Friday 30th March - Good Friday.

Everyone went out except me - I lazed in bed all morning, and then, i  the afternoon, did a mammoth "Clearing The Dining Room Table" effort, with the assistance of of The Son.

Husband and daughter went out on a bonding daytrip to IKEA. To investigate wardrobes and sofa beds and all kinds of stuff for her forth-coming move in two week's time. Yes, that's in about TWO weeks. She's moving further south, and further west, into that top floor flat. They came back with lists and ideas and some purchases ans still on friendly good terms.

Son went in to the Good Friday All Churches Together service in the town centre. A good turnout, he said, all things considered, especially since it was tipping it down with rain and everyone hidden under umbrellas. He returned after lunch in time to help me with my marathon tidy-up.

I stayed warm in bed, listened to the John Sanders Reproaches on youtube, the one with this picture. The words are so heartfelt, the harmonies so perfect.

and then Pergolesi Stabat Mater, with Emma Kirkby and James Bowman singing. This one.

Piercingly beautiful.

You will have to search for them yourself - I can't find where the link is displayed on the youtube screen, and all I have managed to achieve is to instruct the tv downstairs to play it. Which will be a shock when they switch it on later this evening.

As for the afternoon; having spent the morning regaining my strength and sanity (a greater task than I had first thought) I expended it all on clearing the table, getting Son to carry several crates of music teaching files upstairs, en route to being sorted and mostly jinked.

(Daughter has just appeared
"Did you just try and send some music to the TV?"
"Er"
"It's just that they are standing there, staring at the screen in bafflement and surprise as it has just lurched into life all by itself.")

Where was I? Oh yes. I wondered if getting ready to chuck all those lever arch files would cause me any twinges, but no, not at all. Goodbye, goodbye! Only 12 lessons left with each of those classes next term, and then what? We shall see.

Maundy Thursday 28th March - Last Day of Term

This term has been a bit of a slog. But the holidays are here at last.

We did the end of term Easter Service; up the hill in pouring rain, dodging the puddles. The smallest children had all made Easter Bonnets. I think my favourite were the twins wearing painted card sick-bowls decorated with chicks and such like.

from

to

Another child had battery-powered Easter-Egg lights arranged around her hat;

Well done, Mummies and Daddies!

My main concern was bashing through the songs on a keyboard (ugh) balanced precariously across the angled back and sides of some choir stalls. There was a moment in the first song where I had to somehow rescue the contraption ( for musical instrument it is not) from sudden descent and destruction, but the rest of the songs passed off reasonably ok.

I could have gone to the Maundy Thursday Service in the evening, but I didn't. I'm feeling a bit finished for the next day or so.

Son has come to stay for a few days, and Daughter came to supper. BB cooked and served meatballs and spaghetti. I'd forgotten how much I like spaghetti. Al dente, not tinned, obsv. Then we sat in a total silence companionably reading our books. No tv. Silence. Bliss.

At bedtime I discovered that I hadn't changed my watch from Sunday so it was still on whatever time it had been before the clocks went forward. How had I managed to be in the right place, teaching the right person, at the right time all this week?

I also had a bit of a catastrophe knocking back all the pills I take in the evening - when I went to tip the collection of pills, tablets and capsules from the little dish where I assemble them into the palm of my hand ready to chuck them all in my mouth, I realised too late that I was still holding my water glass... unscheduled washing of jumper, socks and carpet ensued. Is this a hint that I need the holiday?

And I finished re-reading "A (Very) Public School Murder" by Simon Parke, an "Abbot Peter Mystery". I looked it out again because I found this quotation I had saved

 "[she] looked at [Abbot Peter] and remembered why she wanted him here for the interviews. 'The Abbot's like a deponent verb,' as someone once said to her. 'he appears passive, but is in fact active.' "

That sent me looking up 'deponent verb'

"In linguistics, a deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive. A deponent verb has no active forms". Of course, as any fule kno. It seems there aren't any deponent verbs in English, but plenty in Latin and Ancient Greek and Sanskrit and Swedish.

So what was all that about then?

There is a fair bit of wordplay in the book, (starting with the title) and ideas that gave me pause for thought, let alone the murder mystery, so overall an enjoyable read.

Sunday 25th March - another week goes by

Just one week before the end of term. Four days, not even a whole week.

Yesterday, Saturday, I taught my last ever keyboard ensemble sessions - for which I am mighty thankful. They have been extremely hard work and I really struggle with the little concerts/presentations to parents at the end of each term.

