The first two pupils to move were Monday pupils numbers 2 \& 3. Monday number 2 is a very bright, very musical girl who I've taught from the beginning and who's just got a distinction in her grade 4. Her mother is also quick off the mark and immediately phoned the new teacher, fixed up a lesson time and decided that it was best to switch straight away. I sort of see her point, but I was very sad to lose the pupil. Monday number 3 is less keen. However, lessons were going to be difficult for her this term anyway as her mother is due to be in and out of hospital having various operations. So they decided to take a term off and then switch to the new teacher if the child still wants to carry on at the beginning of 2007. Other pupils have started to drift away - some to my relief and some to my tears, and after half term, I'll be left with 4.

Of these four - one is clearly detaching herself from the whole situation by not caring much about violin. Her playing has become rather lazy - which I find infuriating in case her new teacher (not one that I recommended, but never mind) thinks that I let her get away with that sort of shoddy technique, and she seems to be giving up on any kind of energy in her playing. Of course, it could just be her age - on the brink of teen-apathy.

Katie hasn't done anything about finding a new teacher. She phoned me in the first week of term to tell me that she wouldn't be coming today as she couldn't find her violin. Hmm - OK. She didn't phone me on the second week, but still didn't turn up. On the third week, she appeared. Her violin had been locked in a school cupboard for all of the summer holiday and the first two weeks of term, and she hadn't noticed! Her supposedly grade five standard playing had slipped to an alarming all time low, so we had a very 'cold' lesson. I calmly said that if she didn't have time to practice these challenging pieces, then clearly we would need to do something easier, and she was sent away with a post-grade 2 study book. As the pupil after her came into my teaching room, I saw the expression of fear that I used to wear when my long suffering piano teacher had clearly had a bad lesson before me. I had to be extra nice to dispel the notion that I might be breathing fire for the rest of the evening.

And then, finally, there's young Matthew. He is the cutest, most marvellous pupil in the world. He's never just had a 'good' week when I ask, he's always had a 'brilliant' week. He's funny, hardworking, volunteers to play in concerts, enjoys all types of music, set up a folk band at his primary school, etc etc etc. And clearly the feeling is mutual, because I had an e-mail from him the other day. It said:

Hello!
For my homework I have to find a picture of someone who 'influenced' me and say why. Do you have a picture of you that you could email to me?
Thanks
Love Matthew.

I was thrilled and stunned and immediately pressed the hyperactive mountaineer into service as a photographer in order to send him a picture of me with violin by return. Next time I saw him, I asked about this homework:

"Yeah - we had to do a thing about a 'Great Person' and a 'Person who influenced us'"

"OK - and who was your 'Great Person'."

"Vivaldi"

"Goodness - I bet no other boys in your class thought of Vivaldi. Why did you choose him?"

"Well - I thought it was really cool that he was writing new music 300 years ago and people still play it now"

It's a fair point, and one I'm going to have a struggle living up to.

She also has strong colour attachments for days of the week. A quick comparison revealed that although some of my colours are the same as hers (Mondays and A major are both red, and an A sharp in B major is a metallic, shimmery colour), many are different, and she takes the whole thing a lot further...

"So - do you have to turn round when you get to 100 in numbers?"

"Pardon?"

"Well you see - 1 - 10 are here (gesturing in front of her), 20 - 100 are in diagonal rows here, and then when you get to 100 you have to turn around, because that's back here"

I'm afraid that at this point, people began to take the whole thing less than seriously. Comments were made about her lack of mathematical ability due to having to turn her chair around in exams for the big numbers and various strenuous denials were prompted by other mocking remarks:

"No - of course I don't start the Bach off by thinking of a chord of Monday minor - that would be silly"

But she had the last laugh later when she was talking about her son's wedding and the outfit she was considering buying:

"It's a lovely silk trouser suit with a matching hat and shoes..."

"Ooh - sounds great - what colour?"

"B flat major"

Usually, my first lesson with beginner violinists starts with the guided tour of the violin, and a little session involving learning the names of all four strings. Homework in the first week is to draw a labelled picture of the violin and then make up some words using the letter names of the strings. Generally this prompts a rash of ADD, EGG, DEAD, DAD, GAG, the occasional EDGE from an advanced speller, and CABBAGE from those who can't spell. At this school, I got my first AGA. A little glimpse into the lifestyles of this catchment. The excuses are also different there. 'Yah - well I couldn't bring my violin because we had to take my sister's pony to the hunt.

