Gnats

Yesterday I managed a full day's work despite several short interruptions for rain.   Of course all that rain meant that the mossies were out in strength, and of course I got bitten.   Now this is something of an occupational hazard, but I often get a bit of a reaction to these bites.   Yesterday I got a  couple of gnat bites near my left eye, this morning I woke up looking like the "Elephant Man".

I realised that in my comments on last Saturday's outings I was a little unfair to the band I was playing with. I should have made it a bit clearer that this is a training band, preparing members for main competition bands, so by definition the players themselves will be more inexperienced and less technically able. This also means that they need to bring in help from experienced players to ensure a decent, balanced performance, something I am really happy to do as in gets me playing and it is helping others (and of course I just love performing). One thing that did come to mind, but only a day or so afterwards, was how much I enjoyed playing the tuba (my good old faithful modified Besson New Standard EEb). I am quite busy musically but I seem to only conducting or playing trombone, I like playing trombone and conducting is the most musically challenging thing I have done for some time. But my first love is the Tuba and I suspect always will be.