Monday 30 May 2005

Today was that rare thing, a sunny Bank Holiday Monday. And as it reaches its conclusion, I wonder why anyone would want to live anywhere other than Scotland. OK, the weather's rubbish most of the time, we've got pointless violence and bigotry, institutionalised mediocrity, and people drone on about football as if it were something more than a game of chance with twenty-odd guys kicking a ball around, but ... after a spur-of-the-moment decision mid-morning to do a traditional Glasgow outing to Dunoon, today included two beautiful boat trips, a walk up a gorge (with plenty of very tempting swimming holes) and down through a forest, a fun municipal park, a classic old-fashioned Scotch bakery, paddling in rock pools, chips in the sea air at Gourock, and a peek at its wonderful open-air heated saltwater swimming pool (one for a return visit). And once the children were tucked up safely in bed, I went out to the garden and trampolined in the daylight at 10.15pm.

I spent a lot of yesterday working on the garden, once I'd flown home from another Geminiani gig with Alison, this time in Weston, Herts. I played a lot more right notes this time. Alison manned the CD stall herself and sold 10 ConCal CDs: the Geminiani disc itself isn't out quite yet, so the tradition of selling people pieces of paper at CD launch concerts is alive and well.  I was so tired earlier in the day that I had a nap in the middle of the rehearsal, but revived enough to do appalling improvised step dancing to Eligio's funky guitar improvisations in the interval. Not in front of the audience though. Besides showing her sales skills, Alison also demonstrated a remarkable knack at parking large transit vans: the rather dodgy one she'd hired for the day featured extra ventilation courtesy of a gaping hole in the fibreglass above the cab.

Courtesy of Herreweghe's recording, in transit I've been making myself vaguely familiar with the 1725 version of Bach's John Passion.