Chatting at some length to a mum who wants music to be fun for her child and is going to bring her along to music club next week.

The snowdrops.

absoloutely nothing

Never mind, jpfo. We all have days like that.

Jacob - I hope today is better for you

Well, it was yesterday really, but it made me happy today
It could potentially have been a really bad day - through an evil twist of fate, I ended up having to lead at orchestra for most of the rehearsal, practicing Petrushka - cue several hours of near nervous breakdown Then it took a friend and me absolutely ages to get to the hospital to visit a friend, the trains were messed up and we were lost practically all the time. Then I very nearly didn't make it to the concert I was going to in the evening because of all this...
But somehow, I actually had a really good day Chaotic, but really good

Today I'm happy because I woke up restless and hot so I took the dogs out for a walk at 7am.

It was so still and quiet and the dogs had a fabulous time racing round the fields. We all came home refreshed and my smallest dog, who is normally very fussy about his food, dove straight into his dish of breakfast and scoffed the lot!

I know how he feels - my breakfast tasted great too

Awesome night out. Best Uni event ever.



And I don't feel even remotely hung over. That 5 course dinner must've soaked all the alcohol up...

Getting on top of all the stupid, nagging tasks that I have been putting off for far too long. I am officially smug!

William Byrd

and John Blow - wonderful Salvator Mundi

Having the ice-cream man call for the first time this year !

You have to admit though, the ice-cream van version of Greensleeves isn't the best...

Depends whether or not it's the modal version..

On an ice-cream van that comes round here, I swear it speeds up and slows down depending on how fast the van is travelling...

Ours did too - but it was the Teddy Bears' Picnic. Thought for a moment I was conducting a 40-strong flute choir again!

Ah, but does it do good ice-cream???

I don't particularly like ice-cream but I LOVE the soft whirly stuff !

I bet we played it better than the ice-cream van

Yesterday: I made some curtains.
Well, technically what I did was measure/cut/hem some ready-made curtains - and with iron-on hemming-tape as well, not even stitched hems! But it still counts, and I'm inordinately pleased with myself. I have two more pairs of curtains to do, and then two single door curtains. And I should be able to get them all done before the next time my mum comes round to visit, which will hopefully impress her (when I was younger she used to make all the curtains for our home; but now she lives in a small house and there isn't enough floor-space for making decent sized curtains, so she was going to take me out curtain shopping at some point to buy ready-mades that she would then sort out the length of...but now I will have done it all myself, domestic-goddess-style )

Today: Within the hour I should have received my letter telling me my annual bonus and my pay-rise And the company have decided to invite us all to have some free cake as well because it's bonus day.
Also I got to work to discover that potential-recorder-teacher has left me a phone message and asked me to call him back, but but but

Edit - now I have the letter and am quite with what it has to say. And I've had some free cake. And I was super brave and phoned back the potential-recorder-teacher and now I have a lesson at 5pm on Friday

Has anybody got any good news they'd like to share


Please?

My cold is better than it was yesterday and I've had a migraine-free day so far. Does that count? - it's the best I can offer today.

My Step-Dad was a little more cheerful and slightly brighter today.
Bev.

I haven't heard one yet



I've just had a lovely day in Rye with my sister. The weather was beautiful and Rye is so pretty.



That's good to hear

My woodwind group played perfectly in rehearsal this morning! We're playing 'Tales from the Vienna Woods' so we all have solos and everyone was great!! Apart from the last 5 or so bars but hey... out of 6 pages that's not too bad!!

A very mysterioius and inexplicable error, which even bemused the local expert on the particular subject...which then spontaneously resolved itself
We're pretty sure we know the cause (I was trying to extract data out of a database while someone else was putting data in to the database; so some of my records were weirdly incomplete), but it's nice when these things just fix themselves

Nothing

(Not even that Mars bar I've just eaten)

I don't know. Nothing's gone right, I've broken another mug - leaving me with only two, and I haven't seen any of my friends. I'm listening to sad music... My singing voice isn't my own due to a cough and sore throat, and yet somehow I'm happy!


Maybe I'll crash later.

Lottie! Mars Bars aren't making you happy?! How awful!

I got a free mug today lucky045, if only I could give it to you It says "Don't be a mug" on it though...

Maybe your Mum's visit cheered you up? (Or maybe it's the thought that you don't have to see her again until the end of term! )

Chilli jam.

I ran out ages ago, the shop I expect to have some in stock didn't have any in...so I finally caved at the weekend and spent lots of money at the South Devon Chilli Farm, getting six jars of my usual and one jar of the next heat level up to try.
They arrived in the post yesterday, and now I have just eaten my lunch which was a ham, rocket and chilli jam sandwich. And it was lovely. I've really missed having chilli jam

I guess I shall have some mundane and necessary birthday presents this year. My cutlery has also all magically vanished. I appreciate the thought though!



Maybe - my parents and my brother and sister all came, which surprised me. Today I'm in a baad mood though to make up for it - but I know why. I can't abide rudeness, and someone I know has been very rude today.

Despite being in a bad mood, what's made me a BIT happy, is that I've started doing all my washing and in about an hour and a half will have lots of lovely clean clothes, and can stop wearing tight/torn things from years ago.

Flirting (I know. I'm predictable...)

The sun shining through the bedroom window.

Yes, the sun is lovely here too.

Being told I should enter the Inverness round of Miss Scotland next month... Will I or won't I? Probably not.

A cancelled meeting!

Why not? It might be fun?

Sending a 30th birthday card to a special person. People seem to dread their 30th, but I enjoyed my 30s very much, and trust she will too.

Ladies of Letters. Vera's piano playing is not dissimilar to mine

.......Watching my daughter singing in a choir concert with the biggest grin on her face the whole way through. Could see she was enjoying herself immensely (unlike the stony faced girl standing next to her who didn't even smile once!)

I had a Happy-Half-Hour on my viola today (after a jolly hour on my violin)

Not much else is going right just now so it was a lovely respite from the chaos.

I've had a merry couple of hours on my flute. Did a bit of messing around on it as well as my normal practice, and went back to a couple of things I learnt ages ago - was pleasantly suprised at how much better they sounded compared to a few months ago.

Going to final of Gloucestershire Young Musician of the Year - my friend's son won!

Congratulations!

Well done to your friend's son! What instrument does he play?

Totally unrelated to music, but I attended a day out with my department, and we played captain's ball. I fell once, felt that my knees hurt quite alot, but ignored them and carried on playing. At the end of the game, I realised that I have torn my jeans at the knees and there were wounds on both knees

But I was glad to let off some steam by playing aggressively and perspiring. I haven't been exercising recently as I was afraid of falling and hurting my hands before exams, but today I could just run free without a care, hurt myself and still smile about it. Quite a few other colleagues hurt themselves too, as we have all been too sedentary over the year.

Still, I was fortunate not to have hurt my hands. I am so cheerfully tired now, with large plasters over my wounds.

A call to consumer direct

Sounds good to me

Coming home and not having another pair of curtains to make (OK, cut to length and hem). Very pleased to have done eight curtains - three pairs and two single door curtains - over the last four nights. But quite nice to come home to a copy of The Recorder Magazine, which I can sit on my new sofa in my living room and read, while admiring five of my new curtains (two pairs and one door )

I seem to have rediscovered how to right.
Have actually written part of a chapter today without having to delete everything I've done.

Only another 50,000 to go...

But not how to spell, eh, Flossie?

Hmmm. That shows how easily typos creep in doesn't it - I also missed out the word "words" after the number 50,000. Think my brain must have been working faster than my fingers. I definitely don't intend to write 50,000 chapters - I'm aiming for 9 at the minute!