Still no better – probably overdid it over the weekend and woke up feeling absolutely ghastly. I was home alone, so ended up spending the afternoon on the couch, alternating between watching episodes of Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers and working on the quintet.

The quintet’s in a frustrating place at the moment. I think I’ve solved a few problems today – pulled the end off and added a new chunk in before it. Had a significant amount of trouble reattaching the end, but I think it works. I’m not sure I’ll be able to go back to the opening material though – not literally at any rate – the slower tempo of the opening just doesn’t really work, I think, coming back at the end but I’ll review it tomorrow. At any rate, it feels very much like it’s wanting to move to the end now – which is a HUGE relief. It spent so long being stalled it’s just wonderful to know that it’s found where it wants to go. I think the new section I added today has helped a lot, so YAY!

I also inadvertently ended up cooking dinner tonight. Parents brought home chicken but then couldn’t decide what to do with it so I took over, and it turned out rather well: I boiled a bunch of Brussels sprouts, till they were only barely done, cut the chicken into small pieces and tossed it in plain flour seasoned with paprika, salt, pepper and a smidgen of saffron, then fried it off in olive oil and a little butter with some little bits of bacon. Once the chicken was cooked, I dropped in the double cream left over from the other night’s trifle, then the sprouts to warm them through, then folded through the cooked pasta. I think everyone went back for seconds, so I think I’d consider doing it again. The sprouts made a nice change

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Today I made my first-ever Christmas pudding. I feel simultaneously elated with the joy of creation, yet curiously let down by the fact that I can’t just serve it up – it has to just sit quietly till the 25th and then be steamed for another 3 hours before we’ll discover if it’s actually any good. It does seem to smell pretty good, though, from what I can tell with my nose all stuffed up. And the little bit of mix I tasted gave me hope that perhaps this will be a recipe I might be able to tolerate (my general attitude towards Christmas pudding is “ew yuk, take the horrid thing away!”). For those who are interested, I’m doing the Nigella Lawson Ultimate Christmas Pudding from her Nigella Christmas book. I was supposed to do our family’s traditional pud recipe, but there was confusion because the recipe we were supplied with called for “a packet” of cinnamon. I’m pretty sure I know what sort of packet this would be in Australia, but spices don’t come like that here and I’d hate to guess at the spice quantity and then mess the whole thing up. Nigella, on the whole, seemed safer. I shall take a peek under the lid tomorrow to see what it looks like and find out whether the whole thing’s been a disaster.

Still tearing my hair out over the Remembrances score I was supposed to send off earlier this week – it’s been dogged with annoying problems – everything looked fine, then I discovered the voice part was entirely in the tenor clef. After much poking at Finale I got this fixed, re-exported, re-trimmed, re-imported into InDesign… to discover that when I fixed the clef, the vocal line had dropped an octave. So now I’m re-re-trimming and hope to have it finished tonight.

Quintet is not happy. I think I may need to add something in the middle. This makes me also not happy.

I introduced my parents to my trifle though, which seemed to go down quite well – brioche slices, a touch of Napoleon brandy, fresh raspberries, custard, whipped cream, slivered almonds.

Oh, and posted a new blog post too. The Digital Dimension: 1. Programme notes, which then received a response post from Killing Classical Music, from whence the incentive to write the original post came. All very incestuous!

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I should be quick tonight as it’s nearly 5am. Whoops. The evening just got away from me, mostly in writing – I’ve been working on two related blog posts on ways ensembles and composers can add value to their work using digital options. The first one, on programme notes I’m hoping will be up tomorrow (um… today, I guess) – just need to review it and make sure I haven’t said anything totally mad.

I bought a pudding basin. And suet. Friday is Christmas pudding day. Yes, I know it’s very late. Nigella seems to think it’ll all be OK.

Worked on the quintet for about 3 minutes. Was hard to work on this earlier today as the lady upstairs decided it was easy-listening day. From about 3 in the afternoon till 8pm. But I didn’t want to go to bed without having put down at least a couple of notes.

