon a couple of summers ago.