2011 in numbers

Travel (all distances approximate)

Miles driven by me = 7000 miles
Miles by road: =3750 miles
Miles by rail: = 660 miles
Miles by air: = 760 miles
Miles total: = 12170 miles
Things needed fixing on cars = 9 (hole in sump, wing mirror damaged by parent/wheelie bin; heat shield distorted; driver's electric window motor; air conditioning regas; driver's electric window motor again; air conditioning again; blown headlight bulb impossible to remove, LED centre brake light not functioning)
Countries visited: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Scotland
Walks: completed Itchen Way, first stage of Solent Way, various rambles in Lakes.

Rather less walking and considerably less rail travel than last year - which will be rectified in 2012 - but offset by huge amount of road distance.  Nearly 20% of total miles were accomplished during the Hungary trip.

Music

Concerts = 51, plus 23 services, 7 shows, 1 recording session, and other informal performances (e.g. choir singing carols at pub, weddings, chamber music course)
Compositions completed = 7 (The Sun Rising, Serenata for harp, The Bells of St Marys, There is a Blossom Sprung of a Thorn, Englefield Green, Beatus vir, Jak Drahokam) plus 8 orchestral and 2 quartet arrangements and works in progress
Hours spent in non-performance playing (practice/rehearsals) c.2000 divided evenly between cello and keyboard instruments

These are all up from previous years. The increased number of concerts is hard evidence of how much more I'm playing the piano these days.

Favourites

Piece of the year: Nielsen Symphony No.3 'Expansiva'
TV series of the year: The Killing I and II
Most interesting places: Pest, Budapest; Old Town, Edinburgh; Ulverston, Cumbria; Easedale Tarn, Cumbria; Avebury, Wiltshire; Lake Balaton, Somogy;
Cups of tea drunk @ average 3 per day =  c. 1200
Wine: Korona Egri Merlot 2008
Beer: Thwaite's Wainwright Ale
Food: Hortobagy-style pancakes

A Child of the Snows: Introduction

As this blog is, at least in part, a means of discussing compositions, I have decided to write a series on a fairly major choral work I am about to undertake.  Over the next year I plan to provide regular progress updates as well as an insight into the composing process in general. The time-scale I have set myself is to have a pretty much complete draft by Easter and to have the whole thing done by the summer, ready for rehearsals to start in the autumn.

In this post I will start by setting out the brief of the project and some initial thoughts stemming from this:

The only definite stipulations of the commission is that I am to compose a cantata for Christmas 2012, which must be suitable for performance by amateur choral societies and modest orchestral forces, and must set G.K. Chesterton's poem A Child of the Snows.  As this text consists of four fairly short stanzas, I have added two additional poems: another Chesterton entitled A Christmas Carol and Bethlehem Town by the American Eugene Field.

The first consideration must be of what forces to write for. Obviously the chorus comes ready provided: an SATB choir of around fifty, which is big enough to allow divisi. Having considered the texts I decide to use a baritone soloist only. The thinking behind this is that I will alternate verses of the two Chesterton poems, as the subject matter of their respective stanzas flow nicely into one another, and so have the soloist sing A Child of the Snows whilst the chorus take A Christmas Carol. This also has the practical result that each gets to rest their voice(s) whilst the other sings, alongside the musical effect. Having another - most likely female - soloist will, I reason, confuse the narrative coherence of each text, as sufficient contrast is already provided through this alternation of forces.

Orchestrally speaking, the main contingent of the chamber orchestra will be a body of strings, probably no more than two desks to a part. This is mostly out of practicality: firstly, the the larger the orchestra, the more people need to be paid for; also, as the chorus is medium-sized - think BBC Singers rather than BBC Symphony Chorus - an overly large ensemble would present issues of balence. This becomes especially important given that I am writing a religious work, most performances of which will take place in churches, which naturally have a large and resonant acoustic.  To the strings I intend to add piano (am toying with the idea of piano four-hands), possibly oboe and a few other instruments.

Other considerations arise from the nature of the performance: the musical material must be within the technical range of the chorus (they're good enough to do big works by Bach, Brahms and Finzi, and do them well, but naturally there is a limit to what one can reasonably expect from non-professional singers rehearsing one evening a week) and the orchestral parts must be able to be brought up to performance standard on only individual practice time and a rehearsal on the day. I know the orchestra, all of whom are of pro standard, will give their best with whatever they are given, but from past experience I know to aim for the maximum effect via the simplest means. Come to think of it, this is actually a pretty good compositional philosophy in general.

