hey ho. It's Tuesday. This daily blogging lark isn't going as well as in previous years.
I was traipsing around town in the rain yesterday, having run out of time for the million-and-one- errands I was supposed to be doing. However I did have time for some of them; the ones which involved sitting down with a coffee and writing a couple of letters which could then be posted in the post-box across from the favourite café.
Did I mention the rain? The pavements were slick, and the metal drain-cover outside the café was slippery.
I can't actually recall the exact series of movements, as one, and then the other, and then both, feet seemed to suddenly disconnect from my body and go in weird directions sequentially and simultaneously. I hung onto my handbag, laptop, and what remained of my balance for dear life, determined not to hit the hard paving stones, while an interested audience stood by waiting to see how the adventure would end.
After about half an hour - or maybe 5 seconds, I found myself to be "at rest" - that is in terms of movement, not heart rate. I had slightly sprained my left foot, left hand and right elbow, although I don't think I actually hit anything (walls, drainpipes, bystanders).
So I smiled sweetly at the small crowd gathered around me, and wibbled into the café for a flat white and a croissant and a slight case of the shakes.
And prayers of thankfulness. It could have ended so differently.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Sunday, 10 November 2013
Sunday 10th November - MCMXIV
Here's a post I prepared earlier; a poem I came across last week and saved for today.
At this very moment I am listening to/watching a programme on BBC 4 on the history of the requiem. WeE have reached Brahms; very appropriate.
MCMXIV
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day--
And the countryside not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
At this very moment I am listening to/watching a programme on BBC 4 on the history of the requiem. WeE have reached Brahms; very appropriate.
MCMXIV
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day--
And the countryside not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
Saturday, 9 November 2013
Saturday 9th November - The Odd Day, and the cat
Apparently today is the last Odd Day for some time; 9/11/13
We are supposed to celebrate by doing things to do with "odd-ness" - tidying odds and ends, betting on an odds-against favourite, or whatever.
I was working, which is "odd" for a weekend - a "Music Enrichment Day" for six- and seven-year olds. So maybe that counts.
The next Odd Day will be on - oh, I can't remember when. You can work it out. Not for ages and ages anyway.
And the cat? Well, after I got home from a full-on day teaching music, I settled on the settee with a quilt. No, first I went and had an afternoon zzz. Then I brought the quilt downstairs and curled up in a veggie state in front of the TV.
The downstairs cat likes it best if she can snuggle up on some kind of blanket or throw in the middle of the settee between the two seats.
Like this;
We are supposed to celebrate by doing things to do with "odd-ness" - tidying odds and ends, betting on an odds-against favourite, or whatever.
I was working, which is "odd" for a weekend - a "Music Enrichment Day" for six- and seven-year olds. So maybe that counts.
The next Odd Day will be on - oh, I can't remember when. You can work it out. Not for ages and ages anyway.
And the cat? Well, after I got home from a full-on day teaching music, I settled on the settee with a quilt. No, first I went and had an afternoon zzz. Then I brought the quilt downstairs and curled up in a veggie state in front of the TV.
The downstairs cat likes it best if she can snuggle up on some kind of blanket or throw in the middle of the settee between the two seats.
Like this;
Friday, 8 November 2013
Friday 8th November - Mugged by Music
I'm not going to have anything useful or interesting to say tonight. My brain is non-functional, my head is full of noise, my mind is concentrated out and totally out of focus. Why?
Today I have taught all day, from 9:45am through to 6:45pm. There have been a few short breaks; 15 minutes for lunch, 30 minutes for clearing admin and talking through issues arising from the lessons, and 30 minutes for travel home and make a cup of coffee.
9:45 through to 12:25 was exam practices, working with small groups of children, accompanying their music exam pieces and teaching them their aural tests. Oh, and it was "Wet Play" at lunchtime.
After lunch I taught the Recorder Ensemble - 20 children playing descant, treble and tenor recorders. We started working on "Silent Night" in readiness for the Carols-by-Candlelight concert early in December. It's a little way to go before it sounds beautiful - at the moment playing the right notes and the right rhythms are the priorities.
Then a new samba group. Samba can bring out the worst (wild behaviour, egging each other on to be Very Silly) or the best (intent focus and concentration, listening and determination) in the children. This lot are looking, and therefore sounding, good already.
Finally four more recorder groups, including three young beginner groups crammed into a single hour, and I was grateful for a break!
Once I was home, I just had three more lessons to go; a talented young pianist working on Grieg's Notturno, (There are lots of recordings on youtube but this is a good one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpU-gnkIFRo).
Then there was a Grade 5 theory student who was reeling with tiredness after a hard week, and a violin candidate with his exam coming up very soon.
Each lesson demands total concentration; listening, watching, analysing, managing, encouraging, nipping trouble in the bud, strength of personality to maintain control in various proportions depending on whether I am teaching one mature student, or thirty lively youngsters.
SO I was grateful for my husband offering to buy instant food for supper - zip, zap and ping - and preparing it, and serving it, and clearing it away. What a lovely man.
