Not boredom, but tiredness. Life continues and no I'm not going to talk about the war and I'm not even going to talk about how I'm not going to talk about the war.

Sally and Paddy have gone away for a few days, leaving me and Anna to fend for ourselves. She has some extracurricular activities to occupy her, I shall have to content myself with this diversion.

I'm still taking piano lessons and while they're not a raging success, they have me thinking about and playing music again which is the point I suppose. My teacher is quietly encouraging, complementing me on my ear and touch, but not so much on the matter of hitting the right notes in the right sequence at the right time. I'm working my way through a book of simply arranged Irish tunes, most of which I don't know and gradually my sight reading is improving. I'd like some sort of musical flash card software to test myself out with. Yet another little project I'll never start.

In addition to the tunes I get a few bars of music to extend or write accompaniments for and I really enjoy that. I was struck by how mathematical my approach was though. Granted the number of beats to the bar and the notes therein is a numerical calculation but I was thinking like "If this bit goes up this bit must go down and this pattern should repeat here but maybe up a third" which produces things that sound correct, but were inspired by pattern making, not music making.

I'm a little bit precious about my music and I'm trying not to be. We had a visitor the other night and he's the sort that will pick up a guitar and play it just because he likes to. I can't do that. I'm too self conscious and I don't consider playing to be that disposable. I'm hoping that my relative ineptitude on the piano will go some way to humbling me so that I can just play and it doesn't matter who hears me -- it's only me banging away on the piano.