This is probably the biggest project I've taken on to date, as although the orchestration is smaller than for The Sun Rising, the performers will be of a comparable number and the piece is planned to be roughly twice the length, with the total performance time approaching half an hour. It's also the first time that 1) I've written a choral work with accompaniment by an ensemble rather than keyboard (the two trumpets and organ in Benedic Domine don't really constitute an 'ensemble'); 2) I've written for solo voice and chorus in the same work (again, the short solos in Beatus vir and various other works were for untrained choir voices and so don't really count); 3) I've written for baritone soloist and 4) I've written with a particular soloist in mind (other than myself).  I hope these sound like relatively minor neologisms, as I consider them to present no real difficulties in the job of writing the music.

There are some 'miscellaneous' considerations which may or may not a have a bearing on the composition: I have been told that for the première the other two pieces in the concert are planned to be Dvořák's Mass in D and some Christmas carols written by a fellow young composer, Tom Daish.  It is probable that the second performance will use a smaller orchestra than for this as the venue and choir are smaller, so I may need to bear in mind the use of ossia passages and the possibility of keyboard(s) substituting for some instruments.

To finish, I can already say I have sketched out some parts of the piece and have some idea of the overall structure.  We will discuss these first steps in the next post.

Pianistic preferences

I am called upon to perform on both digital and acoustic pianos about equally in my working life.  Naturally, I press the keys on whatever is put in front of me without quibble, but if there is a choice I will always plump for a traditional acoustic piano. I have sometimes been questioned as to why, and at times this can appear a counter-intuitive option (I have played some pretty ropey pianos over the years) so I wish to make a case for why the traditional acoustic instrument is, at least in my experience, preferable to modern electronic keyboards.

We must begin by stating that electronic keyboards in general posses the following advantages:

1. They do not go out of tune.
2. If the function is supplied, they can be re-tuned to mean, Pythagorean, modal temperaments and baroque pitch at an instant.
3. They are not susceptible to changes in temperature, humidity and movement in the way an acoustic piano is. In fact the only possible damage from these factors would be water ingress causing short circuiting.
4. They are usually equipped with a moderate-to-wide range of timbral possibilities, albeit synthesised. This is probably the most significant advantage of the instrument.
5. Other useful functions such as transposition and recording capacity are often fitted.
6. They are cheaper to purchase, smaller and more portable than traditional pianos.
7. On high-end instruments, the key and pedal action is weighted in an attempt to imitate that of an acoustic instrument, aiding the traditionally trained player. 
8. They are easier to amplify as a PA system can be plugged directly into the instrument without the need for a microphone.

With all this in mind, one might wonder why anyone bothers with traditional pianos any more. By comparison, they are expensive to purchase and maintain properly, are difficult to move, can only produce one sound 'patch' and have no 'performance aids' other than three pedals and that the stool adjusts up and down.  Electronic keyboards work on the same principle as other electric instruments such as guitars: by creating a tiny sound (in this case small bars which are struck like chimes by the keys) and amplifying it, usually modifying the resulting wave as well. This means that a lot of delicate and temperamental components can be eliminated and replaced by circuitry. So why do I still prefer a 'real' piano?

Firstly, the instrument has a richness and sonority that is impossible to imitate digitally. Chiefly this is due to the effect of the strings vibrating in whatever acoustic space the instrument is played in, but also to do with the fact that the strings vibrate in sympathy with each other. The reason why this is nearly impossible to synthesise is that the additional overtones created thus, which depend on so many multiple factors - the exact notes played and the attack of each, what degree of pedals are being used, what strings may still be vibrating from the previous combination of pitches - that the memory and processing power required to store and activate the sample of each possible combination would be in the range of a supercomputer.  Even then, it is a difficult task indeed to make what is essentially an amplified glockenspiel sound like felted hammers hitting sets of metal strings.  The tone of electric pianos is almost always too fuzzy and boomy by comparison (a common problem with amplified instruments) and lacks the crispness one can get from a well-practiced staccato.  In addition, the percussive effect of the felt making initial contact with the string is difficult to synthesise, often replaced by sound of the plastic key thumping against rubber bearings and electrical contacts.  Pedal action remains a weak area, largely because of the above issue of sympathetic vibration and, on the other foot, so to speak, the fact that an una corda or due corde marking has acoustic implications far beyond simply reducing the volume a bit. I have yet to play a digital piano in which half-pedalling was at all satisfactory, and on most it was impossible as the sustain pedal was considered a binary switch which when on simply added a set amount of reverb.