Afterward we hurtled along the roads to visit daughter's new flat (very nice, I'd be happy there myself if it wasn't up all those stairs). It is made from the attic rooms in what was quite a grand Victorian Villa, converted into five flats.

The first part of of the week ground on in the way that the final weeks of term tend to. Too much teaching, too much all-in-mental-wrestling with smart-alec ten- and eleven-year-old boys, will be my memory of this term. I amused my self by writing some sample reports, but in the journal that Never leaves this house, and the contents of which Never appear on the internet. So you will have to use your own imagination.

In between times, I finished reading the book club book ready for the meeting on Easter Monday

which was a fascinating read. The story is good, but it is the writing style and the language and the choice of words that has filled my head.

I'm also knitting. The blue jumper is waiting for me to get round to casting off the ribbing; I need to learn a special stretchy method and don't have the brain space at the moment. The yellow jumper is at the sewing up stage, and again, I've not enough concentration to risk tackling that.

So, I'm doing something that I've wanted to do for ages; knit a kind of cheat's fairisle, using yarns that change colour. I picked a grey/black colourway, and a multicolour, and just knit whatever pattern I feel like until I've enough for a scarf. I'm very pleased with how it is going. The two yarns started with tawny and grey (not enough contrast in tonal value, perhaps), but improved as I went along.

I struggled quite a bit with the dark green/black pattern. (The one that is hidden so you can't see it properly.) It is a sort of baroque curlicue pattern. In the end, the only way I could work out how to remember what colour came next was to turn the chart into  a song;

which is what the pencil marks on the chart sheet are. I sort of sing the pattern (in my head, obvs. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was mad) as I knit.

I think I got the tune wrong on one row - I shouldn't have tackled such a complicated pattern this close to the end of term - so my curlicues are slightly more idiosyncratic than intended.

Oh, and I finished the Autumn Story. Little Primrose is safe home, in spite of foolishly venturing into a maze of tunnels. Tunnels and caving and lost in the dark underground have always been too scary for me.

And mazes, any mazes with walls or hedges where I can't just walk over the top to get out. Ugh.

Sunday 18th March - Weekly Round Up

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Falling_Snow_-_stuck_at_home_(3234280718).jpg

Being British, of course the main news has to be about the weather.

Today we woke to a grey morning, but with a cover of snow on cars and roofs, an untidy scattering of white on the grass. So there must have been a bit of snow in the night. Nothing all day - just cold, cold coldness, in spite of the met's 60% promise of snow. We were stuck in the 40% area. Now, hurrah! Real Snow! I wonder what it will be like tomorrow morning...

I scrambled through the week's teaching, greatly assisted by a number of students being absent from their lessons (sore throat, school trip, imminent clarinet exam). The worst moment was accompanying a Grade 6 violin exam. The candidate is vastly, vastly improved from the first session we had together, but his counting still can't be trusted. So the bar he "always" got wrong, and I was prepared for, he got right, which caused me a few problems. There were places in all three pieces where I needed to be super alert, like when I suddenly had to turn my page earlier than I was expecting, and other places where I had to wait and judge the moment. Hey - we started and finished together, and didn't stop along the way! That has to be good.

Wednesday was a birthday for someone special. He received presents in pretty paper or Amazon wrappings from the offsprings, but I hadn't managed to wrap my tokens of appreciation. Not exactly true - they were "wrapped" in a shopping bag a friend brought me as a souvenir from Hong Kong. So, rather than wrap them 30 seconds before giving them to him, he played "lucky dip". No chocolate, as I had bought a giant dark chocolate Toblerone

in advance and already handed it over when emergency chocolate was required.

Today has been highly satisfactory from my point of view. I've had a pyjama day, or rather a nightdress day. Cups of tea and coffee, and meals, have materialised at regular intervals - what a treat.- and I have accomplished a number of things that I wanted to do, and many more that I just felt like doing.

Perfect.

Sunday 18th March - Blog Catch-up

robertsoncooper.com

No, not news from home, not yet.

Just that I have moved the book list for this year - read, reading, not started, not even bought yet - from the sidebar of the blog to a separate page.

I've even rattled off a few sentences to excuse, explain, or otherwise comment on them....

culturenl.co.uk

Sunday 11th March 2018 - Mothering Sunday

I got given this!

Totally brilliant! Also flowers, cards and cake which are all always welcome...

