This will be tomorrows Happy, but i'm going to Edinburgh Zoo to visit the Pandas!!!

One of your 'favourite things' ? (a la Sound of Music ?)

Off to band practice tonight....

EDIT: Got up there and there was a power cut so had to come straight back again
So tomorrow's parade is on no practice!

Have fun isn't the weather too nasty up there then? It's awful here (again).





Hope you enjoy it Sunrise, we start back tomorrow and then Monday for York

Tomorrow is meant to be better, and the zoo was open today, so hopefully it will be ok!!

Getting two more of the rare-ish HMV Classical CD series, and some Naxos piano ones from Oxfam

back to band tonight so long as the roads are clear

Getting a recycling box collection today, first one since 12th December!

Getting a conditional offer to study a music degree at my preferred uni.

Hope the conditions aren't too bad for you

Which is your preferred uni?

an email from my boss, hopefully will be even more tomorrow

Thought you might like to see the pandas!! (Oh and a penguin for Bob... )

A great 3 kings parade, Main Street absolutely packed (about 7000 people along its length) wiith excited children and parents waiting for the floats throwing kilos of sweets at them....we started it off!!

Muzikalbadger, I love that first panda photo with the reflection - it's great! Looks like you had a wonderful time at the zoo.

yeah its my fav too!! Was great fun, i'm a big kid really!!

Glad you had fun muzikalbadger


Was nice to be back at band last night, and still be able to play most of the stuff

Awwww, I am so jealous! We will hvae to go and visit the pandas soon.
When we were on holiday in Fort William, I persuaded my husband we could just pop along to the Highland Wildlife Park at Kingussie, solely to see their polar bear That was Mercedes at the time, now we need to go back again to see Walker

My happy is that unexpectedly I have two parcels at 'out for delivery' today (was expecting one, and the other on Monday). Not only that, but I've managed to get in and out of the shower and make myself presentable before either has rung the doorbell

Edit: 9.20am - first parcel has arrived

Just picked up a nice piece of business , makes me think about not retiring in March.

Second parcel just arrived - and in between the man has been here to read the water meter! All before lunch. Actually just as well as I now feel completely exhausted, having been up for four hours

Two happys - one from yesterday and one for today.

Ordered a piece of music on musicroom on Wednesday afternoon and it arrived in the post yesterday morning - less than 24hrs. Sent them an email to say thank you for fantastic service

Happy for today is that I submitted some photos to the photo gallery on a website and they've used one of them! Chuffed to bits.

Shame my camera is so rubbish.

Cyrilla's two cats

My second cousins. Their mum's gravestone arrived in the cemetery today and it looks wonderful and they are really pleased with it.

Never got excited over a gravestone before.

The photographer is by far the most important element in any photograph; not the camera. And I say that as a keen photographer myself. There are many, many people with expensive cameras who don't have a clue what t do with them.

(I would add that film is still miles better than digital, but that is another subject altogether.) ##

SB

Aw are they really cute b-c?


My happy - being told that my secondment will very soon be over (will have to go back but only for one week out of four), and it's the weekend

Reason for saying my camera's rubbish I that I found a tutorial on a photography website and decided to have a go at the technique. It involved using a slow shutter speed - 20 seconds, and the slowest mine will do is 8 seconds. I also couldn't get the aperture small anough as suggested in the tutorial. Did my best and was fairly pleased at my first efforts, but am now hankering after a camera that will let me experiment a bit more. Was chuffed about the photo selected for the website though - I've had it printed in the past and it's now hung in my dining room, and it was used as display for a while in a local photography shop.

My dad was a very keen photographer and I have inherited his cameras - all film, no digital, and I'm tempted to get them out and try them out.

Advertised my new beginner ocarina group on a local "things for sale" group on facebook - and have ended up with 2 enquiries for not only ocarina but also individual lessons! That's effectively 5 enquiries in the last couple of weeks

The copy of Crown Imperial that I ordered in November has arrived, and it's a nice arrangement and I've had real fun bashing through it. The reason it was so delayed is that the postal service lost it, and the lovely seller sent me another one! (If you're ever thinking of buying secondhand music on Amazon, I can definitely recommend someone )

Glad you liked them, Baz! I've had Tigger on my lap tonight - not had a 'lap cat' since I-don't-know-when...