As an addendum to the above, there are certain pieces which are absolutely impossible to perform on a digital piano as they require this sympathetic vibration as an essential effect. A piece titled simply 'Harmonics' in the fourth book of Bela Bartók's excellent pedagogical series Mikrokosmos is one example, requiring the player to depress keys without them sounding and then allow the strings to be set vibrating when other notes are struck. This simply could not be accomplished on a non-acoustic instrument.

The other, related, consideration is the feedback the player gets from the instrument.  Even the most sophisticated digital key mechanism cannot emulate the action of the 80-or so components that are needed to play even a single note on a strung instrument. When playing a real piano, one can directly feel, even in notes of short duration, something inside the instrument applying force to something else, changing centres of gravity and creating inertia, which provides valuable information on how the note will sound even before the sound reaches one's ears.  Electronic instruments lack much of this vital 'touch' due to there being essentially a short-cut in the action. (For much the same reasons, I dislike driving cars which have too much electronic intervention in the controls).  Furthermore, the key action often lacks sufficient resistance, meaning than when playing fast passages or using the position of one key to find another it is far too easy to accidentally sound the wrong note when passing the hand over it, as well as making chord voicing harder.  All these factors force the player to take time to adapt; whilst the musical results will probably not suffer having done so, it remains that the pianist is essentially learning a new type of instrument.

Finally, another issue which has not been satisfactorily solved by the manufacturers of synthesised instruments: volume. Not the amount of it, for most keyboards and electric pianos have a volume control in addition to touch-sensitive keys which provides more than adequate range, but the guesswork that must be undertaken to find the correct setting.  Of course this can be an advantage, as it allows the relative volume to be adjusted to suit a large or small space, but it is often a source of frustration when the player finds that what seems deafeningly loud to them comes across as feeble at the back of the room. A chief cause of this is that speakers howsoever positioned (usually under the main body or key rack) cannot synthesise a large soundboard reflecting string vibrations in a universal direction. As stated, this is less of an issue when a PA system with large speakers is connected to the instrument - but this instead creates the potential problem of the source of the sound being some distance away from the player and thus not in sync with the action of their fingers. When sitting at an acoustic piano one can always assume, to a reasonable degree of accuracy, what volume any given amount of force on the keyboard will produce.

The pipe organ is, of course, a separate instrument entirely, but has equally valid considerations in the electronic vs acoustic choice. A good full-size electronic church organ is as good as its traditional counterpart, but as far as I can see a small portable organ cannot compete - it'll simply never be as loud without excessive amplification.

What Happened in Hungary: Epilogue

And so we reach the end of the trip, essentially a run for home.  The sun was setting over the mountains as we joined the evening traffic heading west from Vienna.  After a few attempts I succeeded in snapping an 'Alpine Symphony cover'  - my term for any picture of mountainous terrain which would make suitable cover art for a CD of Strauss' masterly tone poem.  I put on some Sibelius chamber music and enjoyed a few drops of Hungarian white (albeit from a service station paper cup) as the day ended and Austria dissipated into darkness and artificial light for the second time in my travels.

I'm going to skip over most of the next twenty-four hours, as it involves the reliably tedious activity of sitting on a bus in much the same fashion as I have already described. If you really wish to get an idea of what this is like, imagine the monotony of driving at night but without most of the comfort/entertainment value of whatever car you usually inhabit.  A few incidental memories include my considerable annoyance in having to give a €2 coin to provide the c.€0.50 needed for the toilet somewhere in Germany, due to my inability to ask for change; and the delicious alacrity of changing drivers in the very same lay-by in Aschaffenburg where we had spent so many agonising hours on the way out. I suppose we may even have started a tradition of using this spot as a convenient changeover point, such that in the future the town may acquire a large bus station due to the actions of some nameless idiot of a mechanic who failed to check that an alternator wasn't about to be 'slightly on fire'.  I think, although I can't be sure, that I slept a little because I don't remember the transition from darkness to early morning, although I do remember that shortly after waking I noticed that the cars now had yellow license plates and there were a lot of cyclists on the urban roads, meaning that we had entered the Netherlands. we were only in the country for about fifteen minutes, crossing the very southern salient of the country around Maastricht and Genk.  Breakfast was at a dull service station somewhere short of Brussels, after a heroic five-hour night shift by our new driver had taken us all the way across Germany. I had coffee, some pastries and a waffle, although to honest you could have given me the packaging as I couldn't really taste much. Still no messages from home, although many false alarms due to the over-fastidiousness of my phone provider, thinking fit to notify me by text whenever I crossed into a new network area.

