Thursday 30th November - Endings, Beginnings, Anticipations

ENDINGS
I'll rattle in this last National Blog Promotion Post before I forget... because once I'm in bed I'm off-line, switched off, hibernating, until 7:30 a tomorrow morning!

BEGINNINGS - not of Advent, but of Advent Calendars.
He has filled my Advent Calendar with Good Things. I haven't even begun to think what to put in his. So long as I can remedy that before midnight tomorrow I shall be happy. My afternoon school has cancelled their whole class guitar lesson on Friday afternoon as they need the time and space to set up for their Christmas Fair. That gives me a window to search the town for itty-bitty things to put in the itty-bitty drawers.

ANTICIPATIONS
After my birthday is when I start thinking properly about Christmas. We will usually have talked about dates and plans within the family before then; who will stay where, when they plan to arrive, how long they think they might be there and so on.

ADVENT begins of the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is Sunday 3rd. I'll be playing at the early service. I've chosen

O Come, O Come Emmanuel - I'm always pleased when I get to choose for the first Sunday becuase this is one of my all-time favourites   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQ4QdFfD3c

Come Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love which I rather suspect no-one will know... I can't find a good youtube with a choir, but this one has the tune, the words and a lovely video of sheep and the moors and so on....  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BZfXTCUbr8

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear because I love that song, and it is all about peace and goodwill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtV477Cqni0 

I rather think I may get some stick for the last two. But no-one is paying the (organ)-piper, so I gets to call the tunes....

I've signed up to  join a group of bloggers posting Advent Reflections on the theme of "A Pause for Advent" for the four Sundays in Advent - It is being hosted by Angela at http://angalmond.blogspot.co.uk/ 

If you look at the top of her page, you will find a list of Advent Pausers, Posters and Readers, including A-Letter-From Home - how exciting!

I've yet to work out what I shall be reflecting on. Is it cheating to read everyone else's first for ideas? Possibly....

Oh, it snowed today. Just a fine dusting at playtime, enough to make the children really excited!
 

Tuesday 28th November - Here comes Christmas

Christmas "ambushes" me every day now. Today's Christmassy lessons included



Today's Christmassy lessons included

"Silent Night" twice, (sharps marked in red)

"Jingle Bells" in F major once - She knows it already, now it's time to add an improvised boogie-woogie bass line. I've been teaching Jingle Bells, right hand only, in Cmajor, to about ten children for the last couple of weeks - they've mostly got the hang of it now)

"We wish you a Merry Christmas" - With and without me playing the duet accompaniment. That's one for the Christmas concert in a couple of weeks

"I saw three ships", "Away in a Manger" and "We Three Kings" about three times each.

The infants all needed to be taught not to sing faster and faster and louder and louder in their song "Busy busy busy" (all about arriving in Bethlehem and not being able to find anywhere to stay) in their Infant Nativity. Then I had to somehow try and persuade them not to sing "The Star Song" on an enthusiastic but ultimately boring monotone 

Driving home in the afternoon, the sun was already beginning to sink, low across the fields, catching the bronzed autumn leaves of the trees lining the country lane. It made me think of

"The golden evening brightens in the west,
Soon to the weary traveller comes their rest." but I couldn't remember the next few lines before the
"A-----a--lle - lu----lia,  a--a-lle-luuuuuuuuia"  bit.

It is actually a mis-remembering of verse 9 (nine!!!!)

"The golden evening brightens in the west;

Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;

Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.

Alleluia, Alleluia!"

of the processional hymn which begins

"For all the saints, who from their labours rest,

Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,

Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.

Alleluia, Alleluia!"

and continues for eleven verses. I don't think I've ever sung all 11 verses.

I would hesitate to describe myself as a "warrior", It doesn't sound quite an appropriate word for a piano and music teacher. I have used words such as "lion-taming" and "fly-fishing" sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living. After a full day of teaching that line about "rest coming soon",  makes me smile. 

I've always liked the other misquote "The golden eagle brightens in the west"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_eagle

Monday 17th November - Back to normal?

Oddly enough, today was a nearly  normal day.

I got up (no breakfast in bed)

I had breakfast

Taught a couple of adult piano students that come on Monday mornings - I really enjoy this time (hopefully they do too; at least they keep coming which seems promising)

Caught up on household bits and pieces

Set off after lunch for work.

