Via SMS

This is an actual conversation I had with Anne earlier this week, by text message.


Anne: Did you poo on the kitchen floor?

Me: Not that I noticed. It's not the sort of thing that one normally lets skip out. Mince pie?

Anne: Nope it was definately poo

Me: That is very strange. No idea. Have you checked for wild animals? Also, where was it? I didn't notice anything when I went in this morning.

Anne: By the dishwasher

Me: Didn't step there this morning and can shed no further light on the mystery at this time. Although someone had put Daddy's keys outside my room, which was odd. They have the same Honda key fob, but I would expect Daddy at least to be able to tell the difference.

Anne: Meh


Two things:

1. We haven't yet solved that particular mystery. Anne says it was me. I maintain that if that was the case, a bit of stray poo is the least of my problems.
2. Yes, my text messages are really that long. "Skip" was a predictive text typo, though: I meant to say "slip".
   

Hello again

Hello again, everyone!

Where were we? I was in Germany, and very wet, I believe. I expect that you will not be surprised to hear that I am no longer wet. Are you surprised to hear that I am no longer in Germany? Whether you are or not is immaterial, I suppose. The fact is, I have been here for about two months now, and have actual productive employment. My job no longer makes me want to find any excuse to avoid going, even though I have to wake up before 7am (which is an actual real time, it would appear) in order to ensure that I can both have dry deodorant before I get dressed and get to work on time. Both of these things happen most days.

Generally, when one has been through an interesting experience, such as my great moving to Germany escapade, one will summarise some things about it. Normally, they will use actual sentences, quite unlike the sentence I just failed to write in a convincing manner. I will attempt to write something vaguely summary-like and interesting. I do not promise that paragraphs will not contain much repetition of interesting words. It is late, and my brain broke about the time I went on anti-depressant drugs. (Don't worry - it's just the memory and a certain amount of the cognition that went. I know absolutely nothing about the subject, and am therefore confident that they will return when the drugs are stopped.)

The big reasons for my Germany trip were to learn German and to get some organ building work experience in a country that wasn't the UK. Under the circumstances, I was looking to get work experience in Germany. I failed on both counts. My German has improved to such an extent that I can have a very slow and stilted conversation with a friendly German who really, really wants me to know what they are saying, and is prepared to use very simple language and slow speech. I demonstrated this three times on my last day! (And the day after that I arrived in Paris and had what I remember as a fairly effortless conversation in French - it's good to know that one of my foreign languages improved. Although, having said that, on my penultimate day in Germany I did have a date in French. It lasted for hours. I think that my French improved a lot.)

The work experience thing failed. I was getting somewhere about two weeks before I left (friend of a friend of a friend), but then time ran out and it wasn't worth pursuing.

Another thing that failed was my looking after of the vegetable garden. The guy who owned the flat was not impressed. I had thought that I had left it in a more-or-less OK state (freshly mown! Weeded in parts! No apples on the grass!), but I was wrong. I will not take on a vegetable garden on my own again in a hurry. No siree.

I did learn how to spin and weave, though. I made three scarves which could be worn, one of which was good and all of which were pretty. OK, so it took about 40 hours of spinning to produce the yarn for the good scarf, and I cheated and used entirely bought yarn for the other two, but it's not as though I was short of time.

Another thing I did was reflect. And find myself ready to start to work and interact with people again.

And I didn't gain weight, overall. Which is more than can be said for the last two months.

I also realised that I enjoy the company of family members a lot. This made moving back to my parents' house seem like a very inviting prospect. That was excellent, because it's great! I am especially enjoying time off being a proper adult who has to cook for herself. One day I shall return to that role, and I shall enjoy it; being able to ignore it completely at the moment should have a decidedly restorative effect. I love running away from things!

It was hard spending so much time away from having conversation with people. On my return, though, it was very strange. There's this thing about people in England: they speak English. If you want to ask them a question, you just ask it in English and they understand, then answer you in English. You don't have to translate your question into German, or even French. Nor the answer. They only rarely use vocabulary with which I am not familiar (the local vernacular can be interesting). It is so liberating! Shopping briefly became an adventure!

So, the job. Pretty much what I wanted, really. Organ building. Not making new organs, so there is no requirement to make 61 pipes which are beautiful and identical except that each one is ever so slightly smaller than the last one in nearly every way, and is possibly also a little less eary. Of course, I still have to clean the little darlings, and make them beautiful again, but that's actually quite fun. Not that making pipes would not be fun (she says, seeing her future career running away without so much as a backwards glance), but a whole week of doing nothing but making pipes would not please me in the slightest.

One of the excellent things about this job is the variety. I won't go so far as to say that there are never two days the same, because that would be untrue. There are an awful lot of organs which need to be tuned, and that involves sitting more-or-less stationary and moving my fingers, hands and arms a little, but mostly keeping them still. That gets samey. I enjoy it a lot, though. (I think that this is evidence that I am a little wrong in the head, but I am sure that it would not take much digging to find evidence which is significantly more compelling than this.) Cleaning pipes can last for days, too. That is only dull if a) you are entirely sane; b) the pipes have been washed already, but poorly, and the job is therefore being repeated or c) you know it will last for three days. So far, only the middle condition has been fulfilled in my case (and that only rarely), so I am enjoying that, too.

One of the less excellent things about this job is the cold. I am investing in more warm things. I have some sheepskin fingerless gloves, which feel as though they are hugging my hands. I love them. Any week now, the thermal underwear comes out. The overalls I was given are holding that at bay nicely, though, as is the very thick fleece, the Puffa gilet and the scarf. I'm not thin at the best of times, but I imagine that I look somewhat Michelin-Man-like when I am tuning.

I think that I will probably not talk about the job very much now, though. It's never a good policy to blog about work, and it is possible that I have said too much already.

I also got myself another organist job. I think that, this time, the situation was not desperate (normally, when people offer me a job as an organist, they are), and it was more a case of both knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. Having a very flexible approach to when I work probably helped, too. And this job is for one Sunday per month! It hasn't exactly started yet, but it sort of has; I played on Sunday because the service was on the piano and Dave the Organist (for it is his church) hates pianos. At the risk of receiving an angry look, I shall venture to say that pianos are not wild about him. Reducing antipathy, getting some practice in on an easy instrument and earning some money are all excellent motivators, so I was glad to volunteer for this particular service.

The service mostly went well. I don't think that I played badly at all, and my wrong note percentage was way below 1. I also had an 80% success rate for playing the hymn I had agreed to play. That's not bad for a first time, is it? Anyway, the offending 20% of hymns was only out by 1 (258, instead of 259). And the congregation didn't seem to know the one I was supposed to play. And I admitted my mistake only a few moments after I was supposed to have started to play, but had instead looked in horror at the hymn book and the lack of a match between the hymn I had practised and the hymn which was in front of me, and the unlikeliness that I would be able to sight-read something so modern at such short notice. Fortunately, the theme was about the same, and the people leading the service very graciously allowed me to play the hymn that I had prepared. I then played through the whole thing reasonably well (just in case nobody knew it), which made a change as I usually go to pieces when I completely fail to play a single note of what I should be playing (i.e. the correct hymn). Thank goodness it was an easy one!

In future, however, I shall most certainly not be agreeing which hymns I will play on a Friday night. That is a night for family fun, and not for doing things which involve cognition. I was warned about the likelihood of the exact mistake I ended up making, in a particularly explicit way (that's the wrong hymn - she wants 259), but convinced myself that I had made a typo and that I knew what I was doing. I had not, and I did not. Lesson learned, I hope!

It's not all organs, though. I have taken up Pilates again. I like it. It helps me to lift heavy trays of pipes like a man. Grr. Hear me roar, and all that. And climbing is happening, too. Sometimes. I have been lent a spinning wheel, and have bought a digital radio (Tesco - working really well so far and helping me to get to sleep at night, and to wake up in the morning. Currently it is about fourth on the list of my best friends. I suppose this means that I should give it a name, but I apparently don't treat all of my close friends with that much respect).

Mother let me put up a net of white lights on the wall above my bed, and Father helped me to achieve the drilling of holes. I love it - I can turn the light off without leaving my bed. I have given up on my old mobile phone (it was convinced I had plugged in headphones, and so would not speak to me without a loudspeaker) and now have a "new" one (from HWSNBN, via Anne), which has really horrid text settings. If I sent text messages, I would probably have gone mad by now.

This is turning into a list. I so wanted it to be a pretty little narrative. Ah well - that's a whole load of narration out of the way. It has just occurred to me, though, that if I am not talking about either of my jobs (the real one, or the one which happens once a month), my love-life (or complete lack thereof), and I am not really seeing any of my friends, this blog will continue to be very dull. It's not even as though I am going to make any soap in the near future, as I made about 12kg of the stuff before I left England for France. I have about 11 1/2kg left (I gave quite a bit away). (I know - I'm exaggerating. I have under 11kg left.)

Ah well. We shall see. And it's not as though anyone reads this, anyway, so nobody will be disappointed.

Let's summarise now, and get a cup of tea before listening to Radio 7 and going to sleep:

Life is good. I like it.

Conclusions

Coat: waterproof
Front of trousers: not waterproof
Seat of trousers: not waterproof
Back of trousers: not enough evidence to judge
Shoes: pretty much waterproof
Socks: evil devices for channelling water into pretty much waterproof shoes


It is raining in Münster. I was warned that it rained here pretty much like it rains in Lancaster. So far, this has not been the case. In my recent Lancaster experience, it has rained on an awful lot of days, and generally not all that hard. In my more recent (and yet admittedly more limited) Münster experience, it rains less frequently, but with a bit more commitment.

