Tuesday 4 December 2007

driving south from Aberdeen (Alison's driving, Mhairi's in the back)
We played our first gig of the week last night in the Cowdray Hall, which must have gone quite well, as I came out from my usual hiding to socialise over wine and mince pies with the audience, who were a friendly bunch and bought lots of CDs.

Over the last two days I've broken both bottom C# strings on my harpsichord, the second one just before last night's concert, so with 20 minutes to go I was frantically going through the scores so that I would be mentally prepared for the inevitable unplanned silence - in the whole programme there was just one. Bob is sending me new strings so I'll put them on tomorrow morning at home.

Yesterday's unexpected highlight was a wander round Aberdeen's City Art Gallery while the others were at lunch - it was just a couple of internal doors away from the hall.  A really interesting contemporary collection, well presented, with local work among the required pieces from Damien Hirst, Francis Bacon, and one of Julian Opie's mesmerising videos.

We're a bit less talkative than usual at the moment, as we stopped in Stonehaven for a truly enormous breakfast at Molly's café, including vast slabs of clootie dumpling. So blood supply has been redirected from our brains to more immediate digestive concerns.