Non-normal episode - delivering a condolence card to a friend. (Pause for thoughts and memories)

Taught piano to three young children at a local school. Had to fetch them from an excited rehearsal for their Christmas nativity show, so concentration wasn't at a high level. I think I taught them something, hard to tell in the circs.

Home, last three pupils of the day

Supper

Surf the net, half-watch TV (alarming programme on sinkholes, chunks of England have been built over old mines. Not here, I think. I hope. Open cast clay pits for bricks, to be turned into landfill rubbish sites is mainly what we have round here.) 

Soon it will be time to make goodnight hot drinks, and go to bed, perchance to sleep, or dream, or listen to audio book on mp3 player, or mull over what I will be teaching tomorrow, or anything else that comes to mind in the hours of darkness.

Today seemed oddly, disquietingly, peaceful; no sudden changes of plans, nothing unexpected, unplanned

That'll do fine for me.

Sunday 26th November - Happy Day!

I've been having a birthday!

And I proved it is possible to cut everyone a slice of cake complete with a burning candle.

It has been a very good birthday;

It started with breakfast in bed - okay, I did make it and bring the tray upstairs, but breakfast in bed is breakfast in bed, however it arrived. A nice slow start to the day, then I ducked out of church because I promised myself that I would Go Nowhere over the weekend to give myself the maximum chance of getting better.

This policy seems to have worked - so far I have not started the antibiotics, and am feeling a lot better. Back to work tomorrow...

Thanks to everyone for presents and cards and happy birthday wishes and phone calls,

Good night'all

Saturday 25th November - A stitch in time...

No, not a stitch in time saving nine, but more like a day in bed in time saving nine.

I cancelled the drumming workshop I normally lead on Friday nights, and also the Music Centre teaching I usually do on Saturday mornings, and have spent most of today in bed (and all of it in my nightdress and dressing gown!). This has met with the Upstairs Cat's complete approval, and I must say I am feeling much better than I did this time (6pm) yesterday.



A mixture of taking it easy, reading Georgette Heyer novels seems to be the correct treatment. I've finished "A Civil Contract" and am part way through "Venetia", but not in these editions - mine are ancient hardbacks bought from the library when they were selling off old stock.

   


And plenty of tea and coffee to drink.

And the occasional pickled gherkin - don't ask me why, but the pickle-y vinegary flavour seems to sooth a sore throat.  Perhaps not everyone's treatment of choice?



Another morning of the same (maybe not any more pickles) and I'm hoping to have avoided getting a chest infection and be back on form by Monday.

Three and a half weeks of term left - school ends on Wednesday 20th and for some crazy reason we are going right to the line, finishing at 3:30pm. And yes, I AM counting the days now.....

Friday 24th November - Ergh.

Haven't felt this rough since the last time I had a cold.

Snff.

Urgh.

Koff

Heuch.

Too much information?

Just be glad you can't catch a virus over the internet.

Oh, wait,

"Thursday" 24th November - the one that got away

Yesterday was the culmination of two "full-on" days, so it's not that surprising that when I was comfortably settled in bed with a book at about half-past ten, and realized I had forgotten to blog, I decided that I wasn't going to get up, poddle downstairs and start tapping out a post.

Anyway, it is traditional that traditions get broken - I think I must have missed a NaBloProMo post every time so far. Perfectionism is a fault, not a virtue, in my book (except regarding air pilots, air traffic controllers, surgeons, and everyone else like that. And the people who fitted our bathroom - they weren't perfectionists either, unfortunately. But that's another story).

I suppose this most be the most traditional time of year now - the outcry when some tradition is changed has to be carefully calibrated against the possible benefit of the proposed alteration.

My grandmother had a tradition of buying everyone the same thing for Christmas - the first one to open a present from her was the only one who got a Christmas surprise. When we were all gathered together, Oma, three uncles and aunt (including my parents) and eight grandchildren (including me and my brother) you could see her point - on a good year we all had individually named pottery mugs  or boxes of personalised coloured pencils. On a less good year we all got plastic letter-writing cases with Basildon Bond paper and envelopes and a blue biro. At least that helped with the thank you letters, but I don't think any of the grandchildren were especially thrilled.

