Sunday 14 December 2008

A few of my favourite things

A tag from Mac.


In no particular order.

1 Music. Instrumental music generally. Orchestral music specifically. The horn, stringed instruments. The piano when played by Angela Hewitt. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Monteverdi, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Schubert, Gregorian Chant, The Chieftans, Cerdd dant - a welsh type of music where a harpist plays a folk melody whilst two singers sing completely different music that fits. How many traditional musics are this contrapuntal? Singing of course with that exquisite Welsh clarity.

2 My family. Meeting cousins of my Mother from say, New Zealand and finding they react to things just like we do makes you fell less alone in the world and also have a different different details of family history. We could write one of those novels that keeps telling the same story from different perspectives.

3 Working with teenagers. It's great to be around people doing things for the first time. It's new to them if not to me and they do ask interesting questions or say new things, occasionally. Last Summer I had to teach a new orchestra how to play some music and how you accompany in a concerto. That's exciting. (You can tell I'm on holiday....)

4 Gardening. Being outside growing stuff is great. I like the fact that it happens slowly. I love flowers, trees, vegetables, can't wait for my blackcurrants and the jam I will make next July. There be farmers on both sides of my family. Growing food is what my Mum calls, 'reality.'

5 Wales I find it very exciting driving along the A5 to my parents mobile home. Wales was our second home in our childhood, or even the real home, but my parents couldn't get jobs there when they graduated. We used to get sent cuttings from the local paper from Grandma. The smell of coal smoke always sends me back. It's different from England and I like it lots.

6 The Church. Too much to say. I find I can walk into a room of Catholics and suddenly I react the same way as everyone else. Doesn't matter where in the world or whether I've ever met them before, mind reading is happening and people attain levels of kindness not found elsewhere. Everything suddenly makes sense and works. The Extraordinary Form of the Mass.



I tag



Maggie Clitherow

Roses and Jessamine

*

Antagonistic Pots and Pans

3 comments:

Mulier Fortis said...

Heheheheheh... and I was just beginning to wonder if you'd missed the tag...
;-)

madame evangelista said...

ooh, thank you. I was just reading through the post and thinking 'I must comment on how Leutgeb is one of the nicest bloggers around' and then I got to the bottom and saw the tag! Which proves you're even more saintly than I thought ;)

leutgeb said...

Saintly - I wish.

Look forward to reading your list.