The first time I was caught in the Münster rain, I was on my way to an organ recital at the Dom. Mother and Anne were arriving that evening, and I hoped to sneak in a quick bit of music before I collected them from the station. I cycled to the Dom, wearing my jeans and waterproof jacket. This was when it became clear to me why one does not wear jeans when out hiking. It also became apparent that my waterproof jacket was a long way from living up to its name. Granted, the jacket part stood, but the waterproof part was not in evidence at all. It stuck to me. I wore it during the recital (those who didn’t walk out in protest at the fact that there was not, at any point, any discernable tune gave it a standing ovation. I can only assume that he played the random notes very well), as the other option was putting it on again while it was cold and wet, and I figured that my body heat might make it dry out more quickly. Certainly, by the end of the recital the sleeves were sticking to my arms with much less commitment than they had been at the beginning of the recital.

Yesterday, there was a repeat performance. On Sunday, it rained a lot, too. As the Internet is closed on Sundays, I took the opportunity to stay indoors all day and read, mostly. I also did some spinning, and worked on a job application letter. It was a lovely day. I was supposed to go to the vegetable garden and water it, but figured that I would probably get away with leaving that to the weather.

Yesterday, however, there were things to which I had to attend. I went and bought some wool to complement the wool I have been spinning (I will shortly start to weave what I hope will be a very beautiful scarf, but must first spin yet more wool, so that I have enough warp threads), then went to check my e-mail, and whatever else it is I do. I left at a more reasonable time than usual, as I wanted to go to a supermarket that closes at 10pm. Unfortunately, it was raining quite hard.

Mother had taken pity on me during her stay, and lent to me another pair of trousers and her waterproof jacket. You know how it went. The trousers, though, dried out impressively quickly. The socks were still wet when I went to bed.

Today it continues to rain. I was hoping to find a pair of waterproof trousers here, but have not done so. Had I realised the extent of the rain, I would have asked Mother to bring my waterproof trousers with her, but I realised too late. Today, I must do the Internet thing again – there are things I need to check before I send off this job application letter. Which I would like to do today. Which SO isn’t going to happen. I am annoyed with myself for being so behind. I need to make plans, which I will not be able to do until I hear about the results of this letter.

And on that note, I shall leave the dry sanctuary of the flat, and head out into the Great Known. And get wet. Who knows – I may even get this job application finished, printed and sent before the Post Office closes...

More perky

I am feeling a bit more perky today. I actually started to feel better yesterday evening. No idea why. Today I gave myself a list of things and accomplished them. OK, so the list consisted of going into a building, looking at a piece of paper, sending a text message and then doing a few things on the Internet, but I did it all! Go me!

Then (then being after I wrote the list, but before I started to accomplish things on it. My time-line is not excellent), in a fit of responsibility, I took out my biological waste, which consisted of two tea bags and some cereal on which I poured milk which smelled fine, but looked, shall we say, gloopy. Not a good look for milk. It does have a big advantage, though – I was able to salvage most of the cereal by scooping the really nasty bit out and putting the rest in another bowl. This pleased me – gluten-free cereal is not cheap, and this has something approximating real chocolate in it.*

While I was accomplishing this great feat of preventative flat maintenance (avoiding both fruit flies and bad smells), I decided that I would go to the bike shop over the road if the time was after 2pm. As it was 1.58 at the time, I gave myself a day’s grace and went into the basement to get the bike (phew – that was a close shave!). On the way up the basement steps, with the considerably heavy bike by my side (well, at arms length ahead of me – I find that if I lock my arms straight it makes pushing the bike up the cunning slope at the side of the steps that much easier), I was accosted by a man.

When one of my schoolfriends tells these stories, they always end badly. I have been involved in a few myself. She has a strange man magnet, I think. Hers normally start, “I was (insert place and activity here) and this really strange man started talking to me/started to follow me/was minding his own business until I started to talk to him and thus sealed my own fate” (note that she doesn’t actually say the third option, but I have been involved situations with strange men and her more times than I care to remember, and the last option does occur in times of crisis involving lost hikers and a need to know whereabouts on the map we are. At least two times in Wales alone). My stories end better. They usually give me houses, or something.**

This man asked me if I needed a bike. In German, of course. I wonder if he was the Russian man who fixes bikes and is rumoured not to speak much German but to be good at English. If he was, the rumours are not to be relied upon – his English was almost as bad as my German. However, he showed me a bike chained to a nearby railing, unchained it, and motioned that I was to try to ride it. I did this, and marvelled at how diminutive it felt. I think that it was the perfect size for me, but my perception of what a bike should feel like has changed somewhat over this past week. I rode it round, noting that it uses the pedals to brake, like a Dutch bike (although it has a “standard” brake, also), and that it felt like a bike (which is a good thing) He said that he would come to my flat this evening.

This evening, he did indeed come to my flat. He took me to the bike again, greased its chain, and got me to ride it round again. Then he put it in the basement for me. He pointed out that it has no lights (well, no dynamo to power the lights) and I said that I had a rear light, but not a front one, but that I could get them both (note that the conversation was not nearly this succinct – it involved a lot of gestures and, at one point, the English-German dictionary (thank you, Henry – it’s excellent!)). I do need to obtain a screwdriver now, also, but I think that I can manage that.

Alas, that means that I must once again go buying things tomorrow. I have no idea which is the cheapest place to buy cycling accessories. I get the impression that my local supermarket is not it. Perhaps Lidl is the way forward. If only Germany knew about Home Bargains (aka Half-price or less). I don’t understand why countries make do without Home Bargains. I wonder if Germany has an equivalent. I already found the Superdrug equivalent, and was delighted to find a shop which is waay better than any organic chain I’ve seen in the UK (and, in some ways, better than Lancaster’s own Single Step shop. Not in all ways, though. This shop is clearly out to make a Profit). It has teff (flour and non-milled), and everything! But no general cheap shop yet.

It is amazing how expensive some stuff can be in Germany. Take tea, for example. I am paying 10 cents a tea bag. For an English person to pay that much is ludicrous. I can’t afford to support that habit! I just did some maths and discovered that I am accustomed to paying about 5 pence per tea bag. Not such a big difference, then. The paper wrapping on every tea bag does feel a bit excessive, though. A cup of tea is not an occasion – it just happens.

Some things are a lot cheaper, though. Those little holders you can get for felting needles are ¼ of the price, compared to the UK, for example. Also, there is some tasty fruit juice which costs 89 cents for 1 ½ litres. It’s not all that specific about which fruit (I think there are 12 of them, so presumably they blend them according to seasonal availability)


There appears to be some sort of party going on around here somewhere, judging by the music. I cannot imagine that the other people who live in this block like it very much... The not so good thing is that I feel slightly sad that I am not invited. Listening to the music, though, it sounds as though it isn’t a very good party. I remember those. Very awkward. I suppose it is for the best that I am not invited.

Wow – the double glazing here is excellent. They have just closed the window and suddenly the music is just a little background noise. I imagine that my neighbours don’t mind the noise at all if they like to keep their windows closed. Oh, the marvels of German buildings.

Ooh – they’ve opened the window again. The party is happening in the next room. Wow. This building was built well. The music is terrible, though, and the lads there sound like a load of thugs (here’s hoping they don’t find my blog and work out who I am!). The girls have started to sing something very annoying.

For the past three nights, it has been so cold that I have had to sleep underneath my duvet cover, not on top of it. I think that tonight I could be closing the window, also.

I feel ever so guilty, though. I should so be a Catholic. I feel as though I am being bad listening to the music, and that I should turn it down. Ah well – I shall revel in the reflected badness of it all, and feel like a rebel. They can’t pin anything on me! If people knock on my door demanding silence, I shall just mumble in English, and that will make them be quiet! Mwah ha ha ha ha!

Midnight, and the party appears to have stopped. What sort of a party is that?

12.30, and it is in full swing again. I think that the lads have gone, as ABBA has started. It is a big improvement. It is “Knowing me, knowing you”, though. “Breaking up is never easy, I know, but it’s time to go”. Great. Just what I need. Britney Spears. At least it is nothing to do with me this time – last time I heard it, it was coming from my common room. Very embarrassing for all concerned, especially those who decided on the music. I don’t get the impression that they realised that it was embarrassing, though, so I didn’t say anything. How would they have shown their faces again after that?

Argh! James Blunt! I wish that people didn’t think that his music was so abhorrent. If they thought more of it, I wouldn’t have been subjected to input on the TV which means that I can identify some of his music and dislike it with authority. I much prefer not knowing what it is that I dislike. Somehow, the dislike is harder to put up with when it is defined. Also, they forced me to think about the music, as opposed to simply letting it wash over me.

Oh – they didn’t finish that song. Is he so bad that even people who choose to listen to his music, and go to the trouble of obtaining it, can’t listen to the end of the track? Poor guy. Did you know that he’s really posh? Do you realise that admitting that I know this makes me feel a little bit bad inside? But it is my duty to ensure that you are informed of Relevant Facts, when deemed appropriate. As I am the one doing the deeming, we can consider that this timing was indeed appropriate. But if you are better at deeming than I, please do speak up.

In other news, I have people coming to visit me. One friend is rumoured to be coming the day after tomorrow, and staying until Sunday, and Mother and Anne are due on 4th August for a week. I have the transport problem solved as long as I fix the puncture on the fold-up bike, and Anne doesn’t mind riding a Dutch bike. I think that I would really be better finding another bike for her, though. If her braking by use of pedals ability is anything like mine, there will be Incidents. This is one accident-prone child. Hmm. Had better see what I can do. Mother will be riding the “new” bike – her idea of a big enough bike is much smaller than mine, and there is no way she would be prepared to ride the large bike. Which I have just decided to call Hubert. The little Dutch bike is Franzi. It seems like a Franzi to me. The “new” bike doesn’t have a name yet; I’ll keep you posted. I am absolutely sure that you are on the edge of your seat with anticipation, so I will try not to take too much time. Naming bikes is a serious business, though. One cannot name a bike until one has taken it through its paces. It would be a mistake. The name might totally not suit the bike and then one would have to change it, or have a bike with an unsuitable name. Imagine the shame! Not only would one be the crazy person who gives names to a variety of inanimate objects, but one would be seen as having poor judgement.

