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...