Well - it's still Saturday in my head.

I'm quite getrunken, but I'm posting anyway in the safe and certain knowledge that this is my site and I can delete anything I like later.

Just had NBS concert. Got better as it went on really. Copland a bit dodgy, Mahler fine apart from Emma having a terrible, terrible coughing fit. Horrible feeling that - that you're about to choke to death in front of 1000 people.

Bruce came - which was nice of him, what with work and all, and parents also came. Everybody made good efforts in the sociability stakes.

Then lots of beers afterwards and a lift home from Rachel. Neither (and that's my third attempt at typing Neither (and my second at typing!)) boyfriend, nor parents came to pub - probably just as well - tis the only orchestra with which I get regularly plastered.

Dancing 'like no-one's watching' when back in own kitchen with own toast and marmite, and own milky drink - close run thing there with the boiling milk...

What else today...?

Oh - just having to explain the point of the arm waving that I do in front of Saturday group. Tis not just for my own amusement and fitness etc, tis actually to give kids some idea of how fast to play.

Gosh - good beer - good people who bought it for me. Spose should go to bed, but quite fancy not being home alone - quite lively now - but not coherent.

Interesting post today. An invitation to the surprise retirement party of the two people who fired me a few years back. Hmmm - probably just as well I'll be away. The temptation to haunt the place would be great.

Alistair has a new violin.

We're trying to get him to 'free the sound'. Which translates as 'please don't whack your new bow on it quite so hard'. He was thrilled when I showed him how to clean the rosin off the strings though. "It makes a great noise doesn't it Miss?" "Yes Alistair - just like fingernails on a blackboard". "Cooooool"

"We're playing Submarine in Saturday group Miss"

"Submarine? Are you sure?"

"Yeah - Handel's Submarine. And Algeria"

(baffled) "Let me see the music for it...."

"Ohhhhh! Sarabande and Allegro. I seeeeeee"

But never mind - they'll be playing 'Algeria' in the same concert hall that Atomic Kitten performed in last month. So that makes the little violinists of Chipping Sodbury just as famous as Atomic Kitten. Doesn't it? Course it does.

This is going to show up as the next day isn't it? It should say.....

Thursday

I was Mrs Invisible Violin Woman today, as I tried to teach in the staff room, as the staff were coming and going, trying to make their chat heard above Hayley's violin playing, and making cups of coffee. Then the physio came in looking for a meeting, then a mother, looking for the physio, and, well - you get the picture.

I had a quiet morning at the next school though. Year 7 had gone to the zoo. Sian was hoping that the zoo would keep a couple of them. Year 9 were doing SATs, so that just left me with one year 8 and a year 7 who was scared of animals. Would have brought some work to do if I'd known. Or rearranged the timetable so I could leave early. Instead I ploughed through some piano parts in a very incompetent pianist kind of way, and played some pieces from the bluegrass book, which drew an admiring visit from another bored teacher.

Then at school number 3, I was auditioning new beginners. Despite assurances that Graham would be excellent violin fodder, Graham actually put his fingers in his ears for the whole process and told me he didn't know any songs at all. I don't think he'd much like an E string next to his ear. I've got him down as a 'reserve'.

Today I was teaching next door to an African drummer teaching a hall full of primary school children how to hit things very loudly and rhythmically. That was a challenge.

How can you forget which note lives on the middle line, when the piece you're learning only has three notes in it? I really do try to stay patient. I become over-cheerful, with a manic grin when it gets like that though.

Half asleep at rehearsal this evening. Thank goodness for helpful, wide awake desk partners. 'No vib' she wrote, as I wondered why Mark was shaking his head at my playing; 'In 2' she wrote, as I played a passage at half speed. Dear me...

Maria, the bassoonist, used to ring people up from the stage mid concert and play the loud bits to her friends down the phone. That sounds like fun!

I bought a little pack of cards called 'Flashcard Fun' a while back. It's a sort of musical quiz thingy, with rhythms and notes and key signatures and things. B commented that it didn't look fun at all, and I have to say I reluctantly agreed. But he was wrong! Flashcard fun went down a storm with a little lad with limited sense of rhythm. Just the act of 'pick a card - any card' and then play me a scale in that rhythm. He could have gone for hours with that. Well he could if he knew more than 3 scales. Must try it more often - could make for quiet, easily plannable lessons.

Dug out my impulse purchase mandolin this evening whilst looking out fiddle music that B could strum along to. Very odd to play it. My left hand knows exactly what to do - it being violin fingering, but give my right hand a plectrum and it's utterly lost.

Just one more thing to practise...!