Louise might visit, also. We shall see. It occurs to me that the weekend she is thinking of visiting could well be while I could be visiting the parents in France. That might not be good. On the other hand, it would be cheaper to entertain her than to take the train to the other side of France! Unless she takes exception to a braking system in the pedals, also. If she has an accident, it could get expensive. If she makes me buy a new bike, it could get expensive. I don’t think that she has that much power, though, and she certainly shouldn’t know my PINs. (Notice my cunning use of no superfluous words! Please note that I actually say “PIN number”, though; I am not actually suitably committed to the cause of Not Saying Things Wrong,*** because it sounds quite strange omitting the “number”. I am inconsistent in my use if correct English, and should be punished. But you’ll have to find me first. Do try – I could really use the company right now.)


*I always wonder why people put real chocolate in these things, though. It’s like ice cream – the chocolate can’t melt because the ice cream is too cold, and so you get chocolate which you can’t taste, which has a weird texture. With the milk in cereals, the chocolate stays similarly cold and weird. However, the chocolate pieces are small and heavy. They sink to the bottom of the bowl. This means that I get a mouthful of chocolate at the end, which I can then hold in my mouth until it warms up and I can taste it. It turns out to be a lovely way to end breakfast.

**Well, the first house in which I lived after ceasing to be an employed person living in student accommodation came to me when I was accosted by an old man in the street asking me if I needed a house. As a matter of fact, I needed one rather urgently. He only charged me twice as much rent as I was prepared to pay, which was about half of the (very cheap – this was in Lancaster) market rate – it was the summer holidays, and one can get some very good deals at times. So that ended very well indeed. The flat in which I am currently living was also offered to me by some guy. He obviously has a well-developed sense of trust! To live up to this trust, I have learned how to put the bins out (very complicated in Germany, although most of the complication comes from not being able to understand the descriptions of what goes in which bin), and have only spilled tea once! That is some sort of record for me, I think. The tea, not the bins. I can usually understand the bin concept and did, in fact, work for two weeks as Queen of the Dustbins in Taize. Although nobody called me that. But I totally was.

***Or, perhaps, Not Saying Things Incorrectly.

Life continues

I think that perhaps I don't really have the hang of this blogging thing. I hear that it is traditional to update more frequently than once every other month. Actually, openings like this are getting a little tired, aren't they? Alas, I do not predict that they will become a smaller proportion of my blog entry openings, assuming that we take what has happened in the past to be a good predictor of what will happen in the future. Perhaps I should just stop lamenting my lack of updates, and just pretend that any entry I post is, in fact, arriving at an eminently suitable time. So I shall start again.

Things have been getting better, slowly but surely. I am now doing one day per week of work experience at a not very local organ builder firm. This appears to be going well. I have learned that organ pipes are very dirty things (and am about to learn about the power of search engines to lead inappropriate traffic to my site, no doubt), and need to be cleaned very thoroughly via a variety of different methods, including poking with a paintbrush (or bottle brush) to dislodge the dirt, vacuuming the dirt away, blowing the rest of the dirt away (blowing is not the first step, because that would be very messy!), washing with a strong solution of specialist pipe cleaner (aka industrial strength floor cleaner) and wiping dry. Sometimes I even get to use a q-tip in the mouth! Of the pipe, that is, as opposed to my mouth. Not always a good idea to put q-tips in one's mouth in such a manky place; it would probably be very good for the immune system, but it might cause some damage on the way.

I am also settled in a new house. I have a room to myself, of course, and also a share of the rest of the non-bedroom rooms within the house. I am living with two other people and a dog. None of them dribbles, that I can see. I wasn't really worried about the housemates, but dogs can sometimes be slobbery little things. This one is well-behaved and friendly, but not excessively so.

My room is great. It's not very big (I have had to get rid of a lot of my things!), but the bed is comfy, there is room for my chest of drawers and single bed settee, it comes with decent bookcases already (and my colourful wool collection looks great displayed in one of these), and it is well-decorated. Like a student, I have my alcohol collection on my window-sill.* Alas, I now have an alcohol problem: it can sometimes be difficult to close the blind behind the bottles.

There is another disadvantage within my room - I am very kindly storing a bookcase for someone, and the only place for it to go is in front of my radiator. This means that I am not turning on my radiator, and my room is the cold one. Meh. It is going a week on Thursday, so not long to put up with it now!

Serena and Heather have both moved Down South. This means that I am somewhat lacking in local friends. I am dealing with this by talking for far too long on the phone to people who is not Serena, nor Heather, which is great but will probably start to annoy my housemates very soon. Time for a new mobile phone, methinks.

It is very strange having two of my closest friends so far away. When I am in my previous neighbourhood, I expect to be able to go inside a couple of the houses there and I can not. Sunday afternoons between church and more church are not the same without Heather with whom to drink coffee and giggle about silly things. Nobody ever makes me cups of tea nowadays, with the exception of my parents.

Speaking of whom, they have scaffolding up the front of the house at the moment. Anne has grand plans to get herself killed off before her thirteenth birthday by climbing up the aforementioned structure. I am to provide my harness (she has her own) and rope, and shall insist that she wears my helmet. Apparently Father is not impressed with the idea - he thinks that the little fatso** will wobble it and bring it down. Not sure if Anne is perceived to be the victim here, or if it's the scaffolding, the house, or the car parked on the lawn. I think that perhaps the scaffolding will withstand the efforts of a twelve-year-old girl to scale it, especially if she doesn't throw herself about much. It will need to be checked out thoroughly, of course, but I am hopeful. It's a shame to deny little children the chance to climb large structures.***

The next day, assuming Anne survives her trial, will involve me taking her birthday shopping. This is an excellent plan, as it means that I don't have to think of what to get her for her birthday. Also, it should be fun. We will have to have an early start, though, she needs to be returned and fed by 1pm, before being packed off for more birthday fun. At least that's what the parents seem to think it will be: Anne doesn't seem entirely convinced. Well, it's not her birthday until next Tuesday, so she can jolly well just grin and bear it.

In other news, Robert has communicated with Louise, and bought birthday presents for her on behalf of us all. It's her birthday tomorrow. This is the second unprovoked communication I have heard of between the two of them recently - it's almost as though they like each other. Weird. Mother thinks that perhaps they are growing up. I wonder if one of them has been taken over by aliens. Couldn't say which one *coughRobertcough*, but it's a theory.

Organ stuff is really starting to build up now. I am playing at the Motherchurch before the service this Sunday evening, I have a whole service to play for myself on 31st October, I have quite a bit to do in the first Advent service at the end of November, I shall be doing most of a Christmas carol concert on 6th December (ooh - that will be an excessively busy weekend), and I am playing for the wedding of some friends in early January. Plus some other stuff. On the plus side, I do appear to be improving - I played the introit at the Motherchurch a couple of weeks ago, and apparently got all of the notes right. It was pretty much in time, and sounded as though an actual organist was playing. Result!

I do need to step up the amount of practice I am doing, though. It's very hard at the moment, as I appear to be even more busy than I was in June, before I cut down on my commitments. I am excessively relieved that I did cut down on my commitments - I dread to think what life would be like had I not done so.

So yes, life is more or less pootling along nicely now. Well, as far as I am going to discuss it here it is, anyway! Certainly things are more calm and under control. The car has new windscreen wipers, and everything! Not new tyres, but we have to take thing one step at a time so as not to become overwhelmed.




*OK, so this is not really true. The majority of my alcohol collection is in my parents' house, in their top kitchen. I have no idea how quickly those bottles are going down, but as the important ones reside with me that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

**Extreme sarcasm. She's quite skinny.

*** :-p

Mmmmm

Well, I am happily settling into living alone. It is quite a revelation to have the whole house to myself all the time, and not to have anybody to complain if I don't clean the kitchen. Which, incidentally, I will be doing tomorrow afternoon, as I shall be leading a soapmaking workshop there, and don't want anyone to get the idea that I have no idea about kitchen hygiene. I am fairly sure that my theoretical knowledge, at least, is excellent!

Having given my bed away to a couple of friends, I am borrowing Serena's spare bed. I must take a photo of my new, improved bedroom, actually - there is an amazing amount of space in it. It is just the sort of bedroom I would like to have always. Such a pity that I shall be leaving this house in less than a month. The mattress is very comfortable, also, and I have a double duvet to go with it, despite the bed being a single bed.

I have also sent a lot of possessions home with Mother, and have offered to donate several pieces of furniture to some friends. The number of things that I own is slowly reducing. The house, of course, is not exactly tidy - the loss of my big bookcase has left the living room covered in books, and a search of my charity shop box for a shirt for Anne for Granddad's funeral has left the front room covered in the boxes that formerly resided on top of the charity shop box.

I am sure that this post was much more interesting than this in my head. It was also longer. Alas, my cognitive ability seems to be on holiday a little early (it's supposed to stay with me until tomorrow afternoon), and I therefore am having difficulty even making it to the end of this sentence. Perhaps that is my cue to give up and go to bed.

Time off drawing to an end...

Well, my little holiday is very nearly over. I feel like my biggest achievements during the period have been eating approximately a quarter of my bodyweight in chocolate and other sweet things* and making the dent in the settee a little deeper. However, this would be doing myself down. I also knitted a few comparatively neat rows in my current project,** without creating any additional stitches for long enough for them to become incorporated, and decorated the larger part of a room within 24 hours.

Damn - now I've given away the best bits. I may as well stop writing now for all the entertainment it will give. But, you know, I have over a week's worth of bloglapse guilt to assuage, and so I shall jolly well give a better account of how I have used this past week.

The week off started with a visit to the parents' house. They have better Internet than I do at the moment, but I do not blog from their house so that they do not accidentally stumble across this blog due to it being in that little bar thing into which one types web addresses. It would be a disconcerting blow to discover that their dearest darling daughter indulges in such a waste of time as blogging. Given my track record for wasting time, however, it should not surprise them too much, if they think about it.