I remember looking at a faded map on a wall of Benelux highways with a friend and trying to work out where we were and how much further we were going. I do like to actually have an idea of where I am in relation to the rest of the planet's geography rather than being content with 'somewhere in Germany'. The obvious thought is to estimate how long remains: based on the outward journey and some dividers-and-compass navigation I try to work out what mileage remains through the Low Countries.  Perhaps another four hours to Calais?  It turns out to be about right: we hit queues going round Brussels (the absence of which prevented us being even later on the way out) and I remember having a long conversation with the fixer about my travel guide to Hungary. He remarked after reading certain passages that it was generally very accurate but that there were a few glaring errors, which brought him to the surprising conclusion that the author had some kind of pro-Jewish axe to grind. In general he seemed to note mine and Companion's level of perception. 'You are sometimes too negative' he remarked to me ' but you are the ones on this tour who know the most.' I'm not sure I shall ever forget these words.

Belgium became a barely distinguishable part of France and in another hour we rolled up at the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles.  Almost nothing now stood between us and home - that is, apart from the UK Border Agency, possibly amongst the most objectionable people in existence. Their recently erected fortifications at every point of entry to the UK are largely the result of panicky political rear-guard action (fend off tabloid hysteria about millions of asylum seekers hanging off the bottom of trains et al) and they serve little useful purpose other than that the passport control building usually incorporates a public urinal.  And no, I don't mean the inspection desk, although one could be forgiven for mistaking the contents of the two. Get in line, minions.

Lest this seem like disgruntled arch-libertarianism, there are two very good reasons why musicians should loathe border guards and state agents of all types: firstly the criminal actions of the soldier who shot Anton Webern and the US immigration official who ordered Britten to destroy his music for fear it was an enemy coded message - these types deserve every kind of slow painful death possible - and, secondly, that on a more general level their job (which of course they are 'only doing') is utterly incompatible with the remit of music and art. In a shameful display of knee-jerk reactionism, the acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was first refused a US visa to visit the 2002 New York Film Festival, then resigned a commission to direct at English National Opera after refusing to put up with the 'disgraceful' bureaucracy he was subjected to by the UK Border Agency (they were implying that he might disappear or try to claim asylum once here, withdrew his visa for no reason and forced him to give two sets of fingerprints to get another. The border police, presumably steered by the hand of politics, arrogantly refused to apologise for their procedures and trotted out the party line that this was necessary to catch criminals). 'It is the job of border guards and authorities to put up barriers, and it is our job to break them down'. It is the latter organisation I am forced to jump through hoops for now - and to whom I cheerfully wish all kinds of terminal illnesses upon - having to queue up and present a passport to a humourless drone, who seizes upon the chance to tell us what to do with some nonsense about not crossing a faint line on the floor, in order to enter my own country. This is all the more remarkable given that I have been able to cross what was the Iron Curtain without so much as leaving the vehicle. The cretins search the bus and berate the driver for not properly locking some minor luggage hatch - as if an illegal would have anywhere to hide inside the fully loaded compartment! I suspect they say the same to everyone, savouring their moment of power over others and the chance to get even with society just because their parents wouldn't let then stay up and watch Top Gear when they were small. (I think that's just speculation - ed).

Anyway, despite the best efforts of Kafka's field staff, we made the next train. Another half-hour in a tunnel, then another motorway except this was one I recognised, even felt familiar with, and so I knew how little of the journey we had left. It was only a few minutes before we pulled over at a dreary service area outside of Folkstone where I bought a sandwich, checked the nation was still at rights - oh no, wait, the Coalition are still on the throne - and felt a little depressed by the percentage of other customers who were of pensionable age. The next stop was Clacket Lane services where our fixer and his daughter were met a by a friend with a taxi, and went off to London for (presumably) tea at the Ritz with His Jenkinsness and some other fixer-y types. I knew the next forty miles off by heart and was once again cheered to recognise the bits of the North Downs Way going past.

