At the weekend a bunch of us, all pianists, got together to be sociable and  listen to one another play some live music. One of us had realised that the layout of her house offered the opportunity for us to obey current rules while still enjoying some piano music. Her piano was near the French […]

My poor old piano has not been tuned for almost a year because of the lockdown. As the tuning became less delightful, I have practised ‘mind over matter’  – a kind of ‘fingers in ears, la la la! I don’t hear anything wrong’ approach. In fact, my piano has held up remarkably well, but the […]

A year ago, when lockdown happened and all my work was cancelled, I spent a lot of time walking around the streets of my neighbourhood – partly for exercise, partly to pass the time, and partly because we were not supposed to be taking the bus so there was no other way to get to […]

It’s now a whole year since concerts started being cancelled in anticipation of the pandemic. I remember very well that I had been to a birthday coffee party where the extended family sat around a big circular glass-topped table while our reflections ate scones and drank coffee in mirror image. I got home and there […]

In a cheese shop the other day, conversation turned to exotic cheeses and someone mentioned Gjetost, the Norwegian goat’s milk cheese which looks like a block of fudge and has a distinctive, caramel element to its taste. It’s a cooked cheese made with whey and cream, very rich and usually eaten in wafer-thin slivers. Mention […]