I'm going Christmas shopping as a treat between an hour of teaching thirty seven-year-olds to play the recorder this morning, and an hour of teaching thirty seven-year-old (not the same ones) to play the guitar after lunch. I won't be following my grandmother's example (can you even get letter-writing sets anymore?)   

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 - Look what I found

Sliding the twitter posts across the screen, pausing to watch this (but you MUST watch the video on the link below)





https://www.jukinmedia.com/licensing/view/962392

I tripped across this, of more serious and scientific interest;

You can see the website where the Table comes from - it is a free download! I love all the little pictures for each element.

Apart from that, today was a day like many Wednesdays, full of piano pupils (8) and class music lessons (3). 

Reception and Year 1 was a raucous rendition of barely understood Christmas Songs ready for the Christmas Advent Service at the end of the term (Why would the Baby Jesus come to rain on us?). The double meaning of "render" frequently comes to mind in music lessons.

Year 3 and 4 were wildly enthusiastic in creating the storm music for the story of "The Princess and the Pea". It was touch and go whether anyone would hear her knock, knock, knocking at the castle door.

Finally Year 5 and 6 were supposed to be working in groups to interpret the phrase "sailing along on the morning breeze, using a selection of (more or less) appropriate percussion instruments. Some of the groups would have sunk any battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers within the vicinity. Heaven knows what will happen when they start trying to interpret "Moving at the speed of light" next week.

Tuesday 21st November - The Rooks again - volvelle

Coming home in the early dusk, there they were, well, some of them, parliamenting in their building in the first of the two oak trees.

A week has gone round; days, nights, events, all in their allotted places.

Sometimes, when I am looking for a picture to illustrate this blog, I stumble across something Very Fascinating...

Have you come across a Volvelle before? Here's a picture and quote from wikipedia



A volvelle or wheel chart is a type of slide chart, a paper construction with rotating parts. It is considered an early example of a paper analog computer.^[1] Volvelles have been produced to accommodate organization and calculation in many diverse subjects. Early examples of volvelles are found in the pages of astronomy books. They can be traced back to "certain Arabic treatises on humoral medicine"^[2] and to the Persian astronomer, Abu Rayhan Biruni (c. 1000), who made important contributions to the development of the volvelle.^[3]


Just read that again - "an early example of a paper analog computer"..... and then check that date - circa 1000!

Well indeedy. And to see one in action, go here (which I recommend) and if you want to make your own, go here (to be boggled)
But the instructions do look pretty complicated...

Led Zepplin used a modern volvelle on the cover of their album Zepplin III; more wikipedia...

"The cover and interior gatefold art consisted of a surreal collection of seemingly random images on a white background, many of them connected thematically with flight or aviation (as in "Zeppelin"). Behind the front cover was a rotatable laminated card disc, or volvelle, covered with more images, including photos of the band members, which showed through holes in the cover. Moving an image into place behind one hole would usually bring one or two others into place behind other holes.

cover

inner wheel

Well, that'a new word added to my vocabulary.

Goodnight               

Monday 20th November - Advent readiness

This post really belongs to yesterday, but that would have meant two posts, and then thinking of something for today!

I rummaged in the big wooden chest to extract the Advent Calendars ready for next week. At first we couldn't remember whose was which, but mine is the Santa one (birthday present in a previous year) and his is the tree (bought by me). I worked it out in the end as I remembered having to glue some of the little wooded handles onto the drawers before I gave it to him. Mine doesn't have drawers, just are little hinged flaps like letterboxes.

Part of the reason for getting them out was to size up the inner dimensions of the drawers. Last year, and the year before, they were filled with all kinds of random flavours of tea bags. That was when I discovered that it can be difficult to open my little letterboxes when there is a teabag jammed inside, and some more generously filled teabags don't fit into the drawers.

There's time yet to work out what to do. We will each secretly set up each other's calendar... no peeking allowed!


I've also made a tea-light-Advent-calendar-sort-of-thing. I spotted someone on the internet wrapping tea lights with a little band of washi tape to make them look a bit festive - so that's what I've done, using various different reels that I have accumulated over the years. Nice, huh?

The plan is to burn one tea-light each night in a little holder with flying angels or similar on it. I can't remember exactly what the holder looks like, something along these lines.

