Tuesday 25th October - Sort of sorted

 Yesterday was a BEAST of a day - at least the morning was.

Arranging flu vaccinations - check the surgery website. It looked as though they were sharing vaccination clinics with one of the other practices nearby, so I rang them (20 minutes on hold) only to be advised that no, if it is just a flu vaccination, not flu and covid, then my own surgery was holding the clinic. Rang my own surgery (20 minutes on hold) and managed to book for both of us.

I would ask those in charge of choosing the 'hold musak' to sit and listen to it for 20-30 mins, and then reconsider their choice - both surgeries had the same music,determinedly upbeat, repetitive, with a vicious backbeat (emphasis on beats 2 and 4). Do they choose it to discourage one from staying on the line?

Never mind. On to order some flowers-by-post for a neighbour. At the point where you are just waiting for confirmation that the payment has gone through, the screen froze... had it worked? or had it failed? I'll know when my Barclaycard statement appears - due any moment - but I think it failed and I'll order them again.

No problem. Next task - renew a subscription which has lapsed. Ah. My login was no longer valid - fair enough - but I couldn't create an account in order to put the order through as there was already an account associated with the email address. I fired off an email to the help desk...

One last task - sort out a query to do with a pension that will become due; it is a bit complicated so I did need to speak to a real person. Hey ho. Three minutes of going through menus, and then - deep sigh - back on hold. The music this time was not as offensive, but after half an hour it was time for lunch.

Lunch was the bright spot of the morning!

I got through to the pensions company after half an hour, and managed to stay civil and polite with the hapless man on the end of the phone, and everything is sorted now. After thanking him for his help, I did suggest to him that he pass on my request that whoever chose the 'hold musak' should sit and listen to it for half an hour.... he was non-committal....

The afternoon continue to improve - weather wise and pottering in the garden wise, so at least I went to bed in a happier mood.

Today I had a reply from the help desk, and following the instructions managed to renew my subscription - hooray!

Just the flowers left - I'll leave that for a while longer as it is not time-critical.

And Breathe - All done....

(10minutes2relax - Simple Beach)

Saturday 4th July - Discouraging Weather

I'm very glad it is grey and cold and blustery today. That might sound a bit mean, but today is the day that pubs andbars re-open, from 6am (six o'clock in the morning!! although I suspect not many will open their doors at that hour) and the tabloid headlines have be all 'let's go and have a good time at the pub! Although, to be fair, most are also saying (in smaller type) 'don't blow it.

Zoom piano teaching continues; we've upgraded the internet something or other in the dining room, where the piano is, involving miles of purple cable and several torrid hours of crimpimg connections to ends of said cable (and a few choice words). The result is that zooming is much improved - most of the time. I have a couple of students with truly horrible connections, where I'm listening with intense concentration to try and distinguish the actual sounds they are playing from the surrounding 'snap, crackle and pop' noises. I think this extra noise comes mainly from having other children playing and talking and using the computer in the same room, confusing the poor old zoom connection.

I shall still be zooming in September, as far as I can see. I've probably said it before, but zoom lessons are far more intense to teach and administrate than face to face, so I will have to manage my time carefully.

I'm following a number of watercolour sketchers; one, Liz Steel, starts her day by painting a sketch of her coffee. That's a good idea, I thought;

Liz Steel gets to go out for her coffee to a coffee shop whenever she wants... that's because she lives in Australia. Going out for a coffee is one of the things I am sooooo looking forward to.

Perhaps I should start a list of things to do once I feel that the chances of catching covid19 are properly reduced.

Meanwhile, there are books to read, weeds to pull up, and potatoes to harvest. Yes indeedy! I dropped a couple of chunks of potato into a suitable container way back at the beginning of March, and they are ready just in time as we are about to run out before the next delivery in a week's time.   

Monday 24th February - this isn't a totally a-typical day, to be honest

Today I have...

Done a page of 'pothooks' - it seems to be a good way of starting the day
made a list of outstanding tasks
Then I got up...

taught a piano lesson

put in a prescription request

wrapped three parcels, each with a letter, written a letter of condolence, written two more letters to accompany large heavy parcels still to be wrapped.

written emails to eight music students, another condolence rmail, a long 'catch-up' email to friends, acknowledgement of receipt of a book, and a 'thankyou for your email' email

Updated an inventory spreadsheet for work

Read a bit of the Parson's Tale from Chaucer's the Canterbury tales in the course of looking up how to spell 'accidie', and then following up this quotation

Envye and Ire maken bitternesse in herte; which bitternesse is moder of Accidie and binimeth him the love of alle goodnesse.

in which the word is used, in order to discover the meaning of 'binimeth' (it means 'to deprive or take away')

gone through two more of my god-mother's photogrpah albums and dealt with the contents ('keep, send to this person or that person, dispose')

Telephoned NS and I tosee what I have to do about my god-mother's deceased husband's premiium bonds which we found in a drawer; 'no, there are no outstanding prizes for this bond holder, no we can't disclose how many bonds there are over the telephone, you will have to download and complete these forms'

Downloaded the forms to reclaim the bonds and taken a deep breath at the information they require

Discovered that I can get a copy of his will and related grant of probate from the probate office online for the princely sum of £1.50

Emptied another shopping back of stuff associated with clearing my god-mother's house.

