Saturday 18th Feb

Dear Everyone,

Today is the beginning of half term - hallelujah!

I had just about run out of steam by the end of the week.

Knitting is proving a great way of reducing my "Freecell" addiction, although I still click-click-click away as a sort of disconnection ritual from interacting with people (pupils!) after teaching. I'll be giving it up for Lent (again); just watch my fingers get the shakes and my hand hover over the mouse for 47 days.

Anyway, that hat I knitted last week? I wore it on Monday and Tuesday, and had to come to terms with the fact that it really was too big and loose. It was easy enough to unpick, and only took one evening to re-knit on smaller needles. It is still a bit loose, but much better. I reckon that counts as TWO things finished for February.

I had a go at knitting a red heart to make into a valentine's card - in fact I had several goes with two different patterns, and gave it up as a silly idea. However, my last pupil on Tuesday morning was away, so I had time to visit one of my favourite shops before arriving at the next school: Handcross Hardware and Craft

It sells EVERYTHING. My excuse was that I had left all my pens at home, and I knew I would be able to buy one there. There's coal and compost and bicycles and children's buckets and spades and whirly flowers and plants outside, and stationery and ornaments and knitting wool (not much) and gift foods (teas, coffees, biscuits) and COOK frozen food and seed packets and household cleaning materials at the front, and gardening and farming and torches and rope and oil lanterns and mouse traps and hoof oil and horse harness and heaven knows what as you further and further and further back. I did very well to escape with four packets of seeds (broad beans, Brussel sprouts, lettuce and radishes), a cheap fountain pen and a packet of posh chocolate to share for Valentine's day.

Why broad beans and brussel sprouts? I am determined to grow and eat some vegetables this year. Fresh tender young broad beans bear no relationship at all to the solid grey rocks that used to be dumped on our plates at prep school. I wonder sometimes if eating was meant to be a form of penance at the convent; spinach full of grit, red cabbage boiled to a pale sludgy grey and broad beans - I've said enough about them.  And when we were in Canada last year, we had brussel sprouts that had been picked BEFORE the frost; they had the sweetest flavour you could image, so unexpected. I'm hoping to get them started over half term. These look like being a good idea too. We buy them in Waitrose when they are in season.

I've added the text, for the info on companion planting. Nasturiums and mint. Gottit.

Friday was a First Aid course instead of teaching grade 8 cello, grade 1 viola, numerous beginner pianists, a beginner cello, a grade 4 cello and a group of grade 2 cellos. It made a pleasant change. There wasn't a lot of bandaging, and we spent most of the day doing chest compressions on a variety of different sized dummies. Being a musician I found it impossible to deliver 30 compressions; musicians count in 4s and 8s. But luckily it doesn't matter if you do 32 before you do the two "rescue breaths". Singing that "Staying alive song" in your head, like in the TV advert.

Afterwards, in the evening, it was time for drumming again; it is going along quite nicely. There are half-a-dozen regulars, and they seem to be enjoying themselves.

It is now Saturday morning. I'm rattling off this post, having had croissants and coffee, and then I am taking a book back to bed for a wide-awake lie-in/lazy morning.

Yesterday the weather brightened up in the afternoon - I'm hoping it will do the same again today.
 

Sunday 12th February - Finishing Off

Well, at the beginning of the week, it was pretty much me who was finished off - but the antibiotics that I started the previous Friday were kicking in by the end of Monday.

I took Monday morning off, much to the cat's approval. She is always hoping I'll have a duvet day. In the afternoon I had an appointment to discuss treatments for osteoporosis - an unwelcome side-effect of being on steroids. It was a bit of a done-deal really - the previous load of pills had disagreed with me, so I knew that they would probably be recommending an infusion, which should last for a year and hopefully without ALL the side-effects of the last stuff.

As the week went on, I felt more and more like my usual self, buoyed up in the knowledge that this weekend (11th/12th February) I had very little scheduled.

It snowed very briefly this week - lovely fine brilliant white crystals on Friday night - on my way to African Drumming. It was soooo coooold at church, and no heating on (again) so I unlocked the hall and we had a good time sitting in a corner near a heater there. Just the four of us this week - usually there are a couple more - and for some reason we sounded Really Good together. Maybe because we weren't shivering as usual? The snow had stopped, coming home, and there was just enough left on Saturday morning to act as a reminder that it hadn't all been a dream. Apparently the current full moon is knows as the "Snow Moon", so I'm glad that it did do a bit of snowing.

One of my "unofficial" resolutions is to finish something every month. I'm not sure if finishing the back of my green knitted jumper counts. After all, I have to knit the front and two sleeves and then sew it all together before it is properly finished.

There are a couple of other jumpers I want to knit, but the problem is choosing the right yarn. The recommended yarn would make it a very expensive project, and I'm not prepared to lay out that amount of money unless I am sure I am going to finish it. So, I bought a ball of cheaper wool, and knitted up a swatch to see if I could get the right tension (so many rows and stitches in so many inches). The answer with this wool was "not quite" - right number of stitches, but too many rows. However, this pattern claims to be do-able in a couple of hours:

That seemed a good plan, as I gave the last hat I made to number 1 daughter after her umbrella failed to survive a bruising encounter with a lamp post. (Can't find a picture of it.) Anyway, I cast on 50 stitches and set to. It should have been knitted on circular needles, but I don'y have any in that size (10mm) so I knitted it flat, and got in some more practice at sewing up seams.

