Saturday 5th July - wot, no blog post?

 No, blame Wimbledon. Last night's match (Emma Raducanu) finished at 10 pm; we were glued to the TV. She might have lost, but she played so well, and so valiantly it was a wonderful match to watch.

Tonight was Novak Djokavic, another great match to watch. I had heard he was unpopular because he had a reputation for being grumpy; no sign of that tonight. I thought he was charming, and spoke well at the end. He won, but said it was hard having to play against a good friend. There was a sweet little moment when he persuaded his little daughter to demonstrate the moves for his victory celebration. Aw, cute!

Apart from tennis, what more is there to talk about?

My brother and his son have hired a van are are coming tomorrow, and will bring us some furniture from my father’s flat; a little oak desk which belonged to my grandmother, and 'the Korean medicine chest' which my parents brought back with them from living in Singapore. It has dozens and dozens of little drawers; last time I looked they held packs of playing cards from the time they played bridge almost every evening (and sometimes during the day as well), and assorted sunglasses. We'll have a high old time going through that lot when it gets here.

Music

I've played this many a time, but never knee it was originally composed for the lute.

Bach Prelude in C minor

Thursday 3rd July - a quiet day

 Not all days are packed with incident; today was quite hum-drum.

To sleep, perchance to dream... or listen to the radio, or read my kindle 

Last night was not a 'sleeping night'. I passed the hours listening to the radio - the world service has some interesting programs, but I haven't a clue what it they were about now! The voices just occupy my head so that I don't worry about not being asleep!

When my tablet ran out of charge I fired up my kindle and finished the 'whodunnit' I was most of the way through. The screen is back-lit so I can have it on just bright enough to read easily while not disturbing BB, apparently asleep beside me.

Then I must have dozed off, because the next I knew it was morning and BB had tiptoed downstairs for his breakfast. 

I reckon I'll catch up on my sleep tonight! Although my tablet and Bluetooth headphones are now fully charged again, just in case.

Tennis 

I'm not a real follower of The Tennis, by which I mean Wimbledon. But we watched an amazing match between Dan Evans and Novak Djokavic inthe afternoon. To begin with it was a 'clash of the Titans', both men bringing their years of experience to the court and playing with skill and subtlety, to my untutored eye. But it seemed that gradually Djokavic was able to wear Evans down; the scores, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0 say it all. It was so frustrating to see Evans get to Adv time after time in a game, but never able to actually win. Oh well. 

I hated tennis at school; was useless at it. Once we were in the sixth form at boarding we had to umpire interschool matches, which happened every weekend. Always, in the case of us duffers, on the further courts, 2nd and 3rd team matches. John Macenroe had nothing on these players when it came to line calls, without benefit of line judges...

Music

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Debussy

Mr Heffer, I think that was his name, used to come and play this to us as school when I was about 7 years old.

'Sit quietly children, you are in for a lovely treat'. I think we were too young for this treat. All I remember was how boring it was. No proper tune at all.

Later, we used to watch 'Face the Music' on television with the wonderful Joseph Cooper as quiz master. Does anyone else remember Joyce Grenfell guessing this piece correctly after JC only played the first note?

Much later I learned to play it myself... it's so beautiful. Now, I wonder what it would sound like on the cello...

Wednesday 2 nd July - A musical oddity?

 The 'oddity' is at the end of the post.

Following a tree

I meant to take my pictures at the end of the month. It's not far into July. The leaf cover is so full that the two trees, giant oak and little apple tree, appear to have merged into one;

Our cave under the apple tree has been a wonderful retreat in the past very hot days.

I can sit there and peer out through the branches and see right into the house, right through the house to the street beyond. I believe it is called 'June drop', when the excess little green unripe apples fall to the ground.  There are still plenty left on the tree.

Soup

I gave away my stick blender and whisk last week, and bought, or rather BB bought a cordless one. Reaching over to plug in my blender was really a bit of a reach for me, and I'm all about simplifying things wherever I can. My friend needed a blender, I wanted a cordless one. A no-brainer. So fresh pea, or rather frozen pea soup is back on the menu. I added a big bag of frozen peas and some creme fraiche to my shopping order in anticipation. 

Surprise

When I enter the previous days step count onto my virtual hike along The Cotswold Way, I always use the 'little yellow man', google street view', to look at the countryside. 