It just depends how deeply buried it is in the Christmas decoration box in the loft; if we can't find it I may buy a new one, or even just put the tea-light on a little dish. There's something to be said for the Canadian system of a large basement with proper stairs  for storing things. Much easier than getting out the step ladders and wobbling in and out of the dark, cold loft.

Sunday 19th November - Lunch, and not Leith Hill Place

What to do today?

Proper lazy morning, breakfast in bad (thank you, my love), leisurely bath...

book a table at a favourite pub ("yes, we can just mange to fit you in at 12:45") that was lucky...

Collect The Patriarch and drive off through the autumnal country lanes and golden sunshine...

Come face to face with an enormous plate of properly roasted beef (rare) and honey-roasted vegetables and red cabbage and mashed swede and broccoli and roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding... I swapped my broccoli for some of the patriarch's parsnips and red cabbage and mashed swede - goody goody

Some time later, dawdle back into the car and drive through the pretty village of Ockley where every view has been taken from a chocolate box picture

© Copyright Colin Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/710194

turn left and then later on right and then later on left and left again into the Rhododendron Car Park above Leith Hill Place...

walk through the sunshine along shrubs full of promise for next Spring

and what about this acer palmatum?

But when we arrived at the gate to the field leading to Leith Hill Place it was shut; the house and gardens are closed now, with only limited opening hours over the winter.

Oh.

Never mind - the afternoon was wearing on, the warmth of the sunshine was becoming thinner, the temperature in the shade growing colder...

so we went home. I reckon we had the best of the day, and have found a very enjoyable Sunday Day Out for future weekends.

Tea. Cake. Candles against the autumnal dusk.

Saturday 18th November - Tissue Day

I should have bought shares in a manufacturer of pocket packs of tissues years ago.

Yesterday a young lad came for a piano lesson with such a juicy cold - no other word for it - that I actually disinfected the piano after he left. He came with his own pocket pack of tissues and used the lot over the half our, thankfully depositing the revolting remains in the bin before he left. I would rather he hadn't come at all!

I delayed the start of the next lesson while I wiped the keys with dettol.

Today I handed out tissues to just about everyone in the first keyboard club. I keep a pocket pack in my pencil case for just this purpose. "Only one each" I said firmly, "and the bin is over there."

I'll need to replenish the piano-pack before I start teaching again on Monday. Ugh.

Friday 17th November 2017 - Emergency Post Day

Today is one of those days when I can't think of anything much to post.

Or rather, I have written and deleted a couple of posts, as on re-reading them I thought they were a bit boring.

So I'm just going to dish up one I prepared earlier for just this occasion....

Here goes;

It's a sad fact of life, that pulling your stomach in when standing on the scales doesn't make you weigh any less.

Just saying.

There. I'm glad I took the trouble to record that thought when I had it.

Thursday 16th November - Where's the fly swat?

Kingfisher 4 pack £2.79 (Amazon uk)

Four for £2.49! Someone must be having the same problem as me! But they don't look anywhere near strong enough.

The Executioner £13.99 (Amazon uk)

Tempting, but maybe a bit overkill. A quick prowl through the Amazon site has revealed a zillion different types of swatters. 

I don't actually have an insect problem. Spiders in the bath can be trapped and thrown out of the window. Fleas on the cat aren't an issue, thanks to modern treatments which just poison the cat's blood, so when the fleas bite the cats they die (the fleas, not the cats). It isn't the season for wasps or flies. So, what is the problem?

Today (and to a lesser extent, yesterday) I have been plagued by people needing me to do things for them when I really don't have time or headspace to stop what I am doing and see to what they want. 

I could go into details, but then.... there might be entirely forseeable consequences.

Suffice it to say that as a result of too many interruptions to complicated sequences of thought and process, I now have various heaps of unsorted photocopies to organise, categorise, file, a collapsed folder of lesson planning to resolve into some kind or order, and a couple of registers to find and mark up before I forget the names that should be marked as absent.

Fly swats. Could that be an answer?

Wednesday 15th November - Finger Puppets

Meet the gang;

they arrived all the way from China today.

I used them in some of my piano lessons today with two new, very young, beginner and they were a great success. I'm just off to China (virtually speeaking) to order some more!

