Monday 7th July - piece by piece

 I was saying yesterday we'll have got the house they way we want it when we're in our dotage at this rate. (We've only been living here for 40 years...)

The Korean Medicine Chest

At least, that's what we've always called it.

There are forty-five little drawers and a lockable cupboard at the bottom. I'm going to take my time going through the drawers and create an inventory, before deciding what to keep, what goes, and what gets put into the drawers now.

Here's the top row;

A pack of cards, and an old snap shot. It's hard to see, but I think it's my grandmother (Oma) on the left, with my aunt standing behind a very old-fashioned pushchair with my father looking out from.

Some bridge score pads and a taxi card.

Plant labels, cufflinks, a watch strap, a little magnetic box for hiding a key, and adorable paper doll chain

A little box of what I think are sticky wax dots for fixing candles, a perishing rubber band, a little black plastic box of loose powder and the brass lock for cupboard. 

Well! That's a pretty random collection! Quite a bit can go straight into the bin! Some to the charity shop bag, and some to keep.

Next installment tomorrow. 

....

The four wheelback chairs have been swapped back for our pine ones; I'm rather sad about that, but there are a couple of wood worm holes on the underneath of the seat on a couple of them. I think the chairs were treated in the past, but we can't risk it, and we don't want to set about treating them again. Our house has wooden floors! 

....

Music

I adore this piece; 'Rumores de la Caleta' by Albeniz. 

Sunday 6th Sunday - oh look, I began a post but never finished it.

I began a post on Sunday, but then... tennis. More tennis.  Lots more tennis! 

Firstly, We had rain overnight, and rain this afternoon. We got a break from watering, apart from a few pots which are slightly too sheltered.

My brother and his son appeared in a van at lunchtime and unloaded four oak wheelback dining chairs, a small tapestry footstool, the little oak desk that had been my Oma's, an IKEA stool to go under the little desk, and the Korean medicine chest. Luckily they were also able to take away the four pine dining chairs, a dismantled pine kitchen table (rather the worse for wear) and an office swivel chair. So, apart from the footstool that's roughly like for like from my father’s flat to here, and from here to the flat for the house clearance people. 

I dug up some potatoes so we were able to have a lunch outside together of boiled new potatoes in butter, baguettes, Ayrshire, Wensleydale and Cheddar cheese, ham and cold beef slices, salad, olives, grapes and strawberries. 

It all looked very summery, the sun nearly came out, but then, just a we had finished and were saying goodbye the first drops of the next rain shower landed. So our fairwells were rather hurried but we all stayed dry.

Music

John Eccles was born in 1688, so he's contemporary with JS Bach, born 1685, the same year as Handel and, now is it Vivaldi or Scarlatti? I'll have to check.

This is the 'Ground' from his 'Mad Lover's Suite'.

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