Result, three hours later, (with pause for supper).

It was very straightforward. A certain amount of "un-knitting" was required as I was watching "Sense and Sensibility" on television at the time. Something went a bit wrong with the knitting at the same time that something went a bit wrong between Marianne and Willoughby. But that's what advertisement breaks are for - sorting out the knitting. I was forewarned, though, and set it aside when Edward Ferrars visited the Dashwoods at the end of the final episode. All's well that ends well, including the hat. Which fits. And I have met that unofficial resolution for this month.



I've also finished a novel that I have sort of enjoyed. A friend recommended it after I had described how taken aback I was at the monumental rudeness of two African characters in a murder mystery I had read, where an African, of African descent, shouted "you son of a slave" at another African, or Caribbean descent. The fact that both characters were clergymen made it all the more shocking.  This is a love story, but also illuminates the differences between being American Black and African Black, and how it all works in America, Nigeria and London. I might not have got around to finishing it, if I hadn't had the "unofficial" resolution at the back of my mind, but in the end I'm glad I did. I think this story ends happily too. I can't be sure, because the ending is really a beginning, if you see what I mean. I'll find something easy and cheerful to read next, before I pluck up the courage to read the next "real" book on my list:



which I bought in my favourite bookshop, in Petworth, last time we were there.

Somewhere I came across the idea of creating a list of 100 things to do over the course of the year. I've put together about thirty or so, with room to add other ideas as I think of them. It's a mixture of mainly small items. Like "go for a pic-nic", "take in the view from the top of a hill", "spend a day at the sea", "eat a vegetable that I have grown in the garden". I like lists, and marking off when things are completed. If the items are too large, I might not have the pleasure of putting in a tick beside them. I loathe the "One hundred things/places/books to do/see/read before you die" types of lists. Maybe if I were about twenty-something I'd feel differently.

Now then. Are you ready for Valentine's Day on Tuesday? Me neither. But I Have A Plan...

Sunday 5th February - Mozart, alive and kicking

Dear Everyone,

What excitements have happened since the last post?

One was watching a live broadcast of "Amadeus", performed at the National Theatre and broadcast to our local theatre. What a good idea! I know that these live broadcasts are not new, but this is the first time we have been to see one. It is also the first time I have seen Amadeus - ever.

It was astonishing - Mozart as an extraordinary, volatile, off-the-wall and rather pink genius (wearing rather beautiful pink Doc Martin boots in the first half). Salieri wrestling with the knowledge that his own more than adequate talent was as nothing compared to Mozart. The Court as a collection of aristocrats living the conventional life of the times, with a superficial enjoyment of the pretty tunes and daring entertainments presented to them.

What I really enjoyed was the "placing" of Mozart's operas in the narrative of his own life; Salieri fully aware of how the characters and themes in the operas reflected what was happening in Mozart's own life, and Mozart himself apparently totally unconscious of the parallels. Whether this is true or not, I don't care - the drama and juxtaposition of Salieri's musical and emotional knowledge against Mozart's apparently effortless ability was what fascinated me "There are no corrections in these manuscripts - can it be that Mozart just writes everything down perfectly, without alterations, rough copies, mistakes?" Amazing, if true.

I now need to listen to his Serenade in B flat, with Salieri's commentary in my mind. I think this is the one, starting at 19:31 in from the beginning.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Wilhelm_Baur_Gesellschaft_in_den_G%C3%A4rten_der_Villa_d'Este.jpg

Thursday February 2nd 2017

Hi Everyone,

So, what has been happening since the last letter?

The trip to the Netherlands for later in the year has been sort of sorted out. Dates, flights and hotels are all organised. I am now waiting for my GP to complete a form certifying that I am "fit to fly", and I have reserved an oxygen supply for the flights. Travel arrangements while we are there are a bit vague, no, let's be clear, they are totally unknown. We could get a train and a bus and a taxi, or maybe someone will give us a lift, or maybe... Who knows!

But that's all weeks and weeks and weeks away. Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof.

I'm in a knitting mood at the moment. I spent months trying to find a jumper in a style and colourway that I liked, and ended up buying this yarn (I can't call it wool because it is acrylic);

It has several things in its favour; someone I know who is a Serious Knitter is using it to make herself a cardigan, it is cheap, it uses big needles and few stitches, and it is knitting itself into a sort of stripy pattern, which usefully disguises any uneveness in my knitting. Most of my jumpers are reddish or wine-ish or orange and I wanted something blue-green for a change.

I've also finished knitting a cushion cover in a wool which is designed to look like fair-isle when you knit it up. I've used it before in a slightly different colourway.

I'm just waiting now for that moment when inclination, a a few hours spare time, and daylight coincide in order to sew it up.