That visit ended with a successful kidnapping attempt - on the Saturday evening, we left with Anne aboard. She did not put up much of a fight, and I scarcely had to use any force at all. Poor child. On Sunday morning she came to church with me (babysitting facilities are not excellent around here), but sulked significantly less than last time we tried that trick - it was very hard to tell that she was sulking at all. After church, we went to a local seaside resort to visit the supermarket, and I spent nearly all of my money. In a supermarket. Yes, I did feel a little stupid when I realised what I had done. I also felt a little broke - for this past week I have been living on £2.88 and my overdraft. Payday is tomorrow, thank goodness.

Upon leaving the supermarket, I realised that the car park was a pay and display one. Fortunately, nobody had done anything about my lack of a displayed ticket (although I would have been arguing strongly against a parking ticket, having just given the supermarket most of the rest of my money). Then we went home and I proceeded to make lunch, eat lunch, and sit on my bottom in a most unproductive manner. Anne put an end to my sitting, eventually, insisting that we should go to the Motherchurch so that I could get some practice in before my lesson that afternoon. Thank goodness she insisted then - I arrived just as Mr T, the choirmaster (you didn't know Mr T did choirs, did you?) arrived; he was setting up for the Girls' School's evening concert rehearsals, which were due to start as soon as somebody actually turned up. I got in about 10 minutes of particularly essential and productive practice, without which my lesson would have been extremely embarrassing, before rehearsals started and we scarpered. I did another hour of hanging around, dragging the unfortunate and remarkably patient Anne with me, then returned for my organ lesson. This went well, thank goodness; my last-minute practice was not in vain!

This having been achieved, we returned home and started on the serious business of making Easter eggs. I must say, if one is to engage in this tiresome task, a minion is practically essential. I don't know how I managed without one for so many years. We didn't make any, on account of it being quite late in the evening, but it was a start.

The next morning, HWSNBN was at work, and news came that he was off to Slightly Foreign Parts the next day with work, and was to stay there for a couple of days. Anne and I sprang into action: we went to the paint shop and bought carefully-calculated amounts of white and magnolia matte emulsion, some brushes (have just remembered that one still needs cleaning) and some white gloss paint, plus some sugar soap for cleaning the walls, but no rubber gloves, and in the process spent pretty much the rest of my money. Anne carefully stashed these away under the stairs, with the other paints, so that HWSNBN would not notice them upon his return home. Which he did not, as he does not look under the stairs habitually, and also they were with the other paints (the ones that came with the house) - camouflage!

Oh yes, and we also made about 12 full-size Easter eggs, plus a whole load of mini ones. I stayed up until 1am making sure that the last one was ready to set quietly, without causing any trouble. I did some painting while I was waiting - I painted some squares in different shades of pink, purple and blue. My artistic flare knows no bounds.*** I would like to say that I didn't go over the lines (yes, I drew out a grid first) once, but I think that it would be more accurate to say that I stayed within the lines about 20 times (i.e. there were 20 lines that I did not cross - in other words, probably about 15 squares had one or more edges which were as I intended). And some of these times I stayed within the lines, I then went over the line from the other direction, thus negating all of my good work. There is an excellent reason why I do not call myself artistic.

The next day dawned bright and early. We stayed in bed for ages. Well, HWSNBN didn't - he went to work at the usual time, then went to Slightly Foreign Parts at about lunchtime. We started emptying the room as soon as we were suitably conscious, and started to wash the room as soon as we were able. About 1 1/2 walls in, Some Guy, Serena's person, came round for lunch. The poor thing had to wait until we had finished washing the walls before I fed him. This took a while, during which time we discovered that the Mysterious Stains (there were two really mysterious ones, one of which had been hiding behind the curtains) would wash off with a judicious mixture of sugar soap and elbow grease, and also that whoever painted last did a truly shoddy job.

After lunch (to disclose a bit more, I started to prepare lunch at about 2.30, I think. Bad me - terrible hostess), Some Guy helped to rinse the walls. He was much better at it than Anne, possibly because he had more to prove, possibly because he had a longer reach, possibly in order to illustrate the importance of choosing one's minions carefully and not just taking one because she puts up little resistance and hugs one a lot. I think that is a bad way to choose a minion. Anyway, after that had been accomplished, Some Guy left, and we started to paint.

Oh, how I love to paint! The washing of the walls tends to be tedious (although these were less so than usual by virtue of their small size and interesting markings, and because it was so satisfying), the rinsing of the same moreso (same again, but with less motivation), but the painting is great fun! Obviously, I did the ceiling first - if one does this, one can be as messy as one likes at the edges and then tidy up later with the wall paint. Whoever painted last had obviously not bothered with the ceiling (nor with proper edging techniques) as there was a ring of blue paint round the boundary between the wall and ceiling; I was determined to do a better job. Although I would probably have done a better job than them had I painted the room using my hair as a brush, such was the poor effort they made.

Anne did a bit of painting too. I must confess that I didn't let her use the roller nearly so much as I ought, as it is my favourite bit and I am a greedy big sister. Fortunately for me, Anne is very tolerant and adoring. Silly girl. She didn't use the brush much, either, although I do not rate that as a fun job and was mostly just saving her the effort.

After that, I decided that we should have take-away for tea. The one I wanted to visit was shut, but we stopped at a cash machine by it. This is when I discovered I had a bank balance of £2.88. Anne decided that pancakes for tea would make an agreeable change, as she mostly has to eat sensible food. So that is what we had. They were very nice, and we had 1/2 of 1/5 our daily fruit and vegetable allowance each from the lemons we squeezed onto the pancakes. I only had to reprimand Anne once for excessive application of sugar, although I must confess that I only checked it once...

Then we (I) did the gloss paint. That was satisfying. The old gloss was quite horrifying, and this new stuff made a big difference. Once again, we got to bed extremely late. This time, Anne had to share with me as I had packed her bed away and she didn't want to sleep downstairs with the slugs.

The next day was Ikea day! Of course, I was late. We had to put some items back within the newly-decorated room and I had to re-paint the gloss that was visible (some skirting boards, round the window, and all stuff associated with the door), but then we visited the marvellous store itself. Wow. There were lots of items of furniture. The bed frame I want was reduced. I had to not buy it because it was too big for my bedroom. I did get some large lampshades, some waste paper bins, a shelf for the kitchen and some mini-shelf-things for my room. Then I forgot my credit card PIN, and had to use the joint account card instead. Whoops. Still haven't remembered that PIN. That is probably for the best.

Then I de-kidnapped Anne, and returned her to her rightful owners. I stayed for dinner, then went home at night while the traffic was quieter, and drove straight into a massive queue, in which I sat for about 40 minutes.

The next day I tidied up a lot more, then spent a couple of hours wrapping paper boxes in wrapping paper. This made the boxes prettier, and got rid of some excess wrapping paper. Now I only have about 3 years' supply. I also realised that the old paint I had used in my room (there was some left over from a previous decorating attempt. It was the appropriate brand and colour, and I decided not to waste it. Had I not used it, I would have run out of paint; it turns out that my careful calculations were relying too heavily on the truthfulness of the coverage written on the side of the paint tin, which were not entirely accurate), which had smelled a bit funny, was probably a bad idea; the room smelled funny. A bit like eau de cat wee - not the parfum, but a subtle smell designed to repel gently. I opened the windows and burned some fragrance oil. I also discovered that different sections of the wall smell different - it is possible to tell where the old paint was used, and which sections got lucky with new paint. I think that it will get better as the paint stays in situ for longer.

HWSNBN arrived home just as I had to set off for church. This was lucky, as my car had a dishwasher in the back; in a total lack of plot continuity, this appeared on Wednesday evening when my parents relinquished it to my care as they had a new one. I took HWSNBN's car, and thus didn't turn up to church with a dishwasher in tow. I am not sure what sort of a statement that would make.

After the church service I had plans to return home and cook dinner. Alas, these were messed about with my another choir member who asked me if I would accompany them to the pub. I apologised and said that I would not be able to come and then let my guard down. This was a mistake - he said that I should come just for one drink, and I did. We tried to go to the usual haunt, but it was full of people who thought that Maundy Thursday was an excellent excuse to go out drinking, and ended up in a much refurbished and new-ownered pub which had previously been quite dodgy. Somebody bought me a drink (which was good, as I had no money) and some cheese also turned up. Bonus! The choirmaster and organist were there, and there were a few male choir members and a hanger-on. All of the female choir members, with the exception of myself, are under the age of 18 - I don't think that women accompany them to the pub very often. It was a pleasant experience, though.

HWSNBN didn't seem particularly upset by my late return home, although he was not entirely impressed with the dishwasher extraction process with which he then became heavily involved. The dishwasher was moved to the kitchen with only a minor amount of fuss, and is still sitting in a thoroughly inappropriate place, which will not permit any actually washing of dishes to take place within it. I may remedy the situation tomorrow...

The next day, HWSNBN was at The Field, working on getting a large shed-type structure up. I went to church at 2pm, then to the choir practice at 6.30 - it was a big one, in preparation for Easter. I went to the pub again, and I was able to furnish some actual information about the organs that will be installed in the Motherchurch, hopefully starting within the next year or so. That was nice - it is fun having actual information. I did not, however, have enough, and could provide no information whatsoever on the pressure of air that would be used within each organ, nor the pressure within the extra loud trumpet they are having installed. I rushed back from the pub, only to find that HWSNBN was still in the vicinity of The Field. I did see the second half of the first bit of the new Red Dwarf thingy, though.

Saturday was a day of little happening. I was lazy. It was nice. Except that I had realised that I hadn't actually made an Easter egg for Anne. I think that I may have overcompensated a little, by making her the biggest, most Smartie-filled Easter egg I have ever made.