It was nice to see Baz and PianoNotes today for a lesson, and then to go for a late lunch with Hammerklavier.

a day out going to be fun

Having a Saturday off!

I felt absolutely exhausted yesterday afternoon/evening so a lie-in and slow getting up has been GORGEOUS.

Going to John Lewis. Always makes me happy!

glad you've had a chilled out day Cyrilla



That would make me generally I really don't like shopping...!



My happy for the day - a fabby day in York, lovely city is York

Thank you! Well, it was chilled-out until the afternoon - I've been tackling the mounds of paperwork on my desk and preparing for a marking day tomorrow (10 essays to mark...*sigh*...).

Glad you've had a nice day too!

Losing 5lbs. No longer am I a big fat pig. I'm now on the way to becoming a fat pig!

Lovely family coming for lunch today

Lots of housework to do first

Is there a 'B' (bulb) setting on the shutter speed dial? If there is PM me and we'll have a chat about it ?



I'd agree, order is: photographer, lens, camera.

Busy day yesterday: up at 6.30. Took tenor viol (the instrument!) and 'cello to Chester. Risked all by tuning the viol up to A440 to pretend it was a viola in the 'beginners' orchestra at 9. I was doing this for fun, but it was surprising how tricky in places the music was fo the viol. I'm sure this in part due to tuning being different, although range is fine. I was a bit surprised to see a top g (that's the G above the 5th line of the treble clef)! You don't go up there in the music I usually play!

At 10.30 switched to cello for the main orchestra. We had fun with a Harry Potter score and I winced when I saw the next piece - a set of arrangements of Beatles music. I've sung some Beatles choral arrangements over the years: they are always tough - highly syncopated with complex rhythms and harmonies - I wasn't wrong They were very 'Hollywood' style but definitely tricky but quite good fun.

At 1.30 I hot-footed over to the Bolton area for an ad-hoc afternoon of a cappella singing (Palestrina, Dubra (?) and Mendelssohn).

Got home about 6.30 and collapsed in a heap.

Yep

nothing in particular has made me happy today, I just am

Oh good

roasted vegetables with onion and mushroom gravy

Right, that's it! It's dinner time...

Sounds good to me... it's Sunday so it's eat-when-I'm-hungry time.

any chance of the recipe for the gravy? (or do you just make it up as you go along)

Happy to tell you how I did it today, but it isn't the same every time

1. Food-process or chop ten onions (obviously, adjust everything to quantity of how much gravy you want)
2. Soak a handful of dried wild mushrooms in hot water, I presume you could also use undried unwild mushrooms but I had a handful of old dried wild mushrooms to use up. Food process the mushrooms if you want it smooth (that's what I did today)
3. Fry the onions over low heat for a long time until they're brown and melty
4. Dissolve a couple of mushroom stock cubes, beef stock, vegetable stock, whatever, in a litre of water
5. Combine a spoonful of French mustard with some honey and balsamic vinegar or red currant jelly or really anything that will make it a bit sweet and a bit sour.
6. Mix everything up and let it boil for ten minutes or so. "Or so" may be longer if you want thicker gravy.
7. Thicken it either with arrowroot or a roux of fat and flour. I used arrowroot today because I wanted to be that bit healthier. I wanted to thicken it mostly with the onions.
8. Season with salt, pepper, more mustard, more honey, etc etc.
9. For extra graviness, scrape all the bits from the roasting pan in. Today it was just roast vegetable bits

Thanks!

West (6 sharps) Ham going out of the FA Cup. My brother in law will be that angry, he'll be overcharging everyone!!!!!

But he won't be in a very good mood when I've got to see the raving fascist on Friday:-(

People on facebook may already have seen this, but for those who haven't, this made me laugh

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=248...e=1&theater

back to band tonight

was still anyway