This may very well be the Year of the Knitting Needles. It also needs to be the Year of Finishing Off as there are various "WIP"s (Works in Progress - the bane of all knitters) waiting for finishing touches.

The other day I was at the hospital for lung function tests and clinic appointment. The results are slightly down, but consistent with being withing 10%, and also I do tend to score lower in the winter compared to the Summer. I saw a new consultant, who, having gone through me notes, was clearly set to "amber" and moving towards "red", as in Something Needing To Be Done, but after discussing things and checking things, moved back towards "amber but probably green" as in "Keep an Eye on things, but nothing needs doing now". Good. Back in six months - August - and hopefully the results will be better.

It was a fairly dank and miserable day, and the clinic was running very late for some reason, so once we escaped the clutches of the medical world we scrapped our plans for the V and A or any other excitement, and just meandered home, looking in at Peter Jones to buy urgently needed knitting supplies.  But not wool. Or needles. Not on this occasion.

I'm trying to implement a sort of rule that something gets finished before another thing gets started. Cushion covers and jumpers excepted.

Well, I'm all the bettter now for a cup of coffee after a day of teaching - Chinese New Year (again).

I found a box of small nylon squares, in neon colours, so dished them out to the little children to pretend to be dragons and use as wings to fly around the classroom. In various guises ("just the pink dragons", "only dragons wearing green jumpers" and so on) this activity lasted pretty much the whole time and everyone (including me, which is the MOST important aspect of any teaching that I do) had a good time.

https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/129208-lion-dance-chinese-new-year-design

.Oh wait, that's a picture of a lion.

"Find a job you love, and you need never work again" so they say. (But probably not Confucius). I'm just about to teach two more piano lessons and then "work" will be done for the day.

Sunday 15th January - A Letter From Home

Dear Everyone,

So, the first full week of teaching has happened, and I can draw breath. There were a couple of potential dragons lurking at the beginning of term, to do with tricky parents and stroppy students, but luckily the dragons that looked as though they were going to be the most awkward turned out to be very small fry, and the bigger ones will eventually just take themselves off without me having to do anything about them. More I cannot say - one of my unpublished resolutions is to try not to be so snarky about people that irritate me for one reason or other.

We visited Petworth to return twenty djembes that our church had hired last term. Calling in the second-hand bookshop I parted with £1.50 of my hard-earned dosh for this:

   

It's a sort of anthology of snips and snaps, all with John Burninghams' illustrations which I have always enjoyed. There was a paragraph in it which caught my eye at the time and made it worth the money. I forget which it was now - but this morning I read this which made me laugh;

The idea of the two old folks sitting by the fire having gin and tonic and boiled eggs for supper amused me. (I've just downloaded "A Very Private Eye" by Barbara Pym onto my kindle for a future read.) We are totally electric now - apart from the central heating which relies on an electric pump. But we could always use the old storm kettle to boil some water.

It is very effective. Getting the eggs in and out of the contraption could be a challenge. And it won't make toast. Somewhere in among the garden stuff is our ancient barbeque, and the chimenea. Perhaps we would have cup-soup and BBQ steak in a power crisis? It would be a bad idea to bring any of these exciting miniature furnaces inside; I suppose would could line them up just outside the french windows and hope the flowering jasmine didn't catch fire.

Flowers have been a good source of cheerfulness this week. The snowdrops under the apple tree are late this year - they are normally up and nodding about at Christmas. However, after the last couple of properly could days they are now in flower. I'm not going out into the horrible dank seeping rain to take a picture. This is last year's.

We bought a couple of pots of hyacinths to take when we were going to visit my godmother a few weekends ago. In the event we postponed the trip, as it was the tremendously foggy weekend and it would have been foolish to venture out unless completely necessary. A few days ago they, too sprang into life. Just a few buds in the morning, and all in flower when I got home in the afternoon - a lovely surprise.

January's resolutions are sort of happening, especially the one to do with eating chocolate several times a week. The last box of "teacher chocolates" has just been opened (and eaten). We are pretty selective - eat the ones we like and lob the rest. Apple and chocolate? I don't think so. I've just got the musical tin of biscuits left now. There are the "unpublished" resolutions, but I'm only going to mention them if they actually happen. The "less of the Snarkiness" one needs a bit more practice, but some of the others might manage it, at least through January.

Well the afternoon draws on, and we are going out soon, in order to start the planning for a complex trip, involving seven different households and potentially three different embarkation points, not to mention all the events for when we arrive at our destination. There is one single fixed point about which everything gyrates - we should think ourselves fortunate to have even that amount of certainty to base our itinerary upon. Luckily we have a month or so to get it all together. All will become less unclear in time.

Love to you all,

x

     

Friday 13th January - Phone story

My phone has been scarily black-screening and getting locked up, resisting all blandishments, threats, refusing to respond to the on/off button....

Removing the battery brought it briefly back to life yesterday, but this evening, once again, it refused to communicate with me. Eventually, reluctantly, the screen came back, and slowly responded.

Perhaps there are a few outstanding updates?

Well, yes. Thirty. So many that we plugged it into mains power to make sure it didn't run out of battery.

Fingers crossed that this will solve the problem.