We made as unceremonious a return as our departure.  The bus smacked over a speed bump (hopefully shortening its life expectancy a bit) and glided into a shaded car park.  I'd done the usual thing of stuffing al the possessions I'd spent the last day spreading about the cabin back into one bag, made a last check round and got off to retrieve my things.  I called Best Mate and asked him to bring the Meg over, as I knew how to fit all the cases in it. He was a little surprised I was actually letting him drive it, but he safely navigated the black Renault into a vacant space, got out and declared, simply, 'Brilliant'.  I said goodbyes to friends old and new, got the back seats down and loaded everything we'd brought on the way out as well as various unused drinks from the bus. In fact it wasn't really a farewell at all as quite a few people were coming back to the house where I was staying.

And that was pretty much that.  My sister gave birth to a little boy at about seven in the evening, just as I was sitting down to enjoy a chicken tikka masala with my companions, and I drove home the next day to be at somebody's birthday party and see the newborn child when I returned. Then I sat down at my computer, clicked to open Blogger on my favourites tab, and - well, you know the rest...

Loose ends

The previous posts in this series can all be found here: Day One; Day Two; Day Three parts One and Two; Day Four; Day Five; Day Six and Day Seven

I've put together an approximate chart of this adventure which you can view below. (Google Maps Maker is a marvellously adept bit of technology - I'd not used it before - and will automatically generate a path along roads from just a start and end point, even to the extent of recognising one-way streets, roundabouts and motorway ramps).  I have endeavoured to include placemarks for most of the locations mentioned in this account, whilst the rest should be obvious from where the lines start and end (zoom into Budapest, Eger and the Lake Balaton area).


View Hungary 2011 in a larger map

Other burning questions:

