A new 'A' string has just made me one of the happiest people on the planet





no, REALLY

Excellent news, Katie

Congratulations KatieS


I'm just very happy

cheers for the congrats guys soooo excited!!! and more news since then, my old concert band got back in touch the other day saying they wanted me back!!! its all goooooood!!!

Wouldn't a G string have made you even happier ??

Discovering, after suffering all week, that Benadryl seems to keep my allergic reaction to the cold at bay!!

Long may it continue ....


So feeling rather than

I have fitted the new internal disk in my iMac, and reloaded Mac OS X and my applications, and the whole system just flies . Now there is just the small matter of restoring or reconstructing whatever useful data I can scrabble together from various out-of-date backups.

on the other hand my P80 gets sicker by the minute

Just got to the bottom of a REALLY weird issue at work. Feels good when that happens!

Being in the IT industry like you I am wondering what you could call a weird issue!

Short story is I had to do packet captures to figure out that the problem was nothing like what it first seemed to be (suspected DNS weirdness that made no sense at all). Turned out to be a misbehaving proxy.

As for weird issues - seen more of them than I can count!

I am only at the 1st line stage of my career. I'll leave all these complex issues up to you, with your far superior ability and knowledge.

Superior ability and knowledge?

Hrm, more a case of years of experience. I'd not assume that I'm in any way superior. All you need is a logical thought pattern and you can learn to troubleshoot pretty much anything. Good luck climbing up the ranks over the coming years!

Listening to the beautiful music for AA317 Schubert's Winterreise and lullabys and folk music - wonderful !

The fact that I didn't completely fall about laughing when my teacher said that the TG advanced certificate might be worth looking in to as a stepping stone to ATCL

Oh, it's a nice comment to have, but shall we get grade 6 out of the way first?

My dogs getting rid of a door to door sales person by barking and sounding very vicious behind the door I never know how to do it without sounding rude

Opposite my piano teachers house, is a window store of which one of the workers there is someone my dad knows, and today when my dad was waiting for me to come out of my lesson, he was talking to his friend and when he came back in the car he told me that his friend said "I remember your little'un (that's Geordie for son/daughter ) has been coming here for years now, I think it's brilliant how he's stuck at it all this time, really"


That made me happy today

I know someone (male) who achieved it by answering the door in a not very large towel. Hurrah for video entryphones

After such a long, cold winter it was wonderful to be able to get out into the garden today. I even ate my lunch out there it was that warm

Had a good parents evening for child no. 3- they give you wine at her school- makes it go so much more smoothly!

managed one of my gr 7 pieces without many mistakes!

Perhaps you should have wine before every practice session?

had a really good practice last night oboe is now sounding like a oboe and not a duck haha

Excellent

Are you ultimately after grade 8 in oboe as well?

band was good last night

ahhh barry you know me well haha

yea i think i will. might as well try and get a set of 4 haha

but im really finding it hard to find a teacher near me. there are a few but either they havent called me back or they are way to over priced! i still have lessons on the clarinet once a week (like to try and push myself with that one - im biased as its my baby:P) so i dont really have dosh to throw around at the mo

my old conductor (who i shall be playing for again from next week) taught her daughter oboe (she was a bassoon specialist) so i might be cheeky and ask her. but i know how busy she is, so it may not be a option.

But even if she can't help, she's someone who is going to have connections and might know somebody who can help. So definitely no harm in asking, especially a nice open-ended question like "I'm looking for an oboe teacher...." and then she can say "I'll do it" or "I know just the person you need"

true maizie, very true.

so excited about going back to band its going to be great!!!

The new piano has arrived.

Tinged with quite some sadness to say farewell to my lovely old George Rogers, which has helped me so well on my musical path for the past 30 years. But then, I know he is going to a lovely new home where he will be appreciated and loved.

Fantastic!!! Enjoy!!

That it's friday

Great news! Hope you have hours and hours of enjoyment.


*Looking forward to the house party! *

Just led my newest pupil seriously astray....... spot of music-related shopping!!!

haha Sue what did you do???

Alpha Male Jazz Cat paid me a visit on the Fireblade tis a vurry speedy machine and makes the 120-mile round trip much quicker.

Sigh. Am solitary again now

Lonesome-Bag x

You must be so excited Moley, I know how I felt when my new piano was delivered which I think must be coming up for 3 years now! Doesn't time fly?

Congrats. My George Rogers is 34 years old since we got it new , and still is fine for my purposes.
What piano did you get? (sorry you might have said earlier , but it would take a while to trawl back)

1. Sunshine!!
2. Organising my music (although I need to order more box files). As well as discovering some flute music which I never knew I owned, I've got a lot of decent piano music from when my mum learnt the piano when she was growing up. As she doesn't play it anymore, I have inherited the music. It makes me want to play the piano as it's sad that the music is not being played.

Do you have a piano at home? If so, it's even sadder that an instrument is not being played! Why not give it a go?

I do. I have also have grade 1 piano. But don't really have any technique or anything. Might try some of the grade 1 ABRSM stuff from the 1960s/70s I found!

I just sight read through the 1967 Grade 1 List A&B book! It wasn't as shabby as I had feared but still shabby!

This working week has ended. I've been under the weather (health wise) pretty much all week, and I'm looking forward to the weekend...

Me too

Car Expert

I hope you have a fun weekend then to put the bounce back

Thanks, Clarimoo. Will be taking my underpractised clarinet to Leytonstone tomorrow for the quartet gig, then Sunday, I've got a day with louise1712

Baby(-ish) rats!! I've just arranged that on Sunday morning I am going to pick up 3 girlies, around 3 months old, who need rehoming.
Sadly I can take three, rather than the expected two, as one of my older ladies died overnight last night. Not sure what it was, but it hit her hard and fast, and to be honest I think I'd prefer that myself to an age of drawn-out suffering. We got lots of cuddles yesterday evening though which was lovely.

Went to work this morning, felt sufficiently rough that I came home, just thought I'd lay down for a few mins and then woke up two and a half hours later It seems the migraine has gone and now I just have a stinking cold instead

But the thought of little young rats keeps making me grin. I hope my old lady in the cage can take it (don't worry - she can! I think of her sometimes as a frail old thing, then visit the cage and remember she is in fact a grand battleaxe and little bouncy things will not dare to bother her!)

Excellent.

Hope you're feeling better soon Barry. Enjoy your weekend ..... and don't tire Louise out too much for band on Monday ....

I'll do my best

Just been to one of my daughter's school's informal concerts, where she played a solo. She did really well.... playing one of her Gr 6 pieces.It was the best I've heard her play. She only joined the school in Sep and I was really impressed by the concert! There is a '3 trombones and a tuba' ensemble at her school and they were fantastic too. They've just through to the finals of the pro corda competition.
And her violin teacher came to listen- which was so lovely! I haven't seen her for ages- she has lessons at home but I'm out when they happen! She used to be a good friend of mine.

And.... I had to take DD to gym after. She was going to be late for gym. She usually does MacDonald's before gym as gym doesn't finish til 9pm. As she was late, I didn't think that I could waste time- so the Head Teacher's wife got her a packed lunch! I was touched by that!

I love her new school- It has got her from Gr 3 theory to Gr 5 exam since Sep. the Musical Director is lovely!

Hope you're feeling better Barry, big (((hugs))) x



reading that has made me very happy




I'll be fine on Monday thank you Dawn

I'm getting there, Louise, thanks. Not going to go at full pelt at the quartet concert tomorrow, and I'm going to go straight home afterwards to conserve a bit more energy, so I can be as fit as possible for your visit on Sunday x