The strangest thing

 

The strangest thing

'The Woman Who Wished She Could Play the Piano' from an advertisement for a correspondence school,'Picture-Play Magazine,' 1922.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons 

Today, for the first time in months, I wanted to play my piano. It was enjoyable. I used headphones so no-one else was subjected to the racket and terrible mistakes I made. Despite all that, I found it relaxing.

I went back into the sitting room – the piano is in the dining room – and returned to my computer to type something and had the oddest feeling. The keyboard suddenly seemed far too small. Surely it should be much wider, and where had all the black notes – the sharps and flats gone? My fingers were searching in vain. Eventually, brain and hands reconnected and I was able to type reasonably competently once more.

Thank goodness it wasn’t a pipe organ with two or three manuals, an array of stops, and a pedalboard for the feet, or I should have been completely at sea, not least because I’ve never learnt to play a pipe organ. 😟

I wonder if the same thing will happen next time. Perhaps I should allow for a period of readjustment before switching between keyboards in future. Maybe my brain is simply addled. 

 

Covid-19

Life in the time of Covid-19 and other things

Being part of the ‘vulnerable’ cohort, we have had to give in and ‘self-isolate’, much to our children’s relief.  Delivery drivers are being punctilious in their manner of conveying items to us.

At present, all is bonhomie and I really cannot complain. We go out in the early evening to walk our four dogs. It’s quieter then and because we drive to the woods we do not risk breathing on others or being breathed upon. Susannah lives close to us and calls by every day to see if we need anything. She keeps her distance and we are becoming accustomed to shouted conversations that the whole neighbourhood can enjoy, though, to be sure, they are fairly banal. Frankie stands by, looking a little bemused. His routine has been severely affected, as school has closed for him and all his activities have been suspended. Susannah says the local shop is empty of many things but full of people ignoring the oft-repeated mantra to maintain a 2-metre distance from others. Why? Some people appear to be treating the current lockdown as an impromptu holiday. In some instances, police have dispersed gatherings of more than two people.

Gillian, our eldest daughter, told us of an incident in sleepy Blandford, when police were called to a supermarket to arrest a man who had punched another man because he wanted his block of cheese! Dear me, whatever happened to self-control?

I am enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s never horrendously noisy here but currently we are free of over-flying helicopters and other aircraft, apart from a very occasional airliner. Is it my imagination or are the birds singing more joyously than usual? They are certainly very busy, meeting and mating, nesting and brooding and keeping Herschel and Jellicoe entertained. Their brother, Isambard, died very suddenly last October. Barry had been confined to bed with pneumonia and Isambard had been keeping him company and developed a respiratory disease that killed him in 24 hours, despite the best endeavours of our lovely vets. Very sad. However, he left a little of his soul behind in his brothers, who have both become much more attentive and demonstrative. Jellicoe had also been very ill with pancreatitis and we have found that nursing sick animals seems to make them more affectionate.

The last few days have been glorious, sunny and bright. As spring matures, Nature continues to awaken and dress herself in fresh green and flowers. I saw my first butterfly yesterday. It was yellow, perhaps a Clouded yellow. I’ve just discovered that a yellow butterfly symbolises hope and guidance, and was the symbol of the soul in early Christianity. We certainly need plenty of hope and forbearance at present.

To occupy the hours, I am practising the piano, attempting to improve my playing – long way to go there! – doing jigsaws and tapestry, reading, writing, and trying to remember how to crochet. Crochet is not like riding a bicycle – once you fall off the hook it’s not so easy to get back on!

We are only in the first week of lockdown – I think some folks are going to get mighty tired of it long before the initial three weeks are over. I do feel sorry for teenagers and also glad I haven’t any to contend with. Someone suggested that the divorce rate would increase and/or there would be a ‘baby boom’, the resulting infants possibly becoming known as ‘Coronalists’.

Poetry Jam Honky-tonk

More verse, though none worse, can be found here

Honky-tonk

To make a good piano

Sound like honky-tonk,

Put paper in the strings

And then begin to stonk

Those keys.

Play strides in the left hand,

Refrain with the right,

Listen to that rhythm,

Let harmony take flight,

Be free.

Hair Affairs #2 and other ramblings

Chris from 'Life on the hill' told me how her twin brother cut off one of her plaits – just one! How cruel! Did he cut off the first and immediately regret it? Did he think the reprimands would be only half as severe if he left one plait in place? Perhaps Chris ran away. You will have to ask her! It woke distant memories of which only one is really related to hair.

My brother is six years older than me and occasionally he would be obliged to suffer my company; at such times our views on life showed marked differences. If we played cricket in our long narrow garden I was always the batsman so that he could practise his bowling. Pleased to have his attention I stood for what seemed like hours trying to hit the ball and generally missing.