Tuesday 14th November - Rooks

Driving home through the lanes at the end of a day of teaching I passed two trees both full of rooks.

They were oak trees, nearly bare of leaves, and every exposed branch had at least one rook, all silouhetted against against the pale late afternoon sky.

"A parliament?", I mused, hurrying home. Not sure, thought that might be owls.

Turns out that the collective noun for rooks can be a parliament or a building.

Both words seem appropriate; the rooks were packed in like residents of a high-rise block of flats, on different levels in the trees (the penthouse apartments seemed the most popular) all in motion, as though some great debate (Brexit, maybe?) was in progress.

Monday 13th November - 7th November

Autumn... the season of mists - I've driven through a few in the past few weeks - and red-bronze leaves - I've driven through whirling clusters of these too - and fireworks - the best of these I've seen is the silver birch at the end of our road with the little golden petal shaped leaves falling from the thin twiggy branches like "Golden Rain" without the fizzy noises....

But it isn't Autumn anymore.

The 7th November is the first day of Winter.

See here for details;

 http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/after-that-comes-winters-day.html

I'm trying to remember; the 7th was, ah yes, last Tuesday. Can't remember what the weather was like back then -too long ago. I think there was ice on the roof of my car one day last week...

But today, as far as I am concerned, was the first properly cold day of Winter. Himself had to scrape the car when he set off to take daughter to work (trains? or something? dunno, wasn't really awake).

Ok, Canadian friends, I know you've already had snow. That what comes of living in a more southerly latitude to us. You should try living in the frozen northern latitudes like us poor beggars. You might get snow and degrees of frost, but we get seeping English shivery-ness that creeps through to the skin...

Ginger wine. That's the right medicine for today.

Sunday 12th November - Remembrance

I can hear our neighbour's television through the party wall - they, like many, many people are watching the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London.

We've switched on our television, just in time to catch the final ten minutes; a hymn ("O God Our Help In Ages Past") and the Lord's Prayer and the final blessing, followed by the buglers playing the reveille.

Now all the people gathered there can make their way home through the fallen leaves, all probably frozen to the core as it is a raw morning, though mercifully not raining.

I played the organ for the early (9am) service at our village church this morning; the hymns were "All People That On Earth Do Dwell" and also "O God Our Help In Ages Past". There were a good people few there, but most will be coming to the next service, including Guides and Brownies and Rainbows and Scouts and Cubs and Beavers, and Air Cadets and more, as well as villagers that never come on any other day.

I find it interesting that this still a Christian, religious service, but many - most? - of the people attending would not consider themselves as having a particularly religious view. I know that my neighbours are not church goers, and yet they always watch the big Albert Hall programme on the Saturday evening, and the Cenotaph on the Sunday.

There is something about the role of the Church in the lives of many older people which sticks, even when they have long given up on having any connection with any church. One man I knew said "I always pay my dues to the local church" even though he never put a foot in the building between his wedding and his funeral. And how many mutter the old word of the Lord's Prayer under their breath, from ancient memory, finding it easier to join in than to abstain? "Deliver us from evil, and lead us not into temptation...". The words have become some kind of protection against fear and darkness - which, indeed, for me, they are. 

.

 

Saturday 11th November - Proper Post

I don't think just copying a post from another blog counts as a proper NaBloProMo post....

so if you thought I was trying to cheat, think again!

Today started with rescuing a largish spider from the bath... it should be somewhere in the garden now, unless it managed to cling on to the windowsill as I threw it out.

I remember the time, many years ago now, when there was a HUGE spider in the bath. Stupidly I decided to try and flush it down the plughole. That was a seriously bad idea. It seemed to be safe to climb into a lovely hot bath, but then it suddenly appeared from the overflow and dropped into the water...

I erupted from the bath, causing great tidal waves of hot soapy water to flood the floor. Pausing only grab a towel and to pull out the bathplug (thank goodness that was back in the days when it was still attached to the chain, so I didn't have to put my hand into spider-infested waters) I fled the scene.

Not one of the best days...