Quartet gig on Saturday was deep in the Cotswolds, in one of those beautiful villages with fabulous views and some idiot in front of you on the road, travelling at a steady 25 miles per hour, whatever the speed limit sign says. The service started late, not because of the bride this time, but because of the bride's grandmother who apparently had had a long way to travel. There was naturally some speculation within the quartet as to why granny couldn't be put up by any other family members, and by 20 past start time, we had her down as a real old battleaxe with prima donna tendencies. Sadly we had to eat our words as granny was wheeled into the church, warmly wrapped in blankets, supported by a carer who was administering regular sips of water and hankies to the brow. For the benefit of those who follow the fortunes of wedding quartets, yes, the bride came in to Pachelbel, and no - I won't be!

As mentioned above, I am in the process of trying to sell my house. The first problem is obviously keeping the darned place tidy. It's not something which comes naturally to me, but I am assured that buyers really are shallow enough to have their decision swayed by a few unwashed breakfast things on the draining board. So far, I've had no offers, but the feedback comments mailed through from the agents have been fascinating and terribly helpful. Some have complained that the location was wrong, others that the house isn't really big enough, and these I can understand. A number of people have complained about the fact that the three bedrooms are not all the same size, but my all time favourite baffling comment has to be:

"It's too adulty".

Now, clearly I've got over the 'looks like a student house' hurdle, which was something that I was keen to avoid, but have I gone too far? And what exactly did they mean by 'too adulty'?? Was it the stairs? Was it, as another wiblogger suggested, the distinct lack of Thomas the Tank Engine murals? Any clues?

We were booked to play for a corporate garden party last week. It was for a very classy kitchen furniture company in the wilds of Somerset (converted mill, lovely views, no phone reception), but something about the e-mail exchanges I'd been having with the commercial director made me suspect that things weren't quite as organised as one would like - although it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what felt wrong. As a result, I decided that we might need to be extra careful with this one, so I made sure that all our requirements and fees were in writing, along with the timings for our booking and our conditions (can't play outside if it's raining, has been raining, might be raining, is very hot, might be very hot, is very windy, might be... etc etc). I also made sure that the rest of the quartet knew exactly where they were going, and what time they were arriving.

All four of our cars swept into the car park together at 10.30am, half an hour before we were due to start. We found our way across the pretty little bridge, to our position in the garden. There was a light breeze, but otherwise perfect weather for an outdoor gig, and what's more, a lovely canvas gazebo had been erected to shelter us from any rain or sun which might worry our instruments. Lovely! Finally we found our contact. He informed us that we wouldn't actually be needed until 12, as the guests were going to get a tour of the workshops before coming into the garden for their lunch. OK - one hour less playing already, and an hour and a half to sit around and wait. Newspapers and books were shared out, and we discovered that it's not actually as much fun as you'd think, getting paid to do nothing at all.

Bored, I went for a little wander around the premises. Every room in the old mill was a kitchen. Including the office - which was a little odd. However, the office kitchen had an in-tray on display. The in-tray contained replies from people who'd been invited to the garden party. I glanced through the top two - both of which mentioned that the invitation hadn't actually given the time or date of the event. Whoopsy. I guess that would reduce the number of positive replies!

After befriending the rather fabulous caterer and being very well fed, we finally got around to a bit of playing. What we hadn't realised about our stylish gazebo, was that instead of sheltering us from all the weather, it had actually turned into a very effective wind tunnel. A couple of carpenters did their very best to save us with tent pegs and gaffer tape, but halfway through 'The Folks who live on the Hill', the whole structure caved in and enveloped us in canvas.

The next gig was a wedding, depping for another quartet. The bride and groom had apparently spent a lot of time visiting, phoning and e-mailing the quartet's leader and cellist, discussing music, making requests, and saying things like 'It's not that we don't trust you, but we're used to London people'. That old chestnut. Of course, once we were actually there, we were ignored by all except for the grooms granny. We love grannies - they're nearly always the most appreciative - and they request things that string quartets can actually do, rather than the latest Foo Fighters number. I had been warned by the leader that the groom was rather a sensitive type and she suspected that he might cry at some point in the ceremony. Clearly the registrar had met him as well, as there was a box of mansize tissues on the corner of her table. Actually - the groom wasn't really the one to worry about although his eyes moistened as his bride appeared to the strains of Pachelbel's Canon The tears began as a friend of the couple sobbed her way through a poem that she'd chosen for them. Then the couple sobbed their way through the vows they'd written for themselves, and finally they consoled one another in a long, loving, passionate and frankly rather more erotic than you'd expect embrace at the announcement that they were now husband and wife.

"When you're ready - in your own time - you've got a register to sign" came the patient voice of the registrar. "Get a room" came the stage whisper of the second violin. And finally they were off down the aisle to the good old Queen of Sheba. Somehow, despite leaving the Orangery first, they arrived in the Great Hall after all their guests. One can only assume that they stopped for a desparate quickie behind the nearest bush.

As we packed up, we discussed our various forthcoming events. Emily, the 2nd violin was off to Cardiff the next day to play for a celebrity soprano, better loved for her frocks than for her voice and we laid a few bets as to the number of wardrobe changes and encores.