Score for Remembrances is… done. Well, sort of. Looking great, flicked through… then realised that every single vocal stave is using the tenor clef instead of treble. So now I have to go back to Finale, change the clefs, re-export all 7 pages, open them in Photoshop, trim them and reimport them back into InDesign. Not Happy.

Heigh ho.

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Rather poorly today. Seems that Djelibeybi has given me his germ and so yesterday and today I’ve been doing battle with inflamed sinuses, earache and general urkness.

So I slept most of this morning and had some very bizarre dreams – very sci-fi/fantasy really. Dramatic but not nasty. This afternoon I was booked in to go to a session with my physio on relaxation – I’m a very stressy person and she thought it might help. And it seemed a useful session. I certainly relaxed *during* the session and will give it a go again over the next few days too, so I hope that’s a good start.

Afterwards I found my mother drifting about the Pitshanger Lane shops, so I treated us to treats from the bakery (I had a raspberry muffin, she had an apricot tart thingy) and we finally found reasonably priced Pedro Ximenes sherry at the cheese and wine shop. Whereupon my brain froze up and I got millilitres mixed with centilitres and brought home 2 bottles when I only needed 175ml it turned out. Um. Not very bright sometimes. But at least the Christmas pudding is finally under way (I have to nip out and buy currants tomorrow morning) with the sultanas (blech!) and prunes busily soaking up sherry.

Haven’t really felt up to doing anything on the quintet today – too achey and miserable. Hoping tomorrow will be better.

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I’ve been in a pretty bad head-place since getting back from Portugal. Not entirely sure if it’s a case of the post-holiday glums or just the dismal snow-ridden weather and being cooped up after all the exercise, fresh air and intermittent sunshine of Lisbon. Possibly I need to tidy up and do some house-brightening. Maybe invest in some daylight bulbs to dispel a little of the gloom occasioned by the appalling lighting setup in this flat. What I wouldn’t give to be able to repaint and move all the lights into the middle of the room and get rid of the landlord’s heavy, big, dark furniture. Feeling a desperate need for COLOUR.

At any rate, today was a bit of a struggle. I had a physio appointment in the morning. She has given me a red theraband which which to work on my resistance exercises, which hopefully will make actually doing them a little easier. The pavements out there are pretty treacherous though – ice all over the place once you’re off the main roads – so after that I just went to the local shops to get some stuff for dinner, and also took advantage of the chance to pick up BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM magazine for their Christmas music cover CDs – both very good this year, although I think (as often happens) the BBC one is the more interesting, so if you’re contemplating them, that’s my recommendation Also treated myself to the Christmas issue of Jamie magazine, which has some yummy-sounding ideas in it.

This afternoon has been primarily spent battling the glums and not really prevailing. We pulled out the Christmas decorations and dressed the (tiny) tree, which was nice, but I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to fill the wide windowsills and our empty walls. Might need to sort out some of our posters which are languishing about the place and get them framed quickly. Our last house was tiny, so the only decoration needed to make the whole place seem Christmassy was the tree, a few wooden stockings along the mantlepiece and my marvellous Nisse in the bookcase.

But now, alas, we have huge spaces to fill, and even the addition of the new crazy robin isn’t enough to fill the void. Or perhaps to overcome the clutter that we haven’t yet found anywhere to store. Maybe bright coloured boxes for the clutter might help???

But I did finally do something constructive:

1. I made raspberry muffins

2. I worked a tiny bit on the quintet until Finale crashed (after a save, thank heavens). I am delighted to be able to report that I’m still working on the additions I made just before we left for Portugal. I haven’t (yet) had to delete all that like I was doing on daily basis before. I think this is progress.

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SO proud of myself. I have done barely anything today. This morning I did do a quick edit on the recording from Friday night’s concert, so that’s ready for archiving now. Then there was a lot of dozing, napping and quiet silly conversation. And then I somehow mustered some energy and went out to buy the camera connection kit for the iPad and made dinner and a chocolate ripple cake. Um. On second thoughts, I guess I actually did do stuff. Whoops.