Sunday, of course, was Easter. The service was fine, and people generally didn't seem to notice the obvious deficiencies in my voluntary at the end - same old triumphant thingy, and still full of mistakes. It's not complicated, but requires a level of technical proficiency I obviously do not try hard enough to attain. After church was lunch, followed by visiting HWSNBN's mum, then my parents, followed quickly by dinner at my aunt and uncle' house. There, we went fishing. Uncle McMillan's big goldfish are living in the higher of two ponds, connected by a little overflow. They spawned, and the babies fell into the lower pond, thus deftly avoiding being eaten. Now he has more fish than he knows what to do with, and so gave some to Mother. I managed to catch six at once, and therefore I won (because that is what it's about). I also think that I caught the biggest one, although I didn't see the big one the others caught and therefore have no actual evidence on which to base this. They were all being infuriatingly non-competitive about it, anyway.

We played a board game as a family which did not descend into any type of warfare, open or otherwise. This was a bit weird. I wonder if it is the combination of HWSNBN's calming influence (he plays by the rules, and stuff) and having three teams, none of which was entirely composed of men. Anyway, our team won. It was quite lucky, I suppose. I had to mime "sick as a parrot", and was fortunate enough to be standing next to a parrot in a cage at the time. Most people do not have that advantage. They didn't get my Indiana Jones for ages, and they didn't get Del Boy at all, despite my making it perfectly clear that I was driving a three-wheeled vehicle. HWSNBN's "passion wagon" was hampered by the steam he kept drawing out of it - it really did look like a train. But it is the winning that counts, of course! Actually, I particularly enjoyed the friendly spirit in which it was played, almost as though the losers would not be executed at the end. Which they were not. So that was nice.

The next day, I managed to sleep in until 1pm. Apparently, I was tired. Anne built a "tree" "house", which was more like a stump shelter, but which was nonetheless rather a fun structure. The parents keep some particularly good scaffolding in their garden and basement, which is the basis for many excellent climbing frames. This was no exception. It was good to climb on, and had some planks. I spent much of the afternoon clearing out some of my crap from the landing outside my room in the parents' house. I am glad that task has been started.

Today I have done little. I took the car for an MOT (it failed - needed new windscreen wipers, which it now has) and ate some prawns and chocolate. I knitted a bit, then went to martial arts, then ate some more. And I read a book. Lovely day - wish that I could have similar days all week. Alas, tomorrow is my last day off, then I have 2 days of work before the end of the week. Oh, and HWSNBN is back in Slightly Foreign Parts, but I have no more decorating to do. I may settle for plumbing in the dishwasher, although I shall have to watch its first cycle so that I can get mopping if necessary.

Oh, and I read the Goldfish's post about blogging against disablism day. I really want to participate, but I have no clue what to write about. I suspect that I will fail to come up with anything profound (I will probably come up with something like "be nice to disabled people; they are inspirational" and end up with death threats) and will thus not write anything and pretend it never happened, while reading others' submissions avidly. Does that sound bad? Time to start digging, then! I tend to find that the standard of writing for Blogging Against Disablism Day is very high, and have my own theory as to why this is. It is as follows: disability does not discriminate; it affects really intelligent, eloquent people, and also affects people who are less so. Many of the intelligent, eloquent people who become disabled find themselves with time on their hands that they would not have had without a disability, and so they write blogs. Because these blogs are interesting and well-written, and I know about them, I read them. I then find that I am enlightened, to an extent. Of course, I am still me, and still very clumsy, and therefore most adept at saying thoroughly inappropriate things; enlightenment can only take me so far when I have this nasty little habit of putting my foot in my mouth and leaving it there for long periods of time. Anyway, nobody will ever read this far, so my ravings are safe until somebody types an offending phrase into a search engine and notoriety (in a weak, crappy way) ensues.

And on that note, having attempted to spell "foot" as "fut", I think that it is time for bed.



*OK - I exaggerate - probably about 1/120 of my bodyweight, if that.

**A scarf, of course. I figured it was best not to start too complicated.

***People whose artistic flare knows bounds such as, for example, the lines they are meant to stay within sometimes do better at art than I. Let me tell you, those geography lessons in which we had to colour in maps were a nightmare. I also couldn't seem to colour very evenly. Additionally, my handwriting has always been terrible. Model pupil, me.

A Break :-)

Another week is nearly over. Next, I get some holiday!

I have really been looking forward to this holiday - it would be an excellent chance to catch up on everything in a relaxed fashion if it wasn't for the fact that I am me and will therefore either pack my days so full that I don't get any time off, or sit around watching the television. HWSNBN was due to go to Dublin for the first week, which would have meant that I had the house to myself and could get on with tidying, etc.. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I only really seem to be able to motivate myself to tidy when I am alone in the house; people are very distracting.

Of course, I have Anne coming to stay with me for a few days. I shall be removing her from her home on Saturday evening, and returning her (via Ikea - she's a strange child and likes that sort of thing) on Wednesday afternoon/evening. This will disrupt the tidying, but will facilitate the Easter egg making; she should have the enthusiasm I am so sadly lacking after so many years of chocolate pouring.

If HWSNBN does go away, we will also launch a sneak decorating attack on my room. It has a mysterious stain on one of the walls, which somebody has tried so hard to remove (unsuccessfully) that they have scrubbed though the magnolia paint to the blue paint beneath. There is also blue-tack liberally dotted over the walls. Our contract says that we are not to use blue-tack, but apparently previous tenants have not felt constrained by this. Mother has some special anti-stain paint I can use as an undercoat over the mysterious stain and the blue-tack marks (when the blue-tack has been scraped off, of course), so they shouldn't represent a long-term problem.

HWSNBN does not want to decorate any of the house at all. He doesn't seem to like it very much, and thinks that the best thing to do about this is nothing. I am finding this very hard - I have a very strong decorating instinct. I want to paint all of the dodgy bits so that they are shiny and clean*. He just wants to move out as soon as possible. I suppose that decorating does affect him a bit, as he has to put up with the furniture being moved about while the walls are being washed and the paint is being applied (unless he is in Dublin, in which case he could return home to a shiny** new room. I don't think that this would go down very well). I don't quite understand how he can just live with the peeling window frame and dodgy colour-co-ordination in the bathroom. I suppose he can't, really, which is why he decided that we wouldn't move here. Even so, it's frustrating!

The Ikea trip could well be very productive. I need to buy three bins (one extra for each of the extra rooms we have in this house, and one for joinery) two rails for hanging up pans in the kitchen and a partridge in a pear tree. Or perhaps just a small set of shelves onto which I can put some boxes full of food, in lieu of a suitable number of cupboards. And, of course, I shall end up buying some random crap I don't need. At this exact moment in time, I can't think what else I could possibly want, but I don't think my resolve will be quite so strong when I see some random shiny thing I will suddenly wonder how I ever managed to live without. Oh. It's started already. I need (really, really need!) some large round paper lampshades for the ceiling lights. The previous house was tiny so we had to buy tiny lampshades so that it didn't look stupid, and so that we could get past them. This house has high ceilings, so we can get away with big lampshades. If Ikea doesn't have them (it doesn't have them in the biggest size, which is the one my parents need for their house; hopefully the next size down will be available) I can go to Habitat in Chester. This is always fun. It's a few steps up from Ikea, both design-wise and price-wise, but it is difficult not to buy the pretty things.

The organ playing is coming along slowly. I have managed to get in a few hours this week, although it has been a struggle. The prelude is starting to sound quite good, although I can't even get through the first page without making a mistake (or at least a slip), let alone the other three, but I think that a few more weeks work will fix it. I will then get to play that before or after one of the Sunday services. The Priere a Notre Dame looks really easy, but is actually really hard. It is coming along painfully slowly. At least if it looked a bit hard I would find the mistakes less frustrating. The hymn I am playing is getting there; I get most of the notes right, and am managing not to hit additional keys while pressing the magic buttons that change lots of stops at the same time. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Tomorrow, I hope to convince Dave the Organist to let me have a go on his organ for a few hours. I could really do with the extra practice, and his organ is one of the better ones on which to do this. It's really nice, and quite large; its tone is impressive. I started to learn to play the organ on it, and it is always fun to re-visit it.

I really want to learn some new stuff, but I'm having enough problems with what I have already. It is very frustrating! Some of the stuff I want to learn is reputed to be quite difficult, but I like a challenge! Except for while I am actually working on overcoming the challenge, at least. But when the challenge has been overcome it can be satisfying.

Have a great weekend!




*Well, matt and clean, anyway; I always use matt emulsion, as silk emulsion annoys me. Shiny walls are the devil's work. They show up every imperfection, and although I don't mind a bit of imperfection in my walls, I certainly don't want to advertise it.

**See * (Sorry - couldn't resist. Yes, my life is dull.)

Excuses

Already, this turning up to practise thing is not going well. I managed to stay late on Wednesday evening, and that was all the extra practice I managed.

Of course, I have some excuses. On Thursday I was doing joinery until 9.30, then I had to put up shelves in my room, but ended up talking to my parents for an hour. On Friday, there was somebody already there, practising. On Saturday I spent too long talking, then too long at The Field preparing the potato bed for being dug over, and had to prepare dinner on my return; after dinner, I was a little too drunk to be driving to church. On Sunday, I went out for lunch with Brian, and when I arrived at church after that, Mr P, my organ teacher, was already there. As he had a recital that evening, I thought that it would be better not to bother him; I went to sleep in the car instead. No point in driving home and back again when I have a comfy car. I don't think that anyone noticed - the car park was nice and quiet, and I didn't have any car seat marks on my face (yes, I checked).

Naturally, this week will be different. I shall go there and get an hour in before Postgrad Group, and Wednesday will also be fruitful. I may actually manage to go there on Thursday after joinery (the threat of very little extra practice before my next lesson will, no doubt, give me a little extra inspiration).

