My laptop's broken.

This is a good thing because I've been drooling over a new one for quite a while and this will be the push to go and buy it next week.


(Lovely wee rat Maizie I've missed what happened to her but I hope she feels better soon - brave wee soul )

Good news and bad news:

The good news is that we go away on holiday on Saturday.

The bad news is that SB Junior and I will only be allowed one camera bag between us. I have also been banned from singing in any karaoke events after my Donny Osmond impression last year. (I was hoping they might have a Nessun dorma track this year, in which case nobody would have slept.)

SB

Cleared a path through my dining room and reached the far corner. Feels like chopping through the Amazon, but I made it to the wall, hurrah! Banishing clutter as I go...

Hearing the radio alarm come on this morning with news that there were no more disturbances last night.

My lovely son is home and his long hair is in a plastic carrier bag and not on his head. He has had an amazing time and is very happy (and needs a shower)!

white chocolate with hazelnuts in it.

Yummmm.... share?

This stuff - but I didn't get it here, got it when I was last in Germany

oooohhhh yes- that stuff is nice

The Ritter squareblock range always used to be available in UK, but I havent seen any for ages.

My newsagent sells it but only a few flavours.

Im happy today because I am anticipating a big family gathering and lunch tomorrow to celebrate our Ruby Wedding anniversary on Sunday.

Wow!
Have a lovely weekend

Congratulations to you both on forty years of marriage. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

SB

I love the fact that he brought his hair home! I'm glad he had a great time - an unforgettable experience, I would imagine

They sell them in the university union

congratulations f#minor!

Waitrose or petrol stations.

I used to particularly like the marzipan one but I'll swear blind the've changed the recipe and made it sweeter. Not keen now.

Congratulations

Work just suprised me with an early leaving present - boss is off for 2 weeks and wanted to give it to me personally. Bit weird as I'm not leaving for another 2 weeks, but definately a thought out present - a Lancome travel make up palette for when I'm in concert, to keep the bulk in my bag down

Probably the most expensive makeup I've ever had - I don't wear any day to day and haven't bought any for years!

It's been a very strange day back at work...

the fine display of batting by the England cricket team

Planning permission approved

Yay! Time to call my builder!

That is when the fun starts.

"We just need to finish this other jub Guv."

SB

Many congratulations to Mr and Mrs fsharpminor!

Congratulations! 40 years is a fair old time.



Do come and put your skills into practice in our house, ... please!

Went to see Harry Potter. Finally, lol. Absolutely loved it. Now I must read all the books again.

Congrats to you two- that is an achievement! Hope you have a lovely day on Sunday and the sun shines for you all

Having had the most amazing week on the BKA's Summer School.

It's been a difficult year for us, with a 'change of management' and some financial problems that meant we had to prune the SS down this year a bit.

BUT the organisation was great (we had a wonderfully unflappable and efficient administration person, ably assisted by the forums' own JudithJ ).

The students (bar one ) were absolutely wonderful - a sprinkling of 'old hands' but MASSES of new people of all ages...lots of young people, including several MEN for a change (including one lovely and very-pleasing-on-the-eye chap from the Geneva Conservatoire )...and there was just SUCH a lovely atmosphere all week - calm, friendly, positive, supportive .

The two Hungarian tutors were wonderful and (as predicted) the course fell in love en masse with The Lovely Laszlo *lol*. I don't think I've ever known anyone quite so remarkable - his quiet charisma seems to mesmerise everyone.

The last singing session yesterday was absolutely wonderful and one piece had me in tears. Still buzzing from it all and busy planning next year's in my head already...

Happy Anniversary, f#m!

Returned this evening from a fortnight's holiday in South Wales. Feeling relaxed and restored, but there's no denying it's very flat to be home again. Oh well - only another year until the next one!

Happy anniversary Fsharpminor.

We are off to the balloon festival in Bristol today, having lunch with niece, meeting up with brother, who is staying at niece's and giving him his other daughter..... then off to see hot air balloons etc....

Gonna be fun!

We harvested nigh on a kilo of purple potatoes (Arran Victory, I think) from our garden. This is unremarkable, except for the fact that this year we have only planted white potatoes! These are 'volunteers' - from last years plants, where we didn't harvest all the potatoes out of the ground, and the ones left behind have produced shoots, and then enormous plants, and then harvests. We've had other volunteers appear elsewhere in the garden - where we last grew spuds in 2009

Happy anniversary, f#m

Cyrilla : glad you had fun

Happy Anniversary Mr and Mrs Sharp-Minor.