Saturday 11 November - Couldn't have said it better myself

One of my favourite websites is

The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley; www.cyber-ceonobites.blogspot.co.uk

Today's post is extra brilliant, so I have copied it for you to enjoy - to see it for real, go to http://cyber-coenobites.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/funeral-for-dead-laptop.html

SATURDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2017

Funeral for a Dead Laptop

Announced by Archdruid Eileen

A laptop hath but a short time to live, and is full of whirrings. It booteth up, and is powered down, its hard drive grindeth like a mill, then it never continueth one day when thou needest it most.

In the midst of operating life we are in risk of viruses: of whom may we seek for succour, but of AVG, who poppest up annoying ads and is most displeased with our browser histories?

But if we are wise and take aforethought we shall have made backups, and the My Documents folder will live once again. Or if we kept everything on OneDrive then we need not fear laptop death. As long as we remember our password.

Or else we may end up faffing around with cables and unusual interface connectors, and trying to get data off the device that caused all the trouble in the first place.

And we shall always feel guilty we didn't recycle it properly. But we would have worried then that someone was finding out our innermost secrets.

Forasmuch as it hath pleased us to find a replacement for the laptop here departed: we therefore commit its pieces to the landfill; rare earth to earth, Windows to darkness,  bus to dust; in sure and certain hope of the new one being quicker; whose grubby casing  shall be replaced with a shiny new model. or maybe just a tablet. After all, who needs an actual keyboard these days? You just want to be able to get on Facebook when you're sitting on the couch.

Friday 10th November - Perils of the School Gate

It is a well-known truth that if you are early for something you are bound to end up late.

But today was an exception that proved the rule.

Somehow I managed to be up and dressed a whole hour earlier than I intended; it was when I was sitting at the PC storming through the over-night emails that I noticed the clock said 7:15, not 8:15...

I managed to arrive at the first school half an hour early - time for a cup of tea.

I came home after teaching a lively recorder lesson to a year 3 class. Time for a snooze (how I needed stillness and quietness!). Lunch, and then quarter of an hour before I needed to leave for the next school. 

I arrived half an hour early again!

Arriving early is not the good thing that you might suppose.


At the first school I got all mixed up with the last of the parents dropping their children off, which turns the narrow lanes at the back of the village into a nightmare chicane of unexpectedly shifting cars and trucks.

At the second school I became tangled into the manoeuverings of departing morning visitors and arriving lunch vans all trying to get in and out of the automatic electric gate.

Knowing the exact timetables of every school I visit; start and finish times, break times, lunch times and deliveries is a hidden part of my world...

Thursday 9th November - Here it is...

Just remembered to put up a post before going to bed.

http://www.thechildrensmediafoundation.org/archives/4162/jackanory-at-50-join-us-to-celebrate-an-icon-of-storytelling

"I'll tell you a story about Jackanory.
Shall I begin it?
There's nothing in it".

Like this post.

Good night.

Wednesday 8th November - Staff Christmas Dinners

One of the consequences of working in several schools is being invited to several end of term celebrations...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zw79kqt

I've just signed up to my second staff Christmas "do" for the end of this term (five-and-a-half weeks to go, and yes, I AM counting).

At the first Christmas Meal I shall have a complete Christmas Dinner. We have to choose from the Christmas Dinner Menu, and if I am having the smoked salmon starter I don't want salmon wellington (??) to follow. I can't remember what I chose for pudding - luckily we write our choices on a list in advance so my memory lapse won't matter on the night. We are also having a £5 "Secret Santa"... that's a bit of a fun challenge.


At the second one, we have been offered two menus. There's the "Celebration" menu, which is very similar to the first place - three courses, take-it-or-leave-it, choose from the list. Or, we can order individual items from the usual menu. I don't want to eat another great three course Christmas meal  less than a week before The Day, but I have discovered a possible work-around.  I overheard a colleague saying that she wants the turkey meal, which is only on the full three course Celebration menu, and a pudding, but doesn't want any of the starters. My cunning plan is to get her to choose the cold starter from her menu, and give it to me. I'll save it until the main course arrives, and eat it then. When it comes to dessert, I'll choose something from the normal menu.

If she agrees, she will pay £21 for her menu, I'll give her the price of the starter, and then just pay for the pud. Sounds like a plan to me; I just need to convince her....

Tuesday 7th November - this'n'that

I promised you a photograph of the triffids;

These are the baby Christmas cacti. I shall have to pot them up once they have finished flowering as there isn't a lot of soil in the pots at the moment.