But This! A battery operated lightbox with interchangeable letters! So, so good, I need to post two photos.

I'm tempted to use it for all sorts of things. For example... I could change it so that the first line is blank, and the next two lines say "can play my scales!" and let pupils put their names up in lights!

Oh Yeah!

Yesterday I got out my mini voice changer that someone gave me for... was it a birthday? Christmas? Mothering Sunday? Can't remember.



It is an excellent device for scaring assisting pupils to remember their sharps and flats and fingerings.

I have been doing sums; specifically counting; something has gone a bit crazy in my life, as I am now teaching 42 piano and theory pupils, and 2 small groups of recorder pupils, and 7 lessons of class music, and 1 school choir, and 1 school singing assembly, and 1 class of guitars, and 1 drumming group and 2 keyboard groups, every week. I think that is 57 groups in total. Which is around 30 hours of teaching as some lessons are 20 minutes, some are 30 mins, some are 45 mins and some last the whole hour. How did that happen? Somehow I can't have been paying attention to how my days were filling up.

Bit it does explain why, by the time I get to Wednesday, two things happen. Firstly I get just a leetle teeny weeny less patient in the lessons, and then, at about 8pm, I fall asleep.

http://whyismycatsosad.blogspot.co.uk/

Things Will Have To Change.

I have already arranged to swap the keyboard groups (90 mins) for some piano teaching (80 mins), so there's a ten minute reduction in workload after Easter. 

Meanwhile, I shall enjoy my cake, and flowers, and cards, and light-box!

Now, I need to send that lad an email to remind him to get some music to me, and order a load of music books for those pupils, and adjust my calendar to take into account school trips, assemblies and a music exam that I will accompany on Friday. Situation Normal for Sunday...

Monday 5th March - Normal for the time of year?

Snow - gone
Clouds - back
Rain - forecast for this afternoon
Temperature - definitely chilly. and a bit damp.

Oh, to be in England...

hang on; the next line is "Now that April's there"

Fair enough - it is still March.



All that snow made last week a whole load easier than it might have been; several schools closed, and several pupils cancelled. I had been dreading getting through all the lessons, but in the event I had a gentle slide back into the world of work.

So far,

I haven't finished reading the Brambly Hedge "Autumn" book; Primrose the little mouse is still missing and everyone is still looking for her.



I haven't finished reading the Gospel of St Matthew; I'm a member of a "Bible Book per Month" Book Club and that's the one to finish before the meeting on Monday. I'll choose an "easy" version for speed; The Message, or Good News. But then again, if I use my grandmother's copy of the JB Philips translation, I can see all her annotations. Tempting.




I haven't finished Sebastian Barry's "Days Without End"; actually I've only just started it. I've joined another book club, one I've wanted to be in since a friend started it a number of years ago. At the time I didn't have the time or energy; too much going on at home with the family and work. Now is the moment! Carpe Diem! It really is time I started reading some "grown-up" fiction. At least I've got until Easter Monday to finish it. Chapter 1 was fascinating - very, very dense, and no real dialogue at all. I can see that it is going to be an interesting read, in an interesting style.



It is very pleasant taking a slow and steady breather in the middle of the day. We have become involved in a simple plan to go to Salzburg with my father for a few days later in the real Spring.



The plan was simple at the start; flights plus hotel for the three of us too and from Salzburg. I say simple; I need to arrange oxygen and get a fit-to-fly certificate and so on, which has a bearing on what flights we choose. A direct flight is better. Arranging oxygen on a series of different flights doesn't appeal - too many opportunities for things to go wrong.

I chose the word "involved" regarding our participation in the plan; there is also a 90th birthday party in a town some twenty or so miles away; so that means taxi or train or bus from Salzburg for the party.

Ah, but it looks as though separate arrangements are in progress to books us into a hotel in the town, so we only need flights.



That probably explains why when I tried to book flights plus hotel in the birthday town, the hotel was full. But the most convenient of the cheaper direct flights from England gets in to Salzburg at about 8pm... - fine for a local hotel, no so fine for travelling on...

And so it goes on. We shall discuss, make plans, "improve" the plans, confuse ourselves, finalise and then book everything tonight, come what may, and then I will set about the fit-to-fly and the oxygen and then it will all be settled. Apart from booking in our ancient cats to a cattery somewhere. 

 As St Julian of Norwich said

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” 
― Julian of Norwich