Stopped for lunch! 

Afterwards, for relaxation, I

sat and did a few rows of knitting,

made a start on creating a papier mache box (out of a cat food box and some old sheet music) to hold my book and diary and kindle and so on by my bedside table - getting generally gunked with PVA glue is somehow satisfying after all the word-smithing of this morning.

It's three o'clock! I've had a coffee and three chocolte biscuits and am ready to go!

I'll finish the box, teach two more lessons (4pm and 6pm) and then it will only be a few more hours untl bedtime! 

Himself has not been idle - errands and shopping around town, shifting two book cases upstairs in preparation for delivery of a new mattress later this week, emptying a shopping bag of my god-mother's stuff, and cooking lunch. The cats are now vying for his lap; whichever one has got possession finds themselves being 'stared out' by the other one... 

Saturday 24th February - Important News

(I know the day and date, because they've just told me on the 'Today' programme, on Radio 4. What a useful broadcast that is. However I've switched it off before they start annoying me with too many opinions and speculations. I know shouting at the 'Today' programme is part of my cultural identity but I didn't want to disturb the peace this morning)

The Really Important News is that I have just this moment discovered the sound recordings on www.thepoetryarchive.org

Radio 4 again. This is what we pay our license money for, and what makes it all worthwhile.

I was dipping into Clive James'  'Poetry Notebook' (too many ' ' marks in a row, but I don't know how to do that differently) and came to the chapter called

'Poetry Archive Tour'.

This is a list of poems, and his comments on the poetry, and how the poet reads them, BUT NOT THE TEXT. so, I reached for the gadgetry to find the text, and discovered www.poetryarchive.org

I've given the web address twice. For two reasons. So I don't forget, and to give you a chance to remember it.

So far I've listened to the first four poems in his 'tour' of the archive, and another along the way;

'Mayflies' by Richard Wilbur (which lead to by accident to the - to my mind - even more startling 'Barred Owl' - but who am I to disagree with Clive James?)

'The Whitsun Weddings' by Philip Larkin, which I encountered a few years ago; it reads like the outline plot for a novel or a short story. I'm tempted to have a go.

'A Subaltern's Love Song' by John Betjeman. Joan Hunter Dunn is how everyone knows it - rather charmingly JB can't find it in the book because he can't remember the real title. (Another ready-plotted novel?)

and then I listened to/read

'Jerusalem' by James Fenton, which needs a good deal more reading and thinking about before I go further.

Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone,
.....
stop me here before I write out the whole poem. But the lines seem to fly off the page with the force of a video documentary or news photography. here come a few more snippets;
.....
this is the cistern where all wars begin
.....
Jerusalem itself is on the move.
It leaps and leaps from hill to hill
....
This is us and that is them,
This is Jerusalem.
These are the dying men with tattooed wrists.
Do this and I'll destroy your home.
I have destroyed your home. You have destroyed my home.

Now I shall go and do something useful about war, or religious intolerance, or poverty, or refugees, or something, anything, because Jerusalem is everywhere, leaping across boundaries, continents, seas...

Friday 27th November - emails

I opened it

I looked at it

I read it

I understood it

I closed it




err, what was it all about?


Bother. Open. Look. Read. Understand. PAY ATTENTION TO IT THIS TIME AROUND.

Got it.

April 9th - Tewkesbury 4 - Music

There is no television here, no radio, CD player. And no microwave either - I'd brought a couple of sachets of popcorn from my graze box to have in the evenings, but they will just have to come home with us. I'm not so keen on popcorn that I'm about to mess about with saucepans.

So, we have spent the evenings reading, watching the fire and listening to music.

Because, although this is a low-tech place, we came prepared!

How do you think I am getting these posts up - letter by letter on my mobile phone, and then hour by hour over a weak and flaky internet connection? No Way!




Dangling from the medieval masonry is a magical black box that gives us wi-fi! I may be on holiday, but I can still gmail, and tweet, (and, until I messed up my password this morning, do facebook). I am CONNECTED!

Ranged on the stone sills are - to the right - all the chargers for kindles, phones, tablet, laptop, mp3 player and power for a portable speaker. To the left, the mp3 player and the speaker itself, not very powerful, but enough to provide gentle background music.


Over the past days we have listened to

Bach cello suites - perfect in this ambience,
The Hilliard Ensemble with Jan Gabarek  - a haunting interpretation of early choral music and saxophone improvisations
The London Quartet (a vocal quartet, just to explain!) singing my totally favourite album "Lullabyes and Goodbyes"
Chopin Etudes.

Last night I was able to buy and download The London Quartet's latest CD, "Songs of Love and War" from the ChampsHill label, and I listened to that today while He was out exploring and I was having a lazy afternoon.

I could, I suppose, go browsing, using my laptop and our wi-fi connection, and buy even more music... tempting...

All this music somehow seems to enhance the peace and quiet of this place.