One day follows another through Autumn. Today was dreich; cold, cloudy, damp, and rainy. Teaching was warm work though. I took one child out into the playground to see if moving up and down the lines and spaces on the paving slabs would do something about her lack of ability to read the music. It did seem to help, and jumping from line to line, or across several spaces, following the score of "Jingle Bells" was fairly energetic stuff.

Home, through lanes lined with fallen leaves in glorious colours. It was definitely twilight by the time I pulled into the drive. Memo to self; time to double check that I leave the car in gear with the handbrake off. There have been a couple of frosts, not quite enough to freeze the handbrake cable but it is as well to get into Winter Ways before that does happen.

We had ice cream tonight. I wish it wasn't so cold. Could warm ice cream be a thing?

Monday 6th November 2017 - small pleasures

Here we are, just going to bed, when he says "Have you done today's blogpost?"
"Oh poo", I reply, because I haven't.

What a wonderful thing my yogabook is! And how wonderful to have a kind husband who goes downstairs and fetches it up to me so that I can get it done in time!

The only problem now is to think of something interesting to write about. I'd hate to waste his kindness.

Today has been a day of many small pleasures. I suspect most days are like this, if I managed to remember the the little happinesses as they occur.

Like,
An adult piano pupil who accomplished more in one week than I expected her to achieve in a month. Another adult pupil who surprised by what she was able to do in the lesson, and found herself reconsidering her abilities.

Morning mist turning into a clear, crisp, sunny autumn day.

The excitement of the year three schoolchildren at seeing their teachers dressed as Romans, Egyptian mummies and cavemen (and women) to introduce a history project.

Toast and plum jam.

The smell of peppermint.

A sprawling array of Christmas Cactus flowers on the kitchen windowsill (the photograph will have to wait until tomorrow).

Today has been ordinary, but in a good way. Plain, but not dull or boring.

Sunday 5th November - Fireworks

The fireworks have been going off all over the place for the last week or so. Of course Today is The Day and pretty much as soon as it was six o'clock the bangs and flashes and crackles and pops started up again.

I don't mind the fireworks - our cats don't seem to be worried by them - but these days I have no inclination to go and watch - Brr....

I remember the displays in Falmouth. We used to see the ones that were part of the Regatta week, so in mid summer rather than Winter. The fireworks were set off from a barge moored in the middle of the Carrick Roads, so there were all the spectacular reflections on the water as well as echoes from the hills around. We would gather in the bay window of the upstairs sitting room, and watch in warmth and comfort. One year the local radio station broadcast a musical accompaniment to the fireworks, which we recorded on cassette and listened to for years afterwards.

The other memorable fireworks night was here; I didn't go and watch the fireworks stayed at home, while the rest of the family walked into town for the fun and fireworks. They were in for a surprise when they came home - turning the corner into our road the first thing they saw was a fire engine, and the second thing was that it was parked outside our house!

This is what had happened;

When I switched on the washing machine, the drum had filled up with smoke instead of water. I managed to reach over and switch off the electricity, and then dialled 999. Very soon the firemen arrived and disconnected the still-smoking machine. They heaved it out of the tight corner in the kitchen, and lifted it out into the garden. Three firemen in all their gear certainly entirely filled the room!

Apart from the loss of the washing machine and all the clothes inside (kippered is the word) there was no other damage, and the firemen were just packing up as the children returned.

Ah, yes, memories.....

Saturday 4th November - What?

What?

We were both awake at the hideous time of 3 am this morning!

I suspect someone setting off on an early shift, and their car headlights sweeping across our window, in spite of the blackout lining on our curtains.

After a while we tried putting the radio on for  a while. A man's voice was speaking, something like this

"... yes, it was quite an experience. I hadn't expected it to be quite like that, and it took a while for me to feel settled in, you know, comfortable, in the circumstances, but I really felt that it was a valuable time and the project was really meaning full. All sorts of good things came of it in the end, although at first it didn't seem at all likely that anything would, well, you know, result, but eventually everyone....."

and so on, for several minutes.

What on earth? Instead of drifting off to sleep, we both became more incredulous, and fascinated, that someone could speak for this long without us becoming any the wiser regarding the subject matter.