Yesterday, I played for the first time before the service in the Motherchurch. It went well, considering. I think that I got faster as the piece went on; this is because I was told that I had 2 1/2 minutes, and had better get a move on. I was told to relax, as there was no hurry, towards the end, adding credence to my theory. I think it ended up a better speed than it started, though. Most of the notes were correct...

I was a lot less nervous than I expected. It helped that it is hard to see the congregation from the organ console. It also helped that I am getting to know that particular piece of music quite well now. I think that it will be harder next time, though - I shall not be playing a piece selected specifically because it looked easier than the other pieces, and was by somebody famous; I shall be playing a piece selected because I thought it sounded very pretty, and I could download the score for free.

This morning, I played for my first funeral. The St Isidore's organ is getting sicker and sicker, and it was certainly a challenge making it sound passable. I didn't quite manage to rise to the challenge (because I am not made of magic), but it was a reasonably good attempt. Because of the cracks in the soundboards (the wood containing the channels which take air to individual pipes), when enthusiastic chords are played some extra notes creep in intermittently. This makes the player sound really bad. There are also some notes missing - I couldn't play one of the pieces I wanted to play because there weren't enough notes. One of the stops is profoundly out of tune, too. I was really lucky that there were a lot of people there, as the loud stops were more in tune than the quiet ones. Of course, playing the loud ones with the quiet ones sounded dreadful both times (no, I do not learn especially quickly. Thank you for asking), but the second time round I came up with a back-up plan. All in all, I was happy with how it went. I need to get in touch with the guy who built the organ, though, and see if he is up for spending several hours poking it over Easter. It may be a lost cause, but if it were a lost cause which played in tune at least fewer people would notice.

And it has just occurred to me that I still have not prepared anything for Palm Sunday, nor for Easter Sunday. I shall have Anne in tow for part of that practice time - I haven't worked out what I will be doing with her while I practice. I might just leave her alone in the house with Red Dwarf and my phone number. If HWSNBN is there also, they can watch it together. It really is essential viewing, especially as some actual, real, new episodes of Red Dwarf will be showing over the Easter weekend - it's important to refresh the memory about what went on before.* The downside to this is that it means that my DVD collection is no longer complete.




*It is not even slightly important to refresh the memory. This isn't Harry Potter, or anything. But it is nice to refresh the memory. Red Dwarf is, at least, more child-friendly than some of what resides within the DVD collection.

Moving, part 2

We are installed in our new house. The move went very well, considering. I sort of want to write a big long post containing everything that happened (I know that if this were a blog I read, I would feel cheated if the writer were to fail to do so for me; one day I expect I shall read this, and may be disappointed with the omission) but I am too tired. I shall write and see what comes out. The whole story may well do so... Additionally, I have told the story so many times that it bores me. But you have not heard it yet, and so you might not be bored by it.

So, the move started on Friday evening. Actually, it started on Friday lunchtime. I went round to the house and covered a couple of carpets with Shake & Vac (Neutradol edition) and hoovered (well, dysoned) one of them, before running out of time and getting stuck in the supermarket when somebody with many items beat me to the checkout and didn't offer to let me go first (which I totally would have done for her as I am perfect in every way, of course; my slight indignation is therefore perfectly well justified).

After work I went back to the house and covered all of the remaining carpets with Shake & Vac, and dysoned all but two of them. I then swept the kitchen and was working on finishing dysoning the living room (the penultimate carpet) when the parents, Robert and Anne arrived (HWSNBN was staying at the old house and packing, which was very kind of him). Mother put the dinner on, Anne and I went to Serena's house to acquire some chairs (it's so much fun having neighbours with chairs!), and then we had a tour of the house and started assigning curtains to rooms. Then, having failed to get any curtains up, we ate dinner. This was a beef casserole, with peas, fried new potatoes, peas, peas and peas, and was very tasty. As were the peas. I have learned that one bag of frozen peas is more than sufficient for feeding five people.

After dinner, the work really started. People started cleaning cupboards and walls, Mother did an amazing job of cleaning the grill, and I slunk upstairs to clean the bathroom. The magic vacuum cleaner came out and started vacuuming under the sink, and new and amazing discoveries were made in the kitchen cupboards. One of the back boards has rotted through completely, which is very yummy. HWSNBN has put the pans in that one now.

By 10.30 we were fed up. Robert and Father went back to the old house, and Mother, Anne and I went to pick up the van (I collected the keys for the van at 5.30, but didn't want to drive it any further than necessary, nor to park it on my new street). It was much better than the last van we hired from that place: it liked to go in straight lines.

When we got back HWSNBN and I loaded up boxes from the front room into the van, found bedspace for everyone and went to his mum's house to sleep in our bed settee, which currently resides in her spare room.

Wow. I have no idea whether or not this is boring you, but it is not exciting me. If you give up at this point, you are forgiven. If you gave up earlier you are forgiven, but you may never know without reading this bit...

Saturday morning happened next, as is its wont. We got up really early (for me for a Saturday morning, at least; not early by most non-students' standards), and were ready to start the move by 9. By 10 we had a vanload of stuff ready to go, so HWSNBN and I set off together in the van. We picked up German 1 on the way (although we had to leave behind his wife and baby due to lack of space), and had a quick run round the house to pick up curtains and move the landlord's furniture into one room for easy collection by him, before starting to bring the boxes into the appropriate rooms (we started off so well!). When that was done we returned home and started to load the van again. We were starting to get hungry and Mother was making lunch (bacon and mushroom butties) and cups of tea, so this took a long time. German Wife was wanting to walk to the new house with Baby, so I felt really bad about the time it was taking, especially as I had given an unrealistically optimistic estimate about how long we would be taking. We finally got the van loaded and put German 1, Robert and HWSNBN in it, then I went with Father to HWSNBN's mum's garage to collect a load of boxes in his estate car.

Now it occurs to me that this is getting extremely boring. Suffice to say it carried on a bit like this until 7.30, with Mother doing an excellent job of cleaning the old house and packing the occasional box while I tried to be useful and mostly just managed to be inefficient. At 7.30 we gave up for a bit and all went to the new house. Serena and I went out looking for dinner. The Chinese take-away we both adore was closed, so we had to go to the one we used to frequent the year after I graduated, when I lived in the centre of Town. I think that they eventually understood about making two of the dishes gluten-free (I had no gluten-type repercussions), and dinner was received enthusiastically. Mine was very hot. I don't think that I will have that exact dish again.

After dinner, the parents worked to make the new house ready for the night and HWSNBN, Robert and I went to move heavy things (such as the washing machine) from the old house to HWSNBN's mum's garage. By 11.30 we had finished this and loaded the van with a lot of the rest of the contents of the old house, including the fridge. By 12.30 we had returned the van and got to Serena's house - we stayed there overnight as she has a spare bed and we did not have enough space for beds for six people. Serena's mattress is very nice indeed; I want one like that!

On Sunday I did not have to go to church, so we went round to the old house and cleaned/emptied it. Mother and Father were amazing, and cleaned/moved massive amounts of stuff between them. I could only marvel at their efficiency (really, helping would have been more useful). After a while of ineffective helping, I went outside to get the garden ready. I emptied plant pots and planted bulbs, then sorted plant pots (well, delegated the task to Anne in the form of the "stack the plant pots in size order" game, with which she was not delighted), then swept the path repeatedly.

We also had lunch. Mother was delighted with her discovery that a pan lid makes a great emergency plate. Anne tried to spread butter with a fork. Much merriment was had by all. HWSNBN finished the ice cream, except for the really dodgy-looking bit at the bottom.

When that was mostly over, the parents, Robert and Anne went home. It was sad waving goodbye to them from the last time from that doorway. We loaded the car, then went ourselves; we were due at Serena's for dinner.

(Running out of steam here, you will be glad to hear.)

Serena cooked a lovely diner for us. We only had 30 minutes for dinner, as I had to be at Motherchurch for evensong and an organ lesson; it was very generous of Serena to cook for us under those circumstances.

Evensong was confusing. I didn't know what was going on, I lined up wrong, and I had to sight-sing some pieces during the service. Not really very easy! It will get better, though. One of the men in the choir was saying that he had just been thinking that the choir should get some female altos, so apparently my timing was good.

After that, I had my first organ lesson for nearly a decade. I have picked up some bad habits. The lesson went well, considering, but hopefully next week's will go better. I think that the main thing that I established was that I have to work on using my toes effectively and appropriately (the insides of the toes are fine to use, but the outsides are not), and on being able to find the pedal notes by feel, rather than relying on just knowing where they are. Being able to do that will improve my playing a lot, and should also make it a lot easier.

We started to look at a piece I got close to OK a few months ago. Apparently it is a hard piece. This made me feel a bit better - I thought that it was an easy piece but that I just wasn't very good. It turns out that the hardest bit is yet to come: I have to use the swell pedal!

Let me tell you about the swell pedal. Many organs are built with one section of pipes in a large box. This box is called the swell box, and the pipes are linked to one manual (normally the top one if the organ has three or fewer manuals); this is known as the swell organ. Shutters on the side of the box can be opened and closed to make the music louder or quieter by means of a large pedal in the middle of the piece of wood - it pivots, and when the top is closer to you the box is closed; when the top is away from you, the box is open.

Anyway, I have to be able to use one foot on the pedals, and one on the swell pedal: I have to operate the swell pedal while also moving the other foot around to play different notes. This is hard. Two hands and one foot each doing a unique thing involving much pressing is one thing, but when the second foot (and it varies which the second foot is, according to the music) has to do a different thing in a different place while the first foot carries on as normal that is a whole new matter. My co-ordination is terrible (although it is improving!), and so far I have not been able to do both actions at the same time. I think that I shall have to practise with just the pedals first. I need to be OK at this by Sunday, at which point I have another lesson. Hmm.

After my lesson I went home and worked on getting the house looking better. When I got back I saw that HWSNBN had made an excellent job of tidying the kitchen: some of the equipment had been put away and there was space down the middle of it. I was impressed. I worked on getting the bed ready (and failed at this - I got too cold in the night and nearly pushed HWSNBN out of bed by moving towards him to get the heat. Alas, he moved away from me, repeatedly, and then there was no bed left for him) and some clothes put away.

