Pig Sty Avenue

Getting to the top of the waiting list at the Kennyhill Allotments in Riddrie coincided nicely with getting back from Saudi. I've been almost every day since. I've got half of the plot held by a gardener who's getting on a bit. He clearly knows his onions: the soil is beautiful. One side is fruit bushes which had overgrown and were straggling onto the main bed, and were besides getting choked with nettles, so I've been clearing them, and cutting back the bushes, even though it's really the wrong time of year for pruning. It was nearly job-done tonight, just a few feet and one more bush, a few dozen stinging nettles and couple of brambles to sort out. And then I saw a nest in front of me. Two listless looking chicks, one dead one discarded to the side. I swore and stepped back. I'd cleared the whole area of stinging nettles and feral fruit bushes, pausing as I'd been going along this thirty yard stretch, happy that it was starting to look like a garden. And...

Got home last Friday. After nearly four months practising on the semi-weighted Yamaha, the Kemble felt "rich and strange". Eccentric, even. My first thought was, "We're going to need a better piano". This was especially so with regard to sensitivity - getting a wee pianissimo note out was really difficult. So on Saturday when I happened to be in Biggar's in Sauchiehall St anyway, I had a shot on all of the pianos in the showroom. The digitals, mostly Yahamas, were fine, very touch sensitive, but of course soulless. But the acoustics, even a Broadwood baby grand, weren't appreciably better than my Kemble at home. And so I got back down to it. Next mushqila, all of the white keys from B4 to G5 are liable to stick, making RH scales impossible to play. And not from want of trying: I thought maybe they just needed plenty of work, and they'd loosen up, but no. Meanwhile, (I was so pleased to get my fingers on Mrs K, I was for playing every note), B0 and ...