A few days ago, in the heatwave, this was the view;

Not what I expected! I guess it all depends on who uploaded what, when and where!

Musical Oddity

When this came up on youtube I just had to share it!

BEETHOVEN - Duet in E-flat “with two obbligato eyeglasses,” WoO 32 Pinchas Zukerman, viola Amanda Forsyth, cello Tanglewood Music Festival June 2020

Further googling brought me this explanation. I'm sorry,  something has gone mad with the highlighting, and I'd rather watch Emma Raducanu than fiddle around with it any longer!

The piece is actually a Duet in E flat major for viola and cello, not violin and cello. It's titled "Duett mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern" in German, which translates to "Duet with two obbligato eyeglasses". The "eyeglasses" part of the title is a humorous reference to the fact that both Beethoven (who played the viola part) and his friend Nikolaus Zmeskall (who played the cello part) needed glasses to see while playing. 

Tuesday 1st July - Cover Story for June

June's stitching was to embellish the horizontal joins, and add the lettering.

This is Ang's

Her lettering is amazing! She's been adventurous with the embellishments too; the rick rack braid border is so clever. It's worth zooming in to be mystified how she did the fancy work.

Her flat gifts too... back when we started it was just 'a little something'; now it's like an early birthday 

I think she's made the bookmark on her machine perhaps. Also coriander seeds, and a needle threader quick unpick thingy, and a book of poems from the local hospice. I've got things to do and things to read!

Here's my stitching;

I used stem stitch, and added an extra ribbon to cover the white space that mysteriously appeared above it.

The next challenge will be finishing off... I've bought a new notebook specially!

Music 

The Cantique de Jean Racine, set by a 19-year-old Gabriel Fauré and sung by by Voces8

Monday 30th June - tooooo hot

 Suddenly, in the afternoon, I couldn't bear to be indoors another moment. It was so hot, and the air so still in spite of every window and door (except the front door) being wide open.

BB helped me transfer myself to underneath the apple tree with books and coffee and writing stuff and drawing stuff and painting stuff and O2 cylinders (2) and a cushion... I was settled in for a good long stay!

Inside the leafy cave it was cool and shady and there was a breathe of air - it was definitely cooler, slightly fresher.

I finished writing up my holiday diary, did some drawing,  partly of the holiday,  partly of what I saw around me;

Until it was time to go back inside several hours later. It's going to be the sane tomorrow;

Whenever I am sure I'm going to melt, I reread this entry for 14th June, the second one, from a collection of diary entries for each day, in an old book I found;

('Starved' is an old-fashioned word for feeling very cold)

.....

Cover Story; Ang and I both received our parcels from each other today. I'm going to send her a picture of her work and as she forgot to do that before she posted it.  So I'll share my pictures of both pieces tomorrow. Now comes the final part of fitting it onto a notebook; I might have to buy one first!

.....

Music

It's still much too hot for Tchaikovsky or Elgar or Dvorak. But this tinkly piano piece is perfect. I'd run out of inspiration and turned to my copy of 'A Year of Wonder' by Clemency Burton-Hill for ideas. This was her choice for 28th June.

I remember teaching this; such a gorgeous piece to play as well.

Sunday 29th June - Experiments in prayer 2 - Colouring

 Last Sunday I wrote about praying 'with the breath', taken from Miranda Threlfall-Holmes' book 'The Little Book of Prayer Experiments'. 

I've been geen trying this all week, repeating a phrase or a verse in time with my breathing as a way of staying focused, connected. It's something I shall continue doing.

Another 'experiment' relates to Ang's recent post about a Scripture Journaling workshop she went to. M T-H calls it 'Colouring the Bible'.

You can create your own page to colour in, or there are plenty of free sheets to download and print, and even books of prayerful phrases to colour.

Eg www.flamecreativekids.blogspot.uk

In order to avoid copyright issues I've just quickly roughed out an example;

The idea is that as you colour in the picture, you let your mind dwell on the words, and think about the meaning of them, letting them sink into your mind. She puts it so much better in her book! Anyway, I shall give the colouring prayers a go this week and see how I get on.

Music 

Having discovered that so many suites called 'serenade' have been composed by so many composers I thought I'd explore further. Here's Elgar. I'm surprised how familiar they sound. I've obviously been listening to them for years without realising who composed whatl