There isn’t much to report, but I’m feeling much more optimistic. Andy is back from his holiday and he’s made an appointment for us to take the computer to the Apple Care place in Kingston tomorrow. It seems to have a very serious problem, but it’s still under warranty, so the actual computer isn’t a big worry.
We’ve got most data backed up. So that isn’t too big a problem either, just a bit time consuming.
I’m also off on a short holiday this weekend. When I get back it might be all sorted out. I hope so.
Thank you for all the lovely private emails I’ve had. I appreciate the support.
I’ve been having lots and lots of problems with Flutewise recently. Most of them have been thanks to the Post Office and the Royal Mail. Today I heard my local Post Office will definitely close at the end of next month. This is incredibly sad and will give me lots of problems.
There have been other minor problems with all sorts of other things like the bank, which in themselves are quite irksome, but added together just makes a massive work load. That’s something I can deal with.
Then today something truly awful happened. I was working away busily all morning on the computer and got lots of really good work done. I had lunch and then went back into my office to find the computer screens blank – and they wouldn’t turn on again! I checked every plug and lead at least 20 times and spoke nicely to it, then I spoke not very nicely and phoned our friends at Apple. We tried various things and eventually I got to talk to our very good, long term friend, James Preedy. Not only is James a Mac Genius, but he is a flute player and founder Flutewise member, so he is an all round ‘good bloke’.
James spent ages on the phone with me and we tried all sorts of things and it seems the problem is very, very serious. Andy is away at the moment on holiday, but he’s back tomorrow. I can’t wait. Yes, we do back up, but there has been a problem with that recently so I’m not sure how much we can salvage, if anything.
I doubt if I’ll sleep much tonight. I don’t usually worry about Flutewise, but I am now. This is a problem I can’t put right.
Will we survive this?
An old friend of mine, Chris Hankin together with Mary-Ann Oakley, has just started a new flute venture – the Ealing Flute Academy. It is being held at London College of Music, Thames Valley University, St Mary’s Road, London W5 on alternate Sunday mornings between 10.30 and 12.00 during term time.
The dates for this term are 27 Jan, 10 and 24 Feb, 9 March.
If you are a player of Grade 5 standard and above you will really enjoy the activities. The repertoire is bound to be great as Chris has great experience especially with her connections with Just Flutes.
If you are interested, you can just turn up at a rehearsal or you can get more information by sending me your email address and I’ll pass it onto Chris. Please don’t leave your personal details in the comments box but use the ‘Contact Page’ to send me an email, or my personal email address if you have it.
I had a really nice day out yesterday at Just Flutes in Croydon. If you haven’t been, you really should, it’s an excellent shop.
I went up for a meeting with Jonathan Myall about my Fife Book. While I was there I had a look at the Baroque flutes he had in. My friend, Robert Goodman, plays Baroque flute and he really, really loves it. I went to his excellent concert just before Christmas when he performed on his beautiful Ardel Powell flute. We’d been talking the day before I went up to Just Flutes and Robert mentioned he’d seen a flute he was hankering after on their website, one made by Rod Cameron. I’ve been thinking about buying a plastic Aulos Baroque flute (it’s what experts recommend people start on) and Robert kindly said I could borrow his and maybe I’d like to bring the Rod Cameron one down on approval. So I did!
I came home very excited ………… but as soon as I put the flute together and tried to have a blow I remembered I’d tried playing the Baroque flute before and didn’t manage as the stretch is much too big for my hands!!!! So frustrating!!!!! It felt a little better this morning when I had a second go, but I’m not prepared to damage my hands just to play the flute. There maybe a solution or maybe I need to buy a nice Boehm system concert flute ….. Just Flutes have a very nice sounding Sankyo ……………
I’ll let you know how Robert gets on with the lovely Rod Cameron flute soon.
Today Gareth McLearnon and James Cairns came to my house for lunch – and they had the privilege of seeing my lovely new floor. I thought you’d like to see their photo with the fabulous plant (orchid) that James gave me. See below.