Today I have taught all day, from 9:45am through to 6:45pm. There have been a few short breaks; 15 minutes for lunch, 30 minutes for clearing admin and talking through issues arising from the lessons, and 30 minutes for travel home and make a cup of coffee.
9:45 through to 12:25 was exam practices, working with small groups of children, accompanying their music exam pieces and teaching them their aural tests. Oh, and it was "Wet Play" at lunchtime.
After lunch I taught the Recorder Ensemble - 20 children playing descant, treble and tenor recorders. We started working on "Silent Night" in readiness for the Carols-by-Candlelight concert early in December. It's a little way to go before it sounds beautiful - at the moment playing the right notes and the right rhythms are the priorities.
Then a new samba group. Samba can bring out the worst (wild behaviour, egging each other on to be Very Silly) or the best (intent focus and concentration, listening and determination) in the children. This lot are looking, and therefore sounding, good already.
Finally four more recorder groups, including three young beginner groups crammed into a single hour, and I was grateful for a break!
Once I was home, I just had three more lessons to go; a talented young pianist working on Grieg's Notturno, (There are lots of recordings on youtube but this is a good one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpU-gnkIFRo).
.jpg) |
| Geirangerfjord, Møre og Romsdal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord |
Each lesson demands total concentration; listening, watching, analysing, managing, encouraging, nipping trouble in the bud, strength of personality to maintain control in various proportions depending on whether I am teaching one mature student, or thirty lively youngsters.
SO I was grateful for my husband offering to buy instant food for supper - zip, zap and ping - and preparing it, and serving it, and clearing it away. What a lovely man.
Thursday, 7 November 2013
Thursday 7th November - Early to bed...
and early to rise
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Hrrmph. I'm not healthy or wealthy, so all that leaves is Wise. Which I therefore must be. Very.
I've been falling asleep on the settee since 7pm this evening. But, on the whole, that was a bit too early for an early night. So we toughed it out until 9pm, and then I remembered that I had forgotten to post anything for today.
So that Durer Owl picture is all you are getting from me today.
Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite
(how do you stop them? apart from mosquitoes I've never had any experience of bugs that bite in the night? There's a "TOO MUCH INFORMATION" passage in "The L-shaped Room" by Lynne Reid Banks about how to catch bed bugs; you need a bar of soap which is slightly wet; you sweep back the covers and quickly capture the bugs by sticking them to the bar of soap... somehow that graphic description stuck in my mind when I read the book all those decades ago. By the way it is NOT a children's book like "The Indian in the Cupboard". You have been warned)
Time to go. Really. I'm going. Now. This minute. Any time right now. Yes yes yes alright. Gone.
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Hrrmph. I'm not healthy or wealthy, so all that leaves is Wise. Which I therefore must be. Very.
 |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl The Little Owl, 1506, by Albrecht Dürer |
I've been falling asleep on the settee since 7pm this evening. But, on the whole, that was a bit too early for an early night. So we toughed it out until 9pm, and then I remembered that I had forgotten to post anything for today.
So that Durer Owl picture is all you are getting from me today.
Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite
(how do you stop them? apart from mosquitoes I've never had any experience of bugs that bite in the night? There's a "TOO MUCH INFORMATION" passage in "The L-shaped Room" by Lynne Reid Banks about how to catch bed bugs; you need a bar of soap which is slightly wet; you sweep back the covers and quickly capture the bugs by sticking them to the bar of soap... somehow that graphic description stuck in my mind when I read the book all those decades ago. By the way it is NOT a children's book like "The Indian in the Cupboard". You have been warned)
Time to go. Really. I'm going. Now. This minute. Any time right now. Yes yes yes alright. Gone.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Wednesday 6th November - The hole in the road - chapters 1 and 2
Bonus Post: This post has been created over several weeks, and the saga is not over yet!
A hole appeared first, in the verge outside our house. We are talking beginning of October, or even end of September here.
That was it, for several weeks. Then, one morning, while I was brushing my teeth, I heard a terrific commotion outside the front of the house. Once I was able to investigate without leaving a trail of toothpaste down the stairs, I discovered that the hole had grown a stalk. Whatever had caused the racket had disappeared.
Several weeks passed, and we came home from a day out to discover that the pavement between our house and the neighbours had been completely dug up. There's an electric cable in a rusting iron pipe just not in shot. I imagine they will send a small monkey in through the tunnel to connect the wiring at some stage.
What next? and When?
A hole appeared first, in the verge outside our house. We are talking beginning of October, or even end of September here.
That was it, for several weeks. Then, one morning, while I was brushing my teeth, I heard a terrific commotion outside the front of the house. Once I was able to investigate without leaving a trail of toothpaste down the stairs, I discovered that the hole had grown a stalk. Whatever had caused the racket had disappeared.
Several weeks passed, and we came home from a day out to discover that the pavement between our house and the neighbours had been completely dug up. There's an electric cable in a rusting iron pipe just not in shot. I imagine they will send a small monkey in through the tunnel to connect the wiring at some stage.
What next? and When?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)