I enjoyed writing and boasted one day that I could write about any subject – oh, the conceit of youth! Brian then said, 'Write about nothing' and I was completely stumped. What should an eight-year-old know about such a concept? It was an effective way to shut me up for I was a chatty child while he, from a young age, was introspective.

Sometimes Brian would be forced to entertain me at weekends to give my parents some time to themselves. 'Let's imagine' was my favourite pastime and I would appoint rôles – 'You be the King and I'll be the Princess.' Some days we were what we then called 'Red Indians'. (Years later my brother worked with the Tsilhquot'in people by which time we had all learned not to insult them so.) He must have been thoroughly disenchanted by the heady imaginings of a romantically-inclined sibling. One day 'Let's imagine I've been captured and tied up in a tower and you've got to come and rescue me' (shades of Rapunzel, I think) must have irritated him inordinately because he tied me to a drainpipe by my plaits and wandered off to follow more interesting pursuits. Caught up in the game I waited patiently for his return but it was my sister, fifteen years my senior, who rescued me.

While my brother quite understandably seemed to resent spending time with me, my sister loved to take me out. We would go shopping on a Saturday morning, spending much time in W.H. Smith where I would select a book and read as much as I could before we had to move on. Before we returned home on the bus we usually went to 'Lyon's Corner House' for refreshments, another little treat I really appreciated. I'm sure those trips were the basis for my life-long fascination with stationery. I find it difficult to resist the lure of little notebooks with pristine pages and neatly packaged pencils and pens. Envelopes, files, folders and note paper always draw my eye. Coloured paper clips, especially the ones in the form of miniature clothes pegs, and drawing pins in their neat little transparent boxes are irresistible and I can even rhapsodise (almost) over packets of elastic bands and the variety of staplers and drawing pins. A new book of plain pages is to be savoured before being despoiled. The first mark is carefully made but I'm no calligrapher and my scrawl soon turns the special into the commonplace. I love the smell of ink even though my 'writer's bump' seemed to be almost permanently stained when I was at school.

However, for much of the time I amused myself. I loved reading aloud, often to myself or to whoever would listen and would regularly call into various shops on my way home from primary school to read to owners who were friends of my parents. I read voraciously, losing myself in classics like 'Black Beauty' or 'Heidi' or 'Anne of Green Gables'. I would emerge hours later, sometimes in tears, and immediately turn to the beginning again. My mother understood for she had a similar relationship with books. Words have a profound effect when used to draw in the reader. To this day I cannot read aloud Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince' without tears springing to my eyes. Michael Morpurgo's 'The Butterfly Lion' has a similar effect on me. I always enjoyed reading to the classes I taught – indeed I considered it essential – but frequently I had to stop and explain to the children that I was overcome and sometimes suggest that they should continue to read on their own if they wished so to do. At other times I was overcome with mirth and could not continue.

Almost as much as reading I enjoyed playing the piano – or perhaps that should be playing at the piano. My father was a very good pianist and encouraged me in my endeavours. I could never get to grips with tonic sol-fa so was never able to vamp like he could or change key and carry on. My eyes were – and still are – firmly fixed on the black marks on the manuscript. I had lessons for about a year and then my teacher had a baby and that was the end of my formal training. Nevertheless I continued to 'play' the piano, my fervid imagination conjuring up an appreciative audience for my outstanding performances. I can still play – badly - 'Für Elise' without music and part of 'Moonlight Sonata' (I was keen on Beethoven!) The only other piece I can play without reference to the printed note is the Battle Hymn of the Republic ('Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord' or 'John Brown's Body') The problem with my piano-playing was that I liked to practise in the evenings, quite late, and my parents finally became rather weary of me hammering out Chopin's Funeral March or Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# minor at 11:00 pm. They didn't say anything as far as I can recall but one day I came home to find that my father had chopped up the piano! I don't remember being upset and I'm quite sure they were relieved and looking forward to peaceful early nights in bed.

I also thought I had a dramatic flair and would perform on top of the coal bunker, which became a spotlit stage in my mind. Despite never having had dancing lessons I attempted to tap and twirl as I sang. We didn't have many neighbours which was probably fortunate. We did have a garden wall, however, which became my trusty steed. I desperately wanted to learn to ride – I did eventually, when my own children were little and learning too. Thank goodness my parents didn't have a video camera or its early ancestor. By the time they had a ciné-camera I was older and had grown far too self-conscious to do more than grin, chimp-like, in the general direction of the device.

So, although I spent a good deal of time on my own I was never lonely and rarely bored. I am grateful to my parents for actively encouraging me – and my siblings – to find pleasure and solace in books and in so doing to develop a life-long passion and desire for the printed word.