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At last! After a couple of weeks of the quintet being stalled, I’ve finally pushed it forward a bit. I made myself sit down and review the themes and figures that have been used for the earlier parts and realised that a bunch of related figures might actually work all piled up on top of one another – and lo! they do! Not entirely sure where it’s heading for next. Hoping that will come clear tomorrow. May have to be a little disciplined and go all pomodoro on it for a bit in order to keep it moving forward.

I’ve also put in a big push today to get my to-do lists in order. I’ve ticked off about 8 things from my list and done a bit of clean-up. I’d been hearing about this iPhonePod app called Epic Win – a to-do list masquerading as a role-playing game. You complete chores to earn points. Very cool concept, so I’m giving it a go – not for my overall lists because they’re too complex and I need to be able to categorise them in more detail than Epic Win allows, but I’ve moved all the regular but dull and not critical tasks out of  Remember The Milk and into Epic Win to (a) encourage me to actually do them (stuff like reconciling accounts and downloading bank statements) and (b) stop them cluttering up my other lists so much that I can’t see what I’m doing. Crossing fingers it works well. I’d really like to be able to just have one manageable to-do list but it doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. Got to just keep plugging away at it, I guess.

And now it’s time to bake

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Back to the quintet again after a few days of hijacked priorities. I’ve ripped off the tail of it (unfortunately a bit I really liked but it was meandering and not really contributing anything but confusion) and reworked and it feels quite a bit tighter now. Might try to find a home in another piece for the detached tail sometime.

I baked too – a new recipe from my most recent cookbook acquisition, The National Trust Teatime Baking Cookbook – Cornish Fairings. They’re kind of like a light gingerbread, slightly chewy in the middle. The closest commercial biscuit I can think of in flavour is those Swedish Ginger Thins you get from Ikea. Really a first-rate recipe – easy, very tasty, and made a good quantity. Definitely a keeper.

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Low-achievement day today – I went to the dentist for a check-up and to see what’s going on with this tiny abcess I’ve had on my gum, coming and going in the same spot for about a year and a half. Last time she gave me antibiotics which didn’t really do anything, and this time *sigh* she did a full-mouth x-ray and discovered that a filling my Australian dentist did was drilled too close to the nerve, so it’s irritating the nerve which is causing the abcess. So I need root canal. *waaah!* On the plus side, there’s nothing actually wrong with my teeth, which is kind of comforting. Anyway, the whole experience kind of put me in a little grey hole. So I baked brownies for a lovely friend who my parents are meeting up with while they’re away. Hope they turned out OK. This oven’s really quite insane…

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I don’t seem to have achieved a huge amount today. Between sleeping badly, getting up late, clonking myself on the head with the kitchen cupboard which resulted in intense wooziness, then accompanying my Da to the dentist and a long and lovely walk home, followed by a much needed nap, there wasn’t a lot of time left, but the walk was indeed lovely – the heavens decided to wait to open until we’d decided to hop on the bus for the last bit, the ankle stood up pretty well to it, I did 20 minutes on the Wii Fit in the morning (just the balance games – trying to do a little bit each day to see if it helps to strengthen the ankle), made my Da a chocolate ripple cake and have nearly finished (I’m pretty sure this time) the scarf for my Great-Aunt which now flows down off my lap and keeps my ankles warm while I’m knitting it.

And I’ve had a fresh stab at trying to generate some ideas for this quintet. Not terribly successful, although the opening idea might end up in it, but it’s more of a texture than a melodic germ. I know it’ll come eventually, but it’s just taking its own sweet time which always freaks me out a little. Contemplating heading into town and picking up the score of the Martinu Sextet that I didn’t bring home the other day – possibly a little score-reading will spark some ideas???? Sort of feel I’m clutching at straws though… Must remain calm…

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