Festive Cheer
Well, here I am again...
I had a fairly quiet Christmas, and spent most of Christmas Day & Boxing Day visiting my mother, who lives just a few miles away: Good food, conversation, listening to music that we both like, and hardly any television (just a couple of programmes on Boxing Day evening, the first of them about ex-politician Michael Hesseltine's garden and the other about comedian Tony Hancock). Mum can't get around the shops very easily nowadays, so she gave me some cash that notionally went towards a batch of CDs that I'd ordered online from 'Britannia' (JS Bach, CPE Bach, Corelli, Torelli, and some others...): I gave Mum a calendar [as requested, as usual], some 'violet cream' chocolates which I know she likes, and -- as she refuses to get a CD player -- a tape that I'd made of some Baroque & Classical music (by Telemann, and by one of Mozart's contemporaries who went by the the name of Johann Baptist Vanhal, respectively...).
On the day after Boxing Day I went to visit my friends Kevan & Irene, who live a couple of miles further out of town: Irene had to work that night, and consequently had to spend most of the afternoon asleep, so Kevan and I spent most of the time playing games on their computers... and after that, having been invited to spend the night there instead of going home in the cold, I played a game of 'Civilization 4' that took me through from just after midnight until almost breakfast-time (and at which I beat the computer, although only on points rather than by meeting any of the more decisive victory-conditions...) Home again shortly after noon on the Wednesday, and out again to the library for a couple of hours online although I didn't feel quite awake enough to post anything here then.
Yesterday to the library again, and to catching up a bit on what I'd missed online during the previous days although I just couldn't find enough time to update this journal whilst doing so.
And when I got home yesterday evening it was to find a very pleasant surprise awaiting me: another Christmas present, which had only just got through the postal service... This was from the fantabulous firynze and contained a number of CDs, not just the ones by Vermont-based 'Folk' group The Woods Tea Company which she'd already promised to send at some point (and which were REALLY marvellous, as she'd said they would be:
Kat, when I listened to them I found myself tapping my feet to the rhythms -- clapping along with the live audience, when appropriate -- laughing out loud in places -- and even joining in on a couple of the choruses! Oh, and one of the songs featured was 'The Cat Came Back', which I'd really liked when I heard somebody or other singing it on the wireless years ago but hadn't found on any discs since I started buying music.... *Purrrr* Thank You! :-) but several others [of various genres] as well... and although I haven't found the time in which to listen to any of those others yet they all look like stuff that I should like, but none of them were ones that I already had copies of (Well, I do have a different recording of the Purcell, but it'll be interesting to compare them). MANY THANKS! :-)
I had a fairly quiet Christmas, and spent most of Christmas Day & Boxing Day visiting my mother, who lives just a few miles away: Good food, conversation, listening to music that we both like, and hardly any television (just a couple of programmes on Boxing Day evening, the first of them about ex-politician Michael Hesseltine's garden and the other about comedian Tony Hancock). Mum can't get around the shops very easily nowadays, so she gave me some cash that notionally went towards a batch of CDs that I'd ordered online from 'Britannia' (JS Bach, CPE Bach, Corelli, Torelli, and some others...): I gave Mum a calendar [as requested, as usual], some 'violet cream' chocolates which I know she likes, and -- as she refuses to get a CD player -- a tape that I'd made of some Baroque & Classical music (by Telemann, and by one of Mozart's contemporaries who went by the the name of Johann Baptist Vanhal, respectively...).
On the day after Boxing Day I went to visit my friends Kevan & Irene, who live a couple of miles further out of town: Irene had to work that night, and consequently had to spend most of the afternoon asleep, so Kevan and I spent most of the time playing games on their computers... and after that, having been invited to spend the night there instead of going home in the cold, I played a game of 'Civilization 4' that took me through from just after midnight until almost breakfast-time (and at which I beat the computer, although only on points rather than by meeting any of the more decisive victory-conditions...) Home again shortly after noon on the Wednesday, and out again to the library for a couple of hours online although I didn't feel quite awake enough to post anything here then.
Yesterday to the library again, and to catching up a bit on what I'd missed online during the previous days although I just couldn't find enough time to update this journal whilst doing so.
And when I got home yesterday evening it was to find a very pleasant surprise awaiting me: another Christmas present, which had only just got through the postal service... This was from the fantabulous firynze and contained a number of CDs, not just the ones by Vermont-based 'Folk' group The Woods Tea Company which she'd already promised to send at some point (and which were REALLY marvellous, as she'd said they would be:
Kat, when I listened to them I found myself tapping my feet to the rhythms -- clapping along with the live audience, when appropriate -- laughing out loud in places -- and even joining in on a couple of the choruses! Oh, and one of the songs featured was 'The Cat Came Back', which I'd really liked when I heard somebody or other singing it on the wireless years ago but hadn't found on any discs since I started buying music.... *Purrrr* Thank You! :-) but several others [of various genres] as well... and although I haven't found the time in which to listen to any of those others yet they all look like stuff that I should like, but none of them were ones that I already had copies of (Well, I do have a different recording of the Purcell, but it'll be interesting to compare them). MANY THANKS! :-)