Really slow living

"Nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no-one could find fault with it."

Cardinal Newman

I like that quote. When I have people come up to me when I'm playing in the band, they usually say -"I just love the saxophone - is it hard to learn to play?"

I tell them that I didn't even pick one up until I was 42, and it has been a fabulous journey. Then I give them some tips on how to get started, and a version of the above quote. 

I used to be anxious about making mistakes while playing, until I noticed that all the boys make mistakes too..and they have been playing a lot longer. They just shrug them off and say "you get that with live music". And the audience still seem to love it.

I even had one fellow musician from Australia come up and tell me I had made his weekend with one song I had played - and I'd missed a couple of notes on the solo! He hadn't noticed, and I wasn't going to tell him. 

The Beer Traps

In an earlier blog I raised my doubts about the effectiveness of beer traps. Well today I went down to the garden and emptied and reset them. From 2 cans of (out of date) beer I got the following catch...

Of great interest to the kingfisher who perches in my garden

Fridge Food Covers

A family member asked me, when I brought out one of these little beauties, if I had raided my grandmother's kitchen drawers. I told him, no that I had made it myself. After a little silence, he mentioned "did you know you can buy those?"

Yes, I do know - but I can make them for nothing, using up scraps of material, odd coloured thread and scrappy bits of elastic...and they are unique.

Rather than worrying about where I can get food grade plastic, I just use the inners of cereal packets - they've got to be food grade, right? 

I've found that using netting or lace fabric means they dry quickly when washed, and they don't fray.

I pull the elastic tight as I stitch it on with a zigzag stitch, on the plastic side with both layers together. I don't cut a piece first, rather just snip it off when I've completed the circle.

Sewing Machine

I mentioned in an earlier blog that my sewing machine started to smoke...well sadly it is unfixable. I put the first payment on that machine with my first pay..in 1976, a Bernina 807. The ladies in the sewing machine shop were hoping I would be buying one of their nice new electronic machines, but I've put a (free) ad in our local paper to try to get another one just the same.

Meanwhile Derek's daughter has loaned me hers (which is the same model), which was given to her by her grandmother. I am very grateful for the loan.