"Thank you for that," said someone else; she appeared to know what this man was talking about. As the programme continued, we discovered it was all about cricket ("Stumped", BBC World Service) just before we fell asleep again. Nothing like a whole programme of cricket to induce golden slumbers.

Friday 3rd November - Out in the town

I had a gap between teaching 30 children to play the recorder in the morning (noisy), and teaching 15 children to play the guitar in the afternoon (should have been 30, but half the children were away on a trip, so less noisy than expected).

So I went into the town to do some errands. First off was paying in a load of cheques. This did not go so well. I fed them into the machine, which made mechanical noises of an unproductive nature for a while and then spat half of them out. "Please reinsert your cheques". I did so, and it regurgitated three of these. Without further interaction, the machine returned to the opening screen ready for the next customer.

Hey! What about my card? Where are my cheques?

I managed to get a cashier to come over, who went and fetched keys, and then a colleague to lock the front door of the bank. It seems that this is a necessary precaution whenever they open up the cheque-and-money-eating machine, in order to prevent anyone rushing in and grabbing all the money from the machine's innards...

Eventually she was able to give me my card. Then she retrieved the cheques and handed them over, each with little oily tooth-marks along one edge. "Would you like to try again?" Not likely, thought I, and posted them into a sort of letterbox to be dealt with later by a real human.

We (because He was by my side) had lunch, and then filled in time before the guitar lesson mooching around.

In Waterstones I saw this;

 which might wean me off too much Freecell

and these,

but one can have too many desk calendars perhaps?

I thought both these cartoons by MATT on the cover of his book were entertaining. The second one, under the sticker, shows The Three Bears sorrowfully agreeing "This Brexit is too hard, and this Brexit is too soft," but short of peeling off the sticker it wasn't possible to discover if there is a Brexit that is just right.

I'm not a fan of cartoon books, as they remind me of visiting the dentist as a child. He used to have a great stack of GILES cartoon books on the table in the waiting room. I always remember Grandma.

Hey! She's got a statue! In Ipswich!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/suffolk/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_9024000/9024384.stm

There's even a Giles website! With cartoons! Those little twins are off again - they were always worth watching in the pictures.

 http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=336

Finally, I stopped to take a picture of this piano which has appeared outside the top floor exit of Wilkinsons. I want to use it in a post for www.themusicjungle.co.uk, my music teaching blog.

As we walked away a determined young girl (why wasn't she in school?) made a beeline for it, and started picking out the tune of a pop song.  Isn't that exactly why the piano is there?

Thursday 2nd November - The Flower

And it has just about opened! I've cropped the picture, as it rather looks as though the flower is reaching for the kitchen knives  which is a bit alarming. Much as I love the Christmas Cactus flowers, they do look a little triffid-like.

The colder weather has suddenly arrived. I now have to remember to leave my car in gear, with the handbrake off, in case there is a proper frost overnight. Bitter experience has taught me not to take the risk of the handbrake freezing - it causes too much hassle when I can't drive it to work in the mornings.

I'm nearly through the first week back;
So far I have taught seven class music lessons, one singing assembly, one school choir, and twenty-nine piano lessons. My working week doesn't finish until Saturday lunch time, so just four class lessons, one drumming workshop and five piano lessons to go until then.

I've done quite well at avoiding staff-room biscuits too, this week. I can't say the same about puddings after evening meals though. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day...

Wednesday 1 st Nov - NaBloProMo

And the challenge begins; to put up a post every day in November!

November is beginning very well - games night with the offspring. Not sure what games we might play but that's not really the point - it is a convivial way of spending an amusing evening together.

Some time ago, can't remember when exactly, I had a go at propagating new Christmas Cacti from my original plant. This year I now have four, and they are all coming into flower. The ones in the kitchen are furthest along;

These are two of the newest little plantlets. I reckon the bud on the left will be in flower tomorrow. I can see why people get hooked on gardening - seeing new plants grow is very satisfying.

A bit like teaching. I've had a few "moments" this week (already!) - for example - one student understood an important part of piano technique, which has completely transformed her playing. Another has such enthusiasm for the piece she is learning that she has gone ahead and finished it of her own accord. That's especially pleasing in both cases, as they are playing pieces I learned at their age, and that my mother particularly loved and always asked me to play.