We’ve had our first magic Flute event with Stephen in Camberley, thanks to Barbara for organising the venue. To say it was one of our smaller events is a bit of an understatement, what a shame more people didn’t turn up, but it was November 5th, good old bonfire night. Before the event,  Stephen and I discussed at length if we should go ahead as bookings were low. We are so pleased we did. It was very special and well worth it. If that person who wrote me that amazing email after the event is reading this, thanks for letting us motivate you – and I hope we can continue to do so for a long time to come.

Stephen and I went for a lovely curry afterwards, in an excellent restaurant. The food was superb. We think the waiters were trying to be friendly, but it seemed like we were being interigated about where we were going, why we were going there and how long it would take us to get there. Weird!

So one down and more to go. Please come and join us at one if you can, you’ll really enjoy it.

Gromit - a present for Raef (but he's not getting my uke!)

We all seem to have gone mad over our ukes. Gromit here is for my friend Marion’s little boy, Raef. They live in San Diego, so I thought I’d take a photo of him to get Raef excited about his present – although I’ve made it VERY clear that pink ukulele called Erich stays here!

I’ve just received this from Cornelius. I thought you would like to share it.

Thankyou so much. It was fun.

I leave you with this thought:

We live in a world where all of the major earth shattering challenges have been met.
Everest has been conquered, the moon reached, the 4 minute mile left in tatters and the Pacific Ocean crossed solo by a man on a chilly bin lid.
Given that there just isn’t anything meaningful left for the rest of us to attempt, we’ve been forced to downsize and make more personal our versions of these mammoth and unlikely tasks, to seek less obvious rewards.
The challenge of making complex and listenable music with just 1.5 metres of nylon strings, 550 grams of wood and glue and a musical range of 1.5 octaves may not be earth shattering but it is just as unlikely.

Your next challenge (should you wish to accept it) is to take up the UKULELE