• Was it really that bad sitting on the bus for so long? I mean, surely it would've been far more tiring to drive it yourself, even in some hired Teutonic barge with a humongous diesel engine up front?  You know, I couldn't have put the question more succinctly myself.  I suppose taking a private bus is non-stressful and reasonably comfortable.  However, I can't really recommend coach travel for more than a day-long journey.  There are many advantages to it, notably: no baggage weight restrictions; no extra costs for carriage of large instruments; having a vehicle for use once at your destination; still cheaper than all but the most budget airlines provided the group can fill the bus. However, there are a number of significant disadvantages - it takes much, much longer than flying and a considerable amount longer than same distance by car or train; usually necessary to drive through the night as a hotel stop will wipe out any cost advantage over flying; large right-hand-drive coaches (especially those with ski boxes) are less than ideal for negotiating narrow streets in foreign countries/Eurotunnel trains; coach toilets can fill up very quickly (particularly when members of your party spend much of the journey in very determined drinking), start to smell and cannot be emptied easily, meaning regular potty breaks are a must (as well as keeping to driving time regulations) which lengthens journey times still further; breakdowns are considerably more lengthy and costly than on modes of public transport. In addition, it got very cold and uncomfortable once we were stuck for the night.  On balance I would advocate that it is probably worth paying a little more to facilitate the 'jet and Transit' approach, whereby a van sets off with everyone's instruments to the destination a day or two early and the players then fly out to meet it there. It isn't a perfect solution by any means, but I have found it from past experience to be the best compromise.
• Wasn't it a bit unreasonable to expect acres of sightseeing time on a concert tour, particularly one only a few days long?  Yes, I was probably a bit ambitious with my projected 'tourist' schedule. In Hong Kong, we had three concerts in over a week; Berlin the same in eight days. I should therefore have probably not been disappointed by the amount of time I didn't have to see Eger, towns near Balaton and many areas of Budapest, simply because it wasn't possible doing three gigs in four-and-a-half days.  The business of unloading a coach, setting up, rehearsing, changing, doing the gig and packing up again naturally takes up a considerable proportion of time in a day - and that's before factoring in driving two hours or more to the location itself. However I still want to re-visit everywhere again without an instrument in tow and my wristwatch weighing heavy on me, and actually have the time to appreciate everything.
• Was the effort of learning (admittedly basic) Hungarian worth it? Let me be clear I didn't do it just to show off (ok, at least not to start with) and whatever the motive it was thoroughly vindicated.  I suspect my accent was moderately terrible. But every Hungarian I spoke even a few words to - shop vendors, toilet attendants, hotel staff, ticket windows - seemed delighted and gratified that I'd tried to learn their language. English visitors seem more and more to take the lazy and even contemptuous approach of not even bothering to learn any of the vernacular tongue when abroad. Of course we're not expecting fluency for a short visit, but Hungarian is not that difficult compared to, say, Cantonese or Bo, and even a few basic phrases will do wonders for goodwill and convenience.  Anyway, when members of your party come up and offer to pay for your drink if you'll order for them, you know you've done something right.
• You went to Hungary before, didn't you? What did you think of it the second time around?  My fears that the destination would fail to live up to expectations were, happily, unfounded.  Hungary is one of the places that actually fulfils much of the myth-making I tend to do before actually visiting somewhere and did not disappoint.  Budapest is as beautiful as you can imagine. The lake we visited really did have milky pink waters at sunset. The food and wine were superb and plentiful.  What I was really concerned by was the notion that since my last visit Hungary would have become too much like Old Europe, and become filled with generic multinational-corporation adverts, fast-food and fast-coffee shops, cars and glass towers. Naturally I would not begrudge the old Warsaw Pact countries that which we enjoy under democracy, but neither would I like to see the individuality of a nation subsumed by outside influences. Happily, the balance between modernity and preservation seems to be about right. The EU flag sits aside the red, white and green tricolour on the town hall, yet the hall itself otherwise looks exactly as it did in 1900. Outside, a new Ford is parked in between a still-running Trabant and Wartburg.  The refurbished Metro 2 still runs old Russian-built stock (almost all clean as a whistle) with globular light fittings and chrome bars on the carriage sides. Of course, I did learn via our fixer several less proud aspects of the country - every nation has its embarrassing bits - corruption; heavy-handed authority; the government's treatment of ethnic minorities, in particular the Roma. But this is all outweighed firstly by the splendid treasure-house of cultural artefacts that Hungary, in all its various geographical stages, has left to the world, and secondly by those of today: food, wine and, still, music. It's a good country, as they go.
• I'm getting the impression that you're starting to prefer holidays to tours. And quite right you are.  This is, for me, significant.  In the old days, I used to think that playing concerts put us above the regular tourists, as we were actually contributing something to the host country above buying stuff with foreign wealth. Now I'm not so sure. Having had the financial and cultural means to take both normal holidays and participate in tours, I am starting to feel that if I visit somewhere new, it should be for the purpose of actually seeing the place and appreciating it properly.  Beside, I get enough playing done at home that the attraction of doing it in front of a foreign audience has diminished somewhat - although the fact that most other countries do not share the UK's philistine attitude towards concert music is still a draw. 
• I can't help thinking that all your mithering over others' drinking was somewhat over the top.  Look, I consider myself pretty liberal and certainly don't delight in moralising at others.  I have no problem with people getting completely cream-crackered as long as it doesn't bother me. When somebody whom you have never exchanged even a greeting with suddenly explodes into your personal space at an ungodly hour of the night, however, I consider it quite reasonable to tell him in no uncertain terms where he can stick it and what is going to happen if he doesn't. In addition, I was rudely awakened to the fact that even a group with a cultural purpose can still behave like louts, somehow flirting with two apparently contradictory worlds.  Probably the most apt metaphor for this less admirable aspect of our visit was the (nameless) individual who opened the bus' emergency door to vomit on a World Heritage Site.  Another, who is otherwise a fine tenor, thought fit to walk over a car and apparently narrowly avoided arrest for it. I've said before that the English in particular have a literally fearsome reputation abroad. Other countries get merry and (usually) manage to refrain from causing carnage. Why can't we?
• How have you been able to remember all this? Other than having a reasonably exceptional memory and a penchant for noticing things in general, I was writing notes-cum-prose most of the way which totalled about 40 pages in all (my handwriting isn't particularly miniscule). I tend to keep such a document quiet, as on announcing one is writing a diary people tend to assume it's full of gossip-y personal stuff (rarely the case but not unknown) and then get rather disappointed when it's a description of an interesting coloured duck on a bridge or what I had for dinner. Which brings us to...
• This blog has been going on for ages and the posts are massive!  One does one's best.  Not including this coda - no, in fact, let's include it - the word count is a healthy 29,000 words over nine posts, give or take. Obviously I've not written this all in one go, although sections were already formed in my mind even before we returned, but I've stuck at completing it and thus it's probably about the most complete account suitable for the medium. I could have written even more detail, given the time, although I think without a real plot it would have been a little unsuited to this breakthrough into novella territory.  Still, I judge it all to have been worthwhile via the message from a composer in the US who '...immensely enjoyed [the] blog, by the way. It is engaging and very readable.'
• Did your wine get home safely? Yes, thank you; indeed it did, largely due to the absence of dealings with any jobsworth baggage handlers. I sampled the white as an accompaniment to a chicken-based meal some time ago and found it as agreeable as the first time. But, as I stated at the time of purchase, the '08 Merlot is being saved for a very special occasion...

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