I'm off to a 70th birthday party. (not my own!!)

Any chance of a cake emoticon?

Other than this one.

Happy Anniversary Mr and Mrs fsharpminor - hope you're having a lovely day today

Happy Anniversary fsharpminor

Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary Mr and Mrs f# minor. I believe there is a beautiful rose called Ruby Wedding that I bought the outlaws when they reached that mile-stone.

Cyrilla, glad to hear you enjoyed the BKA summer school and that you were away from Croydon from the raging inferno and civil disturbance.

Today I went to play with some kittens that were about four-and-a-half weeks old. They have working names: Columbine, a comic little lady with a tortoiseshell coat and ginger half-mask; Twilight, a gingery, tortoiseshell with sunset-orange splodges on her face; Smokey, a ginger-tabby girlie with smoke-coloured tips to her coat (She almost looks like a Phoenix emerging from the flames); Tom, your architypical ginger and white tom kitten; and Pippin a Ginger Tabby covered in Pips and hobbit-like in character.

Their owner is keeping Pippin. Homes have been found for the remaining four (much to DrD's relief!) and they will be told the history of their names, but their owners can choose to rename them. Even TS Elliot allows cats to have three names.

However, at that age they are so much fun! They view me as a climbing wall with a ledge at bust height! I had one nuzzling under my chin for about half and hour. At least with Dboys having visited them form a couple of hours after birth regularly and knowing how to handle cats, these kittens will be well socialized for their new owners (rather than a bunch of kissy kitties); I still help their owners socialize cats that would otherwise hiss, spit and scratch become decent lap cats rather than feral/semi-feral.

I successfully replicated my grandmother's recipe for stewed pork and potatoes. Takes me right back to going to grandmother's house during the school holidays.

Being back in our own church after a couple of weeks elsewhere. Don't get me wrong - the people at our holiday church were very welcoming - but instead of an organist they used pre-recorded music, which is absolutely deadly. It made me so grateful that I usually attend a church with live organ music!

Well, this was yesterday's 'happy', really - spending the day with the Lovely Laszlo and taking him to lunch in a quintessentially English (16th century) pub with Pa. Sadly Bag couldn't join us as she got stuck in vile traffic on the M26 .

I too got stuck in the most horrendous traffic round Earls Court but the rest of the day more than made up for the BAH-ness of that experience.

Thanks for your good wishes, we had a very nice Ruby weekend with other family visiting

The postman brought a parcel this morning and in that parcel was an Apprentice Flute. I got it reconditioned from just.flutes. I've never seen one of these before but it was recommended to me by Atarah ben Tovim and it looks like just the thing for the pupil I have in mind. Can't wait until September to get her tootling!.

Getting home from a cathedral singing week to find a refund cheque from Scottish Power in my accumulated post.

P4

Nice principal4!

I have found my glasses- great so no more squinting at the screen and headaches from too much reason... and oh... I could practice now too.....

Most of the time I work at home, my cat ignores me all day. The exception is if I am on the phone - she hears the voice and comes to see what is going on.
This afternoon I have a one hour training meeting, I have the phone on speakerphone, and it's on mute so nobody can hear me, and she is utterly entranced. Fortunately nobody can hear her regular enquiring vocalisations

A new job offer!

I have accepted the job offer which will keep me in employment till at least the end of the year. I am now just waiting for a contract to be drawn up so I can sign on the dotted line!

Yay!

The rotten music school who have treated me like a four letter word beginning with sh came and moved their piano and two cupboards out of my teaching space today. Actually the poor lad who got lumbered with the removal is new to the music school and seems quite sweet - none of it is his fault - even if they are paying him my salary. They docked four hours a week off my pay and gave it to him without so much as a by your leave, let alone an adjustment to my contract.

But I was delighted to see the instrument and the furniture being driven off in a trailer pulled by an ancient and puffing tractor. I don't know where they are going to put it all as they haven't any premises and I don't care. I feel positivley light headed.

Now I can move in my own cupboards and piano. It will cost me a fortune but anything is better than being treated like a doormat. I have worked for them for nineteen years, Seventeen were happy. The last two, since a new person and a reorganisation came on the scene have been absolutely awful. It's almost over! That made me really happy today.