The toad work

The brain is a wonderful thing. Having wasted 10 hours of my life today working and getting to and from work, I then proceded to think about work, which made me grouchy and disinclined to do anything else. After a cup of tea and a chocolate brownie I decided to fight back, refuse to let work take over my entire life, and got Morag out. The grouchiness slipped over into my piping: too much pressure on my right thumb (ouch), too much air going through (too much bellows-action needed), drones too loud...

As so often happens as I played on things got better, work was driven out of my mind, I concentrated on playing. I notice that the the tunes I can play well are the tunes I have played lot recently. The problem is that the tunes I played a lot a little while ago and haven't played so much of late quickly become tunes I struggle to get right, so the Rocks are doing quite nicely now, but the King is rather shambolic. I can't play everything often all the time: apart from anything else, as my repertoire increases there simply won't be enough hours in the day (see above re time wasting).

I had to think hard just to recall which tunes I know: played pretty much everything, I think, except the much-neglected Highlanders. I also forget the coaching that the fan did with me recently on timing on the Rowan Tree. It's one-two-three-PLAY, not one-two-three-and-try-to-remember-if-you're-on-the-A-or-B-part-and-how-does-that-start-breathe-and-PLAY. Also persistently playing a run in note against the As in Teribus in the B part, and it's just because I've got into the habit and because the G makes the chanter easier to hold than flipping straight into A.

Did I mention...two weeks today I'll have my Monkey. Musical excitement all round as the fan is expecting his new mandolin to arrive from Somerset on Wednesday.