We got to bed late. I was very tired the next day and am still very tired now. It is hard to think, and I do not know when I will next be capable of doing anything useful other than unpacking. I'm not even doing well at that now - I need the landlord to come and get rid of all of his furniture so that I have an extra half-room with which to play.

So at the moment the house is a complete tip. The main settee frame is leaning against the wall next to the bed, there is no wardrobe to hang things so my dresses are still in suitcases around the bedroom, my room has a clearing, HWSNBN's room has a desk and a computer network (what can I say? He works fast), the living room is slowly being unearthed and the front room is full of unwanted furniture AND wanted furniture, books, DVDs, coats and other as yet unidentified boxes, plus a few plants thrown in for good measure. The curtains are closed today because there is no way I am making my way over that assault course before breakfast.

On the positive side, the bed is good and I have my underwear. I will soon have clean trousers in sizes that fit me, and bits of the kitchen are well-organised. The bathroom is not terrible (depending on where you look), and the bath fills up very quickly. Also, the house feels like home. I think that I will like living here. The bedroom feels like my sort of space, and the kitchen is growing on me (probably in the literal sense). I am happy to be here. Terrified about the playing I must do tomorrow evening (must unearth the piano to practise!), but pleased with how things are going. Yay!

Moving, part 1

We are SO not ready to move house tomorrow. We spent most of yesterday evening "packing" because I wasn't feeling well and he had to sort out some stuff for work. Pretty much all of my clothes (excluding coats) are now packed, but the loft still isn't empty. It's probably (hopefully, at least) mostly empty boxes, but I know that there is a rug, a candelabra and a suitcase, plus two fans still in there.

Most of my craft items are not packed. They live in two cupboards and I have this vague idea that I will probably transport them within their drawers. The same for the filing cabinet and its contents, even though I know that this is a stupid idea. I hope that HWSNBN will leave the craft items as they are and let me work on them while he drives the van to his mum's house to collect the boxes in her garage. Or that we will be able to leave a whole cabinet exactly as it is and simply wheel it into the van (I have removed the two boxes of oil and palm oil, so what remains is a lot lighter. One drawer is pretty much unspun wool alone).

I found the key to my bike lock yesterday, underneath the sink in a plastic cup. Why on earth didn't I think to look there earlier? Where else could it possibly have been? I am slightly disappointed, as I expected to find two keys together and I did not do so, but one is far better than none at all. I have put the key in the key cupboard (the place where I was initially confident that I would find it), so now all I need to be able to do is to find the key cupboard when we unpack and I will be sorted. I suppose that I could have put it on my key ring, but that would have been cheating.*

HWSNBN has been really weird these past few days. He has been slightly tetchy, but has not had any long-term shoutiness at all. I don't know who this unusual stranger is, but I would like to keep him. It is so refreshing getting in to bed at night after a stressful few hours to find this friendly person, rather than a resentful seethe-monster, there waiting to hug me. If this new patience lasts, I just got me a wonderful new boyfriend! Hooray!

So I have an interesting evening ahead of me. HWSNBN will stay at home and pack more boxes, and I will go to the new house with my parents, Robert and Anne (Serena might also turn up) and clean enthusiastically. I have the shake & vac (but the super-strong stuff) which I shall be using first, and then we wash a lot. If we are fast, we might get home at a suitable sort of time. Whether or not we are fast, the new house should be ready for us to move in to tomorrow. By the end of tomorrow evening, we will be installed!

Then we must clean the old house.


*In other words, I am so tired that this did not occur to me.

I survived!

The maths lessons are now over: thank goodness for that.

The first one did not go well - the exercise sheet I prepared was not well-prepared and had difficult exercises at the beginning and easy ones at the end. I kind of lost the class, and ended up babbling and losing the ability to add up and to write on the board. This was about 20 minutes after I finally lost the attention of the class, but fortunately the lesson did not last long after that. I am not convinced that many of them will have learned anything. I think that the Oxford English Dictionary may now be in the process of re-defining the word "crap" to include my lesson.

Before the second lesson I re-jigged the exercise sheet so that it was in the right order; that lesson went a lot better. We nearly got through the whole lesson, and it went along at what I considered to be a good pace, with plenty of time to talk to individual students and also quite a few comparatively fun bits. This very nearly made up for the profoundly unimpressive performance I produced in the morning, and made me feel a lot better. The class behaved less well (like teenagers in their own clothes (as opposed to school uniform) away from school on a Friday afternoon, in fact), though. It was a pity that the unruly class got the good lesson while the well-behaved class had to put up with a shambles.

Now I have to start to concentrate on the business of moving house. Mother says that she and Father, along with Anne and maybe Robert will come on 27th Feb and help to clean the new house, then help me to move on 28th, then help to clean the old house on 1st March. This will be very useful; cleaning is a nightmare! Also, as HWSNBN's dad is no longer alive, we will not have his help with the moving of things - he helped a lot last time and also drove the van.

Tomorrow we will paint HWSNBN's garage floor to seal it (so that it stops shedding concrete), and we will then be able to use the garage to store our boxes for a few weeks. That will help a large amount: the thing I hate the very most about packing is that one fills loads of boxes, but then has no space to fill additional boxes because the place is already filled with boxes. This way we will be able to look as though we are organised, and stuff.

HWSNBN still doesn't know about the hammocks. Mother thinks that perhaps they were a bad idea, but that I might be able to put hooks in my walls from which to hang them. I think that the landlord may not be impressed. We then discussed my wrought iron candelabra and my desire to have it up in my new kitchen. Mother says that it will make the ceiling black, and that I should use it in my back yard. Given that I acquired this about 5 years ago, and that I have to cart it about with me, it really would be useful if I were to get to use it.

I am looking forward to the space in the new house, and am feeling less anxious with the (mostly) successful completion of the maths lessons (nobody died nor ran riot, nor was the projector hit with an exercise ball) and the doing of an unbloggable thing today. I am .looking forward to jettisoning some Things and moving...

Review of 2008

So, another year is just about to end. I get the impression that it is traditional (although by no means compulsory) to do a round-up of the year's events, and possibly also to express one's New Year's resolutions, should one be the sort of person who goes in for that sort of things. I tend not to; there tend to be things I am trying to improve about myself no matter what time of year it is.

As this blog does not stretch back this far, my review begins in late 2007: on 12th September 2007 I handed in my MSc dissertation, ending two years of struggle (and joyous part-time work). I got my results a while later, and they were good; exactly what I had set out to achieve and not a mark more. I applied for a job on a new project teaching statistics to social science students and came second, but the lecturers in charge of the project were interested and suggested we do a research project together. I started putting together ideas. After a while they changed their minds and suggested that I would be better doing a PhD first, so I got an application in and started to apply for funding.

Meanwhile, HWSNBN's dad was ill. It turned out that the problem was a brain tumour, rather than depression and diabetes, and he died on 21st December 2007. We don't know that medical competence would necessarily have improved matters (he might have suffered through chemotherapy and radiotherapy then died anyway, with much more knowledge of his impending demise), but, you know, it is nice to know one can trust one's doctors. His funeral was on 28th December; thus 2008 started without him alive in it at all.

The start of 2008 saw me trying to obtain PhD funding (I think the interview was in March) and failing to do so (naturally this is because the panel was biased; there can be no other reason), then looking towards the open funding competition, whose deadline was at the beginning of May.

In the meantime, I tried to become good at climbing (at times building up a reasonably convincing amount of stamina and strength) and have now got to the stage where my skill level far outstrips my physical capabilities. I got this way by doing nothing, literally. For three months. Next time I go climbing my abdominal muscles will not be my friends for several days afterwards.

I also worked on martial arts (Kiaido Ryu); the moves are starting to become more instinctive, but I am still not particularly good. This stopped in September, and will resume on 13th January, at which point I expect to get into rather a large amount of trouble for my lack of fitness.

Hmm, this is jumping about a bit. Back to March, I think. I went to France to stay with Louise in the Toulouse region. That was fun, and the food and wine were excellent. I took great care to appreciate them both fully, and upon my return my climbing harness needed some adjustment. I returned to visit her in Bordeaux in July, and took Anne with me. That was fun. Bordeaux is lovely and I recommend that you visit it (and stay somewhere central) should you get the opportunity. Louise's room had three massive French windows and a balcony overlooking the street. I liked it a lot. Again, we appreciated the food and wine, and Anne got a taste of French pub life.* She did not, however, have much to drink, what with being 12 and not into that sort of thing.

August marked the results of the PhD funding competition. I was looking forward to being a full-time student in October, but had also been wondering whether academia was right for me. I decided that I would take the funding if it was offered to me, but if it was not I would look into becoming an organ builder, as this was something I had vaguely considered for many years, but had not thought possible. Upon failing to be awarded this funding, I did nothing. The letter I had to write to the organ building firm I had selected was daunting because if I got it wrong they would not want me. Eventually, with the help of a couple of good friends, I got it written and submitted in October, I think. They told me that I should learn joinery, then get back in touch with them, so I set about finding a teacher, who shall be known hereafter as Brian. Because that is his name. Brian is a Master Craftsman of many years standing, and seems to be a good teacher. Apparently I am a good student, too, although I must back this up with some actual joinery before we next meet, next week.

Since August, I have mostly just been getting things done; it has not really been a happy time. In September I got a nasty cough and ended up with breathing difficulties which still have not been resolved; their cause has not yet been revealed, for starters. They are very annoying. I have done pretty much no exercise since September due to lack of time and inclination.

In December I played the organ for a carol service, which seemed to go well. This improved my playing, but brought to light the inadequacies of both my organ and my shoes. I am looking to buy new shoes.

I also learned how to make felt.

