You know those awful people who ...

...never update their blog roll despite all the people who kindly add them to theirs and wade through the the nonsense they write. Yes, THOSE PEOPLE.

Well thanks to a timely reminder from Jackie (see right! Mother of 10) a mere smattering of the blogs I feast on is now right.

I'll add the other squillion at a later date.....

A happy ending

I left my Viola on the train this morning.

Only realised about 10 minutes after getting off. A serious case of being frazzled in an end of the academic year kinda way. In the 25 precious minutes between then and taking a register, I went to the terminus, found that my train had left on an outward journey and went to Lost Property where a kindly cleaner had handed in said Viola. The man just picked it up and handed it over. No paperwork or anything. It was thus only out of my possession for a mere 30 minutes.

Train cleaners heros. A thank you note on the way to them tomorrow.

All set for my 9.10 am rehearsal and no need to put Plan B into operation = borrow another instrument, treck to Chappells to replace the music and contact Allianz Cornhill to claim on the insurance!

googling

Someone googled 'tortoise sanctuary bath' this pm and ended up here.

Your tortoise may meet Speedy! Though I think Speedy's new home is more SE England. Who knows though it's a small world.

Flaming June

Had lunch in the garden with my sister-in-law to be, which was good because I tend not to do anything very social on Sat morning - too tired and it was good to catch up on what's up. That said I spent the afternoon asleep. The last few weeks have been way too hectic and sleep is the only remedy, not the enemy as one of my friends says. Strawberries and some leftover chocolate pudding from my Dad's birthday on Thurs, very civilised!

June is the best month for flowers, IMHO, Especially when that involves honeysuckle climbing up your garden chairs. A friend gave me a rose bush for Xmas which is now flowering vigorously and having litres of water poured on it daily.

Silence

...the new noise.

so important it's an element of music in the National Curriculum. Amazing when you consider that metre, rhythm, harmony, tonality and form aren't, but I digress.

Silence is great in Church because you can't annoy other people by being silent, unlike

• playing hymns people don't like, (Me playing hymns that I don't like.)
• giving unnecessary instructions, ('Please stand to great the Gospel. ' Don't we know we have to stand up then?)
• twittering about and being petty.

It has occurred to me that all the twittering and fancy stuff just acts as a total distraction and is often frankly bewildering. I haven't seen any for a while now and it's great.

At the Candelmass Mass at Blackfen at the point where the Congregation were to approach the Altar to receive candles, the MC gestured with his sleave. The big sleave. Transcends language and spoke so much more eloquently than a long wordy explanation. You can after all just watch what other people do and copy them. Works a treat for me. New to the TLM? Not sure about when to kneel etc. Sit at the back and copy the pros.

Silence; the new noise. Shhh.

Fr Ray puts it so much better on his blog.

The blogging backwater discovered

I find myself linked to three mega blogs in one day.

Dazzled by visits, but with no time to write much of consequence, I wish I had tidied up a bit, done some dusting and baked a cake for everyone.

Still, we can all bask in the wonderfullness of Saturday's Mass and hope that this is taste of things to come.

It is very touching to hear from a Cardinal that he is there to convey just what the Pope wants you to know. All the way from Rome just to tell us in person.

World Blogging exclusive

Westminster Mass packed with every sort of person, including lots of small people in buggies, (who were very quiet all things considered.)

Beautiful music sung by the Cathedral Choir including a motet by Elgar and the Byrd Ave Verum, nice to get some English music in around a Palestrina Mass setting.

An awesome occasion.

Met Fr Ray wow. Very kindly he is too as he is on his blog.

Mark of Rise and Pray with a Scottish posse.

Lots of other lovely people in the pub afterwards.

Other people will have more and photos. You know, the usual suspects.

Westminster Tomorrow

I'm going too.

Hope to meet some other bloggers.

I met some parishoners of Fr Ray about a year ago which was fun.

We shall see.

Update Mac's giving me a lift. Goodie.

A concert

I got to play at the Barbican briefly yesterday. Someone needed an extra horn, so I got to ask someone where the Artists' Entrance was for the Barbican, thus marking me out as one who had never played there before.

It was a concert of two halves, the first being an orchestra plus the choirs of various City firms. We ended with Land of Hope and Glory, which I last played as a 2nd Violin about 25 years ago (yikes!)

Anyway, we pretended the first horn was sitting in David Pyatt's chair, who is the Principal Horn of the LSO and then repaired to the Artists' Bar to discuss the relative merits of Paxman and Alexander Horns over, in my case, a can of Sprite.

Monteverdi

Have just listened to John Elliott Gardener saying that 'you Welsh' are to blame for big Handel performances to Aled Jones, who has spent an hour savouring rolling the r in MonteveRRRRdi.

MonteveRRRRdi Choir. MonteveRRRRdi Vespers of 1610 and so it went on, pretty fast as it goes.

We now move to 'Drama on 3.' Sigh.

Time for some tootling tomorrow. The handy 'wrap' makes it easier to carry than the alphorns that we saw in Lourdes and the valves add in all those pesky notes not in the harmonic series.

The alphornists were very nifty, a top C (16th harmonic) being played in one of their 'sets' at 7am one morning. Respect.

Aside from an alphorn ensemble, I also saw a Dutch group leader with a clog on a stick. All national eccentricities on display in one place. Great.

Pink Pen and Gardeners' World

My RE Teacher at school recommended using coloured pens when making revision notes to brighten things up. I used them as a means of keeping myself working. Quick switch to black, now blue, now pink and you are still working. By University, it was an exercise book and biro or bits of manuscript paper when testing myself on Wagnerian Leitmotifs (Let's not go there.)

The coloured pen routine has persisted and I splashed out on a new pink roller ball on Thurs to get get me through 4 hours of invigilating and marking on Fri. Then I left it at home and had to mark in pencil. Sigh. And a more elderly colleague kindly shared with me how exam marking gets worse as you get older. Thanks. A chronic age related condition that hits you when you've been at it more than 20 years. Not too long to go then.

I had a vague plan to mark and watch Gardeners' World, but just watched the gardens and then went to bed. The item on plants suitable for drought conditions was one to put on the back burner, given the amount of rain we've had down here recently, but I did start to get wistful when I saw the man on his allotment. I want to grow stuff but need to hold back. Maybe I will have enough time for a few courgetttes later on in the season.

Pink pens and weeding. Bara brith immersed in the day to day!
Currently got the bread machine on for my brother and will bake some cakes for the family later and the washing machine is on. It's amazing how much housework you can do when avoiding the inevitable.

Back to the exams....

Describe the chords in bars 2 and 4.
Correct Answers E major and F# major
Answers have included high, bouncy, loud...

If someone else writes, 'No it isn't,' on the blank page at the front I shall be forced to reply...