Concertinas, Penny Whistles and other things

 I haven't really touched the concertina since it came back. As it is in a box, it is a faff to get it out so it just sits there looking at me. Plus, there is the same old problem in that I can't play a lot of my music due to the limits imposed by the 20 button instrument.

So, what am I doing with my time - both a lot actually. I seem to spend a lot of time sitting down with my eyes shut - not sleeping but just idle. This has never been me but, I suppose, at 76 it is to be expected. I am spending most of my "spare" time on plastic models (see my Gentle Scale Models blog).  I explain why I am not doing any model railways on my model railway blog.

However, this blog is about other things than models and railways.  I have taken up the Irish tin or penny whistle.  I bought one off Amazon for £9.95 and was finding it a bit of a handful. The problem with a penny whistle, for me, isn't the fingering as it is the same as when I was playing a fife in the cadet band back when I was 14. It's getting to play it without and streaks and whistles (it isn't known as a whistle without a reason!).  I was having some difficulty with this so, unbeknown to me, my wife bought me a better one. This one was a whole £11.18 so it had to be better, didn't it? In fact it was. The beauty of the whistle is that it can play in three keys easily. I comes as a whistle in D (two sharps) but, with simple fingering changes, it can also play in G (one sharp) and C (no sharps). A lot of folk music is written in D to suit the melodion so I have a wider range of music that I can play off the sheet without the mental transposition that I had to go through with the concertina. I still have the option of playing tunes in F (one flat) by doing that mental transposing but not much folk music is written in that key and I am certainly not going to start playing jazz - grin.

In addition, I have started another tapestry. This is a cushion destined for our new armchair. As Valerie is a big Lowry fan, she chose the Bothy "Street Scene".

So far, I have spent a couple of hours on it. The first was sorting out the thread colour patterns and the second was spent putting in around 200 stitches. As the tapestry is 14" x 10" with 12 stitches per inch - equalling - 20,160 stitches - it might take some time at that rate! Never mind, it fills in that hour from 7pm to 8pm when we entertain mother-in-law with something - currently rerunning around 12 series of Michael Portillo's railway journeys! (Not bad the first time round but after 4 times it gets a bit tedious).