As 2009 starts, then, there are things that I must do. Firstly, I must get back in touch with my PhD supervisors and look into re-applying for funding. Having worked so hard, it seems a shame to turn down funding should it be available. Academia is more lucrative than organ building (which really does not say much for organ building).

I must also work on becoming good at joinery. Whatever happens, I want to give organ building a go, and I am not going to achieve that by sitting on my bottom. I also have plans to start making musical instruments, such as simple flutes. I am sure that it will be good for me, and also hope that it will be fun. I shall chart this on my other blog, I expect.

I need to get fit again; martial arts demands it, and climbing helps to engender it, as does yoga. These will be my focus in all of the free time that I have lying around.

I have to improve my organ playing, and shall make efforts to do so, probably in the two hour gap I have free between work and Postgrad group on Monday evenings. I am also looking in to buying an electric organ for home, but have so far found them to be too expensive and too far away. Roll on the recession, and all that. That shrinks the country.

Most importantly, I should be a better friend. I am apt to see my lack of free time as an excuse (to be fair, a lack of free time does make it difficult to take on extra things), and not be there for people except for by prior arrangement. I need to do more things to make people feel good about themselves.

I want to make a success of my vegetable garden this year. Realistically, I am not going to do this unless the weather is good. The last two years have been damp and crap, and I have failed miserably (although there are now more paths, and I have materials to make sure there are paths throughout). If the weather is good this year, I may be able to salvage the project and grow something worth mentioning. Of course, if the weather is good I will need to water it (it resides about 7 (or is it 3 1/2?) miles away), but that can only improve how well I look after it.

I want to blog more regularly and more impressively. I speak mostly of suitable use of English, and of not mangling sentences, but decent subject matter is not to be sneezed at.

OK; there are rather a lot of imperatives there. I suppose that none of them is important if I am happy to stagnate. I am not happy to stagnate; I want to do more, see more and experience more. And yes, they are a tall order; they involve keeping going at things and not giving up. I can do that. I shall review this post this time next year and marvel about how much has changed, hopefully. I hope that the changes are good.

So any New Year's resolutions, anyone?

*What sort of a phrase is this? How embarrassing.

And so this is Christmas

It has been a very busy few weeks, and I have not had much free time. However, today (well, yesterday now) was Christmas and the stress should be over soon. Louise and I will be preparing dinner for the family (13) tomorrow evening, and then I may not have all that much to do before returning to work on 5th January. What will I do with myself? Tidy the house, then prepare nice drinks and read interesting books? Make things out of wood? Sleep? Watch TV while lying on the sofa with HWSNBN lying behind me? Nothing? Climbing? The possibilities are endless.*

Tomorrow I must get up, prepare casseroles, then go shopping. I am not entirely sure from whence this shopping expectation came, nor am I convinced that Liverpool will be a good place to go at lunchtime on Boxing day (why are the shops even open? Shouldn't people who work in shops get a well-deserved second day off?), nor are there many things that I need, but I am sure that it will be a rewarding experience. Anne is coming with us; she doesn't need anything, either. Blogging about this is making me feel very sheep-like (for good reason). Ooh - I have come up with an advantage! Exercise! It will, at the very least, be a medium-length walk which I would not otherwise have had (I do not go for walks voluntarily, due to a series of unpleasant walking experiences, combined with not liking it that much anyway).

I am rambling and should go to bed. I hope that you have had a good Christmas!

*Actually, that is almost undoubtedly not true; I expect that the possibilities are somewhat finite.

The carol service

Today was the day of the Christmas carol service. As you may be aware, I was feeling a little apprehensive about it, on account of being unable to play several last verses reliably without a congregation attached, let alone with one. Some of my other pieces were also decidedly dodgy. I was rather worried that I would play a wrong note at some point which would set a domino effect in motion and mean that I was unable to find any more right notes for the remainder of the verse.*

With this in mind, I was quite relaxed when I went to church this morning, except for the tension caused by my being late because I was tired and did not get out of bed on time. Again.** This morning's service seemed to go well - the vicar was a visiting one and she was lovely. She also sang very loudly, which gave the congregation a boost - it's not an overly enthusiastic congregation, singing-wise. My playing was fairly bad in terms of percentage of correct notes (the voluntary on the way out was so bad I gave up trying and made sure that I at least approximated one note out of every six in the last few bars - this did not make me feel hopeful about my playing in the evening), but the vicar said that it sounded good despite the woeful lack of tuning displayed by the organ (which is getting so much worse - the notes in the middle are out of tune now, too, not just the ones at the top of the keyboard). When I become an organ builder, that organ will see some changes. Except that I won't be in the area. But I digress.

After the service I had a quick practice session, and established that the pedal board on my organ is in bad shape, which did not come as a surprise. I have obviously been practising in great luxury on the chapel organ, which does not have wobbly pedals; I have been quite spoiled. The adversity is good for me, though - teach me to thrive in difficult circumstances. Eventually. I only played for about forty minutes to an hour, which went past surprisingly quickly (that is apparently what panic will do to me), as I needed to get lunch and my wrist was hurting.

I then went to Marks & Spencer and got a tasty risotto for lunch, which Heather and I heated up in her two microwaves (I know - such luxury!). It was very satisfactory, and much cheaper than eating out. Having checked my bank balance, I was in the mood for cheap.

After lunch I went to the chapel for the final rehearsal. I actually arrived 30 minutes early, which was very pleasing; I knew that the time of the rehearsal had a 3 in it, and sincerely hoped that it was 3.30 (it was) , but couldn't swear that it wasn't quarter to three. I arrived at 3, and got to hang around aimlessly for a bit.

We also rigged up a special system to hold the pages of my book open. I have no idea how familiar you are with the anatomy of a music stand on an organ, so I shall try to describe it to you. In most cases, the stand itself has a ledge on which one puts one's music, and there are four twirly bits of metal that stick up at the front (or lie down flat when not required) to stop the music books from closing, and also to reduce the probability of them sliding off the front of the music stand. The left middle twirly prong on this organ had been snapped off a while ago; as there was still a bit left in place, a new prong could not be inserted. The system we rigged up was very sophisticated - we tied bits of string round, and the music book could be slid underneath it - the string went from top to bottom, and sat on the outside edges of the left and right sides of the music book, so that they did not obscure any music. Genius! (Mis-spelled that on my first attempt...) When I am an organ builder I would very much like to incorporate a similar design feature (possibly optional) into my organs, as it works so much better than the twiddly knobs - it holds the whole height of the music where is it supposed to be, rather than just the bottom, and doesn't obscure any notes or footing marks. I think that those pieces of string will be staying there for a long time!

The rehearsal went quite well. O come, all ye faithful's last verse was rather a large amount of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I think that I ought to point out that I really love playing the organ sometimes - the feeling that I get when I am playing something loud and beautiful well is in my top three situations which make me feel good (one of the others is riding a horse in a field in summer when everything is going well...). I feel that I have complained about the organ and my lack of playing prowess rather too much, which may have led people to wonder why I bother.

The service itself did not start well; I did not play the first note at all, but started on the second note. This confused me, but I got the impression that nobody else noticed. Perhaps they are not very observant. There were a few other mistakes int he first carol, but nothing major.

After that I lose track of where it went wrong. There were at least two other introductions that I messed up (which is embarrassing as they are the easy bit - for the first introduction there was only one line, which was all played with my right hand), but people still didn't seem to notice. The last verse I was the most worried about went a bit wrong, but I picked it up and got to the end in style (very much enjoyed the second half of that last verse), and O come, all ye faithful's last verse had its moments (although not as good as in the rehearsal). All in all, my playing was mostly very good, with a liberal sprinkling of dodgy notes. I am glad that my teacher, Dave the Organist, was not there; he would have had many words to say about the quality of my playing, and they would certainly not all have been good. Now he can have the second-hand report, in which many of the dodgy notes never appeared.

Everyone I spoke to seemed to think that it went very well, so I think that I can conclude that I did not embarrass myself, and that none of the mistakes I made actually mattered. You know, it has just occurred to me that I achieved something**** - I successfully prepared a whole load of pieces in under five weeks (mostly in under three weeks), with pedals in many cases, and played them with lots of people to distract me. One piece had pedals throughout. I did lots of organist things, such as changing stops and opening and closing the swell box. Yay! I think that it will have done me a lot of good.

The parents and Anne came to listen - quite a long journey for a service lasting an hour, but I suppose that they don't get the opportunity to listen to me playing the organ very often. Nana wanted to come too, apparently, but Mother didn't think that she would be up to it - she walked to the village and back yesterday. There is not a problem, but back is uphill. I was impressed that she managed that, but slightly less so when I heard that Mother had gone with her - I had got the impression that she had gone to the village, then spontaneously navigated back to the house. Nonetheless that amount of walking is very good and very promising, depending on what one wants to be promised. I shall have to borrow Dave's organ and play for Nana some time over Christmas. Perhaps after a service so it isn't so deathly cold.

So that was it. Next year I shall be much better. And possibly located in a different area of the country altogether. Now I must put my newly improved skills to use and learn some of that music I bought in Oxford last weekend. It is supposed to be relatively simple, so I have high hopes.


*With the exception of the last chord - I have been confident with the last chord for a long time, and can reliably play it to an acceptable standard with acceptable timing, even when I fail to get any other notes right. It's just a talent that I have.

**Is the fact that I do not learn and modify my behaviour evidence that I am a bit thick, or just further evidence to support the theory that I am bone idle and need a kick up the backside?*** It's times like this which make me glad that I do not like my mattress much - imagine the trouble I would have if my bed were particularly comfortable!

***I realise that I did not cover every possibility here - there is not really enough information to allow you to come up with a working hypothesis. As such, there is no need for you to answer this question. Especially as I am not convinced that I want to know the answer. Ooh - another theory - I need more sleep! Then perhaps I would stop writing utter gibberish.

****I think it just occurred to me because I was so fixated on how it was probably all going to go wrong - I didn't even consider it going right as a possibility.