Sunday 24th November - A lively morning

On three occasions in the past couple of months I have woken up feeling -

(to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands")

I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic,
I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic,
I'm alive, awake, alert,
I'm alert, awake, alive,
I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.

There are actions; on the words

alive, pat knees once
awake, touch shoulders with both hands
alert, touch head with both hands
enthusiastic, clap on thu, stamp on sias, click fingers on tic
(or is it click on sias and stamp on tic? Does it matter?)

The point being that on these memorable mornings I have been feeling the way, the way that, - well, the way I used to feel most of the time. back then. In long-gone days of yore.

It could be the result of the various drug treatments over this past year (that have been making me feel tired, but have also improved my health), or maybe it's just a sense of emerging from a long tough year.

On the previous lively mornings, the effect wore off quite quickly, but today I felt bright and breezy and up for it and ready for action for most of the day.

Just as well - I left home in time to perform my turn on the church transport rota, collecting and looking after a resident of a local home. As I turned in, I met someone else from church coming out, with that person already loaded into the car. I followed them all the way back to church, where I discovered that I had entirely forgotten that I was on the rota as organist for the early service (luckily someone in the congregation was able to stand, or rather, sit, in for me). And, because someone else was now looking after the resident from the home, I hadn't needed to swap myself off the prayer rota that day. So, instead of being treble booked for the services, I had nothing to do except sit and be a member of the congregation. Did you get all that? No matter.

Anyway, that's probably why this morning's liveliness lasted so long!

Monday 4th November - Afternoon Off

Bet you thought I'd forgotten another day in this blog-posting challenge lark already - well, I've brought the laptop upstairs, and I'm rattling away at the keyboard in bed.

....

Having worked fairly hard all morning at this, that and the other, I was nearly late for my first school of the day - djembes at 2pm. (Sounds like "daggers at dawn" - maybe not quite as aggressive and dangerous as that.)

I tore myself away from watching a moody western film on day-time TV - Hombres - and zipped across to the next village, along the lanes, swished through the remains of the flooding across the road, past the pub, the shop and the church, and swung a right into NO NO NO NO NO - the gate into the staff car park was shut!

So I stopped where I was, and went over to open the gate. That's funny - the car park was empty! The blinds were all closed in the classroom windows! Not a soul to be seen, not a sound to be heard...

AHA - Simple, Dr Watson. It must be an INSET DAY - first Monday after half term. Would have been nice to know in advance.

A few minutes later my colleague, another music teacher, turned up - we share the teaching of this class. So, after a quick conversation, we decided to go back to my house for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and for him to eat his lunch, before he zoomed off to the next town for wind band and big band and whatever, and I started piano teaching. We spent a pleasant hour, setting the world of music teaching to rights and sharing the gossip.

Very good cake, too; fruit cake, made with a whole teacup of cup of whisky.

That's made an unexpectedly relaxing start to the week.  

Sunday 30th June - Essays. Blogs. Jottings. Musings. Writing

I've always enjoyed reading collections of random writings;


"A Bee in the Kitchen" by H F Ellis (find out about him here) was one of my first introductions to the joys of the short well-constructed, piece of prose.

Bernard Levin' collected articles "Speaking Out" and so on - always brought a deeper level of understanding of the implications under the surface of the incident (Oh, how I miss that television programme, "Face the Music" with Joseph Cooper, Robin Ray, Joyce Grenfell Richard Baker and Bernard Levin. I miss it, miss it, miss it. Memo to self; can one buy recordings?)

Alison Utterly (an almost exact contemporary of my grandmother, I discovered from this) "Recipes from a Country Kitchen" and "A Country Child"

Garrison Keillor "Lake Woebegon Days"

Clive James "Cultural Amnesia", which I am reading now, and is in a different class to other collections of bits and pieces as it is so intense, so FULL of meanings, that a couple of pages blows my brain.

It's not quite the same as reading a diary (Kilvert, Edwardian Lady, Adrian Mole) although these too, at their best, are short, snapshot, vivid writings.

I find I can only read these collections in short bursts.

It is like reading poetry; you should really only read one or two poems at a time in order to find the inner lines, the cunning construction, the real purpose of the words.

It is like eating something strongly flavoured, or intensely sweet, or darkly chocolated, or delicately spiced.

It is like listening to "real" music, composed with intelligence and passion, played with articulation and communication and care.

It is like properly looking at a picture, following the lines, absorbing the colours and shapes, delving into the meaning.

Skim-reading, background music, food-for-refuelling all have their place in this world, I suppose, but their are wasteful ways to consume true art.

PS by "real" music, I don't mean exclusively "classical"!

What has this to do with blogs?

I was just wondering, at the start of all this rattling through the keys, if the best blogs were not a natural successor to the essays, diaries, collected articles, that were published in books and papers and periodicals, before this blogging revolution got underway.

You have to kiss an awful lot of frogs to find your prince, they say (I think I found mine after just one or two, so I struck lucky. Prince, that is). What would be the same kind of phrase with regard to blogs, I wonder.

PPSS And what is the equivalent phrase for princesses? I'll ask twitter.