"No - you can't teach in the library - we've got practice SATs in there. No - Cookery corner is holding booster classes for SATs. Oh well, yes - I suppose you can use the staff room. The cuckoo clock that plays a tune every 15 mins shouldn't disturb you too much, and the staff will need to come in for their cups of coffee just when you teach that girl who's got her exam this term"

They didn't tell me that the photocopier repair man would also be in the staffroom, frightening the children and doing very loud things to the duplo machine.

"OK then Sam - you're just going to have to be louder than the repair man. NO! - not by doing that - I meant with your violin playing! Sam! SAM!! Come back!!!"

Bank holiday Monday

Another nice 'arty' day, looking round Spike Island's open days. Bruce nearly bought something to do with rusty nails, but resisted at the last minute. Then evening at his, and much unnerving magic on TV.

Back to work tomorrow - ho hum - and I've had such a nice time playing and wandering about!

Sunday

Down to John's in the afternoon, where he had an 'open studio' thing going on. Big clearout with loads of nice things at very stupidly cheap prices. Two pictures for me and one for parents. Lots of folk type musos there. I'm slowly plucking up the courage to join in with all that. Still plenty of classical reserve hanging on in there. I could lose some of it praps - but there are aspects of my way of doing things that I'm quite happy to keep to. Bruce got hold of a guitar & joined in too, which was fun. Poppy nearly gave me a heart attack by picking up someone's fiddle and wandering around making noises on it. Expensive wood being kept away from stone floor by a small exuberant person. Eeek! I can't be doing with all this picking up and passing round of other people's instruments. It scares and unnerves me.

Tewkesbury - Saturday

Afternoon rehearsal - freezing, extra repeats and 2nd violin off doing a sneaky quartet gig. Parents appeared at the end of rehearsal and we discovered that there is nowhere open to serve food in the whole town between 5pm & 7pm. That was fun.

Nice meal afterwards though. Well - I had intended to order bangers & mash all along. Parents hadn't - but everything else was 'off'.

Staying in Oxford

My friends really do live in the best location ever. Not only are they one street away from the house with the shark in the roof, but they are near shops, walkable to the centre of Oxford, and on a remarkably efficient bus route. Adrian had an afternoon off on Friday so, as I had a totally free day only working in the evening, we met for lunch and a gossip. Then I followed him back to watch him doing his 'Friday chores'. Piles of ironing! I never do that much ironing - let alone all in one go. They really are my most grownup friends.

Oxford has the most fabulous book / cd / vid / etc shop I've ever seen. Borders. It's just fab. Open til 11pm, cafe, armchairs, tables & chairs, and - best of all - you can scan the bar code of any CD (even the obscure ones) and listen to it ALL THE WAY THROUGH if you want before you buy it - or not. You don't have to unwrap it or anything. Just great.

And the answer to the next question is.... 2 CDs, 1 video, 3 books, 3 gifts, and a postcard. Could have bought much much more too. Must go back there.

The other useful purchase was a new phone. Digital, cordless and with answerphone. The idea being that lodger can pick up his messages without risking his life by wandering into my bedroom, or relying on me to relay them. And also that I can be on phone and in kitchen in multi tasking kind of way. It was only on the bus back to Adrian & Alison's that I remembered why I hadn't bought a digital cordless before. You need a phone socket and electrical socket close together don't you? Next purchase - extension lead.

Oxford - Weds - Fri

Oxford is a very badly signposted town with exceedingly expensive car parks. Arrived straight from teaching with bags of time to spare, which was just as well as it took me a fair while to locate a handy multi storey. Then of course I had to go and buy a packet of polos with a £20 note to get enough coins for the parking fee.

V nice people in the orchestra, which was just as well considering I was a tad nervous. Good meals in "The Nosebag", with talk about the perils of teaching over keen adults, teaching one's partners, and embarrassing concert moments.

It was a biblical epic type of opera - tho mercifully short - which gives rise to confusing moments where Jesus and Moses are being ordered around by the conductor and director (who of course do not get on at all). Not to mention instructions to the orchestra such as:- "Let's just go from figure 56 - It's God's will"

And as for some of the diction.... I'm sure he couldn't have been singing about "pissing his tent" really - could he???

Students really are omnipotent aren't they? I mean - I'm sure I was too at that age, but they really do know absolutely everything, and they know it quite loudly.

The whole do was really very 'Oxford'. Mary Magdelene looked just like a young Helena Bonham Carter, and there were countertenor angels, and lots of people in funny cardigans.

Gosh - it's been a long time. All of a few days! Let me do this in bits...