Oscar woke me up this morning by leaping onto my feet and attacking them.

I have twenty-one tunes to learn off for this music group thing. I've gone over twelve so far. It is so obvious that one of the reels was not written by a concertina player :(

Happy Easter! Of course, my non-conformist mother and her non-conformist children did not go to Mass. We watched some Easter Mass on the TV last night (my mother likes the hymns) and I went all quiet and said maybe we should have gone to Mass. Mammy said, 'That's the Catholic guilt coming out in you. It'll pass ( Read more... )

Today I had to meet up for the Irish music thing I'm doing, just to listen to the music we'll be learning and record it. It was held on the third floor of a narrow building. The dancers for the group were clattering away in the room opposite the music room. It sounded like Riverdance in there ( Read more... )

I liked the Bourne Ultimatum and I understood what was going on a lot better than in the other two ( Read more... )

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I went to the concertina workshop today that's on for the Packie Duignan week. The teacher was nice, a bit shy and awkward. He's gave advice to my mother on getting a Suttner concertina for me...which I won't get until I'm twenty two, the waiting list is that long. And they cost about five thousand. *spits out coffee ( Read more... )

I went to the session tonight with Mammy and Eamonn. I met a girl there my age; she's called Deirdre, she plays the flute and she goes to Galway NUI. Tunes were played. Songs were sung. Paddy Kelly turned up with his great brute of a piano accordian and talked about nothing but the new bypass. My concertina was much praised; Sean, who plays the ( Read more... )

Yesterday I went to a traditional music concert with Mammy and Eamonn. The band was made up of five fellas who each played at least one instrument, and during the tunes they'd be running around going from instrument to instrument. The fiddle player was the best to watch because he danced and leapt around the stage like he had an electric guitar ( Read more... )

I made forty euro for playing for two hours in the session last night. That's only a tenner less than if I'd worked for a full day in a boring workplace! But it's not like I can expect to make money every Sunday - we only got money because there were so few of us at the session (the other regulars are at the World Fleadh in Portugal ( Read more... )

I think I'm getting a cold. Again. I can't stop sneezing, and last night I was so hot I had to cut a slice off the jumbo Mr Freeze that Sean keeps in the freezer and eat it in bed ( Read more... )

It has come to my attention that I don't get as much sleep as I should. I can't get to sleep on school nights, yet I have to get up early the next morning. On weekends I go to bed even later, yet I still get up reasonably early. This would all account for my pale skin and the big shadows under my eyes, I suppose ( Read more... )