Teaching on the Dalcroze course yesterday and today - lovely group of students (incidentally, all DELIGHTED to get stickers for the first time today ).

Getting Chloe the Corsa back

Nothing.

The feeling of satisfaction after a lovely weekend of music-making!

Ditto. Re: York playday and social event after


AND

A day at the seaside today with my family

Doing a mega-music practise (4 instruments worth!) and feeling I have progressed on all 4.

It's 5 o'clock and the birds are chirruping - it sounds like Spring is in the air

You're a mind-reader, Skyers. I was just thinking along the same lines.

I looked out at the sea a moment ago, and there's somebody out sailing in the bay. I've just had the thrill of anticipation that, when it's a bit warmer in a few weeks time and after I've finished a couple of jobs on my boat, I shall be out there sailing too!

Finishing all my admin and paperwork in double quick time so I can go to my cello lesson!

When I walked into the school today, the children remembered me after 10 days away... and are still calling me Mrs Ross!

Hearing that the accompanist I REALLY want to do my FTCL work is free and up for the job

Had a good practise session on both violin and then viola... and I didn't eat either of them

do you think you could make a carrot cello for your next project, along with cello spike?

That's really funny - I went to an 'iron pour' at a sculpture workshop near here and tried to make my sand-mould into the shape of a violin. The process is quite fiddly and my scraper slipped and the violin suddenly had a spike! So it became a cello Unfortunately the iron was spoiled while being poured so my mould was scrapped. But I'm hoping to make an iron cast of a violin later in the year... or a cello

I think my next violin will be in soap or Danish Blue

Do it in cheese! I'd love to see that!

I've been planning to visit a friend in hospital, and today I managed to admit to myself and a friend how much hospitals scare me, but my friends have been really supportive and kind; it's good to know I have friends like that to rely on

Mind you don't go more than 25 yards from the shore just in case!

As of 5 minutes ago, I am finished with physics coursework FOREVER

What a lovely feeling!

Good to know you're enjoying your Physics!! Hope you get a great mark for the coursework.

Me...enjoy...physics...there's three words you don't usually find in the same sentence.

Oh well, not too long now to June - last lap! Is Chemistry any better? (Probably not at the end of a piece of coursework!)

Did you try taking your faulty recorder back to the shop?

I much prefer chemistry (even the courseworky bits!).

I haven't had a chance to take my recorder back to the shop yet. I'll talk to my teacher about it on Weds, then probably take it in asap. Hopefully I will be able to sort a replacement well before my performance assessment at the end of March, as I'm pretty sure 'I don't have an instrument' doesn't count as an excuse for not being ready.

After choir, I went for a drink with my choir friends and caught up, then I went straight from there to play pool with some other friends, and didn't lose every game.

Playing beautiful music with Oldnotes this morning
(At least I hope it was beautiful )



Had a fantastic morning made me feel sooo relaxed. Better than a massage anyday

Thankyou Oldnotes. Nice to meet Mrs Oldnotes too.

My descant recorder hasn't cracked

(I've spent the last couple of days building up the courage to look at it )

Glad it went well - did you play the Mozart in the end Dawn?

------

What made me happy today was a good day teaching - one of those days when everything went right.

Managing to encourage a certain pupil to sit down and write, mainly unprompted and him actually being proud of what he had achieved. Not bad for a wee lad who's almost been written off as a lost cause at the age of 5.

That's brilliant. Well done Miss Ross

Yes along with a number of other things too - A Crusell menuetto and trio and a medolson piece Andante from Konzerstuk - totally messed up the timing on this but in my defense - it was pretty much sight reading. I may have played it 20 yrs ago but not since! I have to be honest and say that we skipped the cadanza. I ad libbed a bit and I'm gonna expand on that though. Have some ideas I think will work. But it's not there yet.

That's one of the BEST feelings, isn't it??

Good for you !

Mrs O thought it all sounded really good. Thanks again for an uplifting morning of music making

Cool! Glad you both had fun!

You're welcome. Thankyou too! At least we had a satisfied audience then

Being able to play a "fast" study a bit more quickly and stay with it.
Nice blue sky and the thought of a day off tomorrow

Taking my funky new wheeled shopping bag to the supermarket - yeh! Now I can fill it up and trundle off home without struggling with bags on each arm (I don't have a car and I have been severely restricted on what I could carry home since my son quite unreasonable decided that he no longer wanted to sit in the pushchair at 4 years old just so I could put the shopping on him ). I don't even care that he said "why have you got an old person's bag, mummy?"

Wheelchairs are just as good - bags on both handles, on lap of occupant, and also you can lean on it as you push it - it's like walking with zimmer frame


My teacher has said again that I really should be thinking about starting on some Grade 5 pieces

On Tuesday I got home to discover a parcel I had been expecting had arrived, but had been too big for the letter box, so had been taken back to the depot. Where I used to live, the depot was two miles away, and only open between 7 and 11 in the morning, and one had to wait three days before collecting anything returned there: not at all convenient. However, on Tuesday, when I looked at the card, it said I could collect the parcel straight away; and the depot is less than a mile away and open till 7 at night! So I got my parcel straight away. That made me very happy!

And last night at my violin lesson I had an hour and a half long lesson (awesome!) and as I had been doing scales the whole lesson, as (I think a special treat) I was allowed to play the Devil's Trill for the last five minutes. I only got to the end of the first page (the first movement and a little bit of the second) when the next pupil rang the doorbell, but teacher said "you know I would normally say 'saved by the bell', but you were coping with that really well", and I have been given permission to keep plugging away at it, so long as I make sure I practise and give priority to the stuff I'm supposed to be practising!). So that made my night. (I'm easily satisfied).

Playing with Lego and Playmobil It's a long-overdue task, sorting through boxes of the stuff and trying to see if anything is still a complete set before disposing of much of it in various ways that will make the boys a bit of money and give them a lot more shelf space. I know I've got far more important things to do, and it's astonishingly time-consuming - but I am having fun

I taught a maths lesson for the first time since my 3 months in hospital. I got mental block at one point, but recovered to an OK level afterwards!

I was doing an essay for Comms over half term on how youth orchestras create a sense of cultural identity and I'd been really worried about it and found it really hard to write. I got it back today and my teacher said it was really good, it's only meant to be a first draft, but she said there's nothing more that needs doing to it

Getting home to a great big box which contained 2kg of seed potatoes, and getting them all lined up on the windowsill to start doing their thing

I'm happy ('er) now because my old whippet boy is feeling more comfortable. He caught his ear on barbed-wire yesterday and has over thirty stitches in it - he looks like Frankenstein's dog! But he's peaceful in his bed and not as upset as he was yesterday thankfully.

Oh, and my new laptop arrives next Tuesday

very pleased he's recovering lottie

have you bought your blue cheese for carving yet?

Fingers crossed for him, Lottie.

What's made me happy today... The thread about education on here! It's been very interesting.

Hope he gets better quick lottie!
We have a bedlington X whippet. Little ######... does the exact opposite of what we tell him. Our labrador is much better (although he is a gundog)

Glad your doggely is a bit better today, lottie...

France beat Wales !!

No offence meant to the Welsh - it was a great game!!

Having a lovely time at Banks in York - had a gift voucher to spend so I spent ages browsing round and eventually got a couple of clarinet books and a piano duet book. I'm now torn as to which to play first

If only I'd been in York...