I went to the optician to have my eyes tested in the morning. I didn’t need new glasses which is a surprise. I occasionally use them for reading.

In the afternoon my friend Lindy came with her 3 children. Lindy is wonderful and has written an article for every Flutewise magazine since the beginning – 1988. She’s been very busy recently having babies. Tabitha is nearly 4, Rupert, who is my Godson, is nearly 2 and their new brother, Edward is 4 months old. It was lovely to see them. Our house isn’t really that well-equipped for little people these days, but Tabitha and Rupert managed to entertain themselves ‘cleaning’ my kitchen floor. We went for a walk around our park and we had some tea and a biscuit.

Then my Aunty Betty died. I wrote about her a while ago (March 16). She was a very, very special person and I feel very sad. She had been ill for a while. We lit the candle for her in the cathedral in Orlean when we were on holiday and I took the photo to show her when I next went to visit. I was trying to organise to go up there, Newcastle upon Tyne, next week. I will be going now, sadly for her funeral. I’m not quite sure when I’m going yet, I’ll find out the arrangements on Monday.

So while I’m away, can you talk nicely again amongst yourselves about the flute, music, the meaning of life and anything else? If you do even better than last time I’ll award some more prizes – Aunty Betty would have liked that.

I’ve just had a nice email from Rachel to thank me for her prize for blog comments. A few days ago Rachel also sent me a thank you email for the Funky Flute book I sent her. Why am I telling you this? The reason is because it is so unusual for people to thank me for things I send them. Are you surprised at that? I am, even after all these years.

In the early days of Flutewise I used to spend a great deal of time trying to encourage individuals and firms to give prizes for our members. I often managed to get splendid flutes as prizes. Sadly, they caused more problems than anything else I did. On several occasions a flute would be won by a member and instead of me answering the phone to a happy, grateful parent, it would be an irate mother on the end of the phone telling me that the flute her daughter had just won had a dirty mark on the headjoint (it just needed rubbing off with a soft cloth), or her daughter couldn’t possibly attend a presentation, or her son didn’t want the flute, he wanted a saxophone instead! Honestly, I’ve had countless complaints.

Mums often ring as soon as a magazine is published to say their son/daughter has won a prize and it hasn’t arrived. I get quite a number of those calls, but rarely thank yous. I also get people asking for different colours of things or different recordings if they’ve been sent a CD.

I think it is quite sad, I always write a thank you card if I’m given a present. Is that an old fashioned or weird thing to do?

I do get quite a number of thank you letters and emails after courses. They are always more than welcome, but then again only a few people actually bother.

Oh well…. I suppose that is life.

Thank you for reading this.