I ran into Emily's husband the next day at B\&Q. After a brief discussion about sugar soap, he said, 'Oh - and Emily said she needed to tell you - 4 meringues and 3 lollipops'.

In readiness, I piled all the sacks of garden and recyclable clothes and bedding onto the pavement along with an old, long broken printer, then set about pruning the brambles which were overhanging the road. As I went inside to fetch the secateurs, I noticed that the printer had disappeared. Fast work there, somebody! As I went back into the lane, I noticed a tall, lanky youth carrying away a black sack, out of which trailed a familiar, 80's style duvet cover and one of my old summer dresses. By the time the skip arrived, only the garden rubbish was left. I tried an experiment. Next on the throwing out list, was a dilapitated old stereo. I placed it carefully on the pavement and took a couple of sacks of brambles to the skip. No-one around. Hmmm. Then another couple of sacks. Must be lunchtime... Then I went inside for a cup of tea. 5 minutes later I saw a young couple carrying my stereo up the hill. Marvellous! Who needs these council initiatives when your neighbours can do your recycling for you?

Tomorrow's job is to sort out the wardrobe in my room. This has been frightening me almost as much as the spare room had been - all my 'current' clothes are on chairs rather than in wardrobes - but I'm now interested to see how long each sack of old clothes lasts on the pavement, and how many I'll have to give in with and take to either the skip or the charity shops.

I have had the house I live in for around 12 years. I have had lots of lodgers, my house has been a base for homeless musicians and friends of musicians, people who have got a job in Bristol but haven't quite sorted their accommodation yet, and who knows who else! And I'm not a tidy person. Apparently, neither are any of the people who've lived here in the last decade. They've all left things behind.

It's not even that I look at things and think 'ooh that'll come in handy one day - better keep it', just that I'm hopeless at throwing things away. If I can physically ram a cupboard door shut on it (or the spare room door in more recent months), it's out of sight and I'm happy.

Clearly - this has to change if I'm ever to sell up and transport a sensible amount of stuff to the new home. So - this last weekend was 'garden, bathroom and spare room weekend', with a timetable of things for me to do during the week.

The HM got down and dirty with the back garden and front yard. Out went 18 sacks of ivy, 10 sacks of brambles, half a small tree, quarter of a large tree, two traffic cones and assorted debris from some excellent outdoor parties. In came an incinerator (with apologies to the neighbours and a bottle of Febreze to fumigate the soft furnishings throughout the house), two sacks of gravel, 5 sacks of wood chips and some low maintainance pot plants.

Meanwhile - I was upstairs wading through the spare bedroom. Two sacks of 'worth washing' clothes, two sacks of 'recyle' clothes and a small bag of nice stuff for Oxfam, and one sack of paper. And there was still a bed under that lot! I could have people to stay if I wasn't moving out! And then to the bathroom and finally finishing the decorating in there by sloshing gloss paint over the previously black door and skirting boards.

The whole front of the house smelled of smoke from the incinerator, the back smelled of a room which had been closed for several months, and the bathroom smelled of paint. I'm still sneezing.

On Sunday afternoon, after 2 solid days of home improvements, we went to a barbecue with two other engaged couples (colleagues of the HM) and I kept very quiet as the women bitched about their untidy partners. I'm marrying a saint!

And now the Hyperactive Mountaineer and I are planning our wedding. Actually, he's currently off being a hyperactive mountaineer in the alps whilst I plan our wedding and try to start moving my life 40 miles up the motorway, but since he took me to Milan to ask the big question and offer the ring, I'm not really complaining.

So - now that I've rediscovered the wiblog, watch this space for the joys of moving pupils on, moving rubbish out and moving into the strange bridal world of frocks and flowers...

Yes - it's been opera week again and apparently the tenor lead doesn't have the sort of friend who can tell him about the nastiness of voice thing. Now I'm really not usually the type to tell people they can't sing. Far from it - I encourage everyone to sing for reasons of health, self esteem and lots of fun, and I get very cross with the TV shows where people with perfectly decent voices are mocked and told how useless they are - but really - y'know - paying public and all that..!

He was supposed to be a heroic English army officer - of the type who occupied India a century or so ago but must say I struggled with his stranglated renditions of lines boasting of his bravery - he just didn't look the type.

The viola part of this delight looks like the result of an explosion in a sharps \& flats factory - but on the plus side, it's been great practice for playing obscure broken chords in C sharp and G flat majors in various positions.

At the band call we were each handed a double sheet of music which had been specially flown in from France at great expense and which apparently contained a vital bit of plot that would render the opera unintelligible if not performed. Hmm - opera plot unintelligible - who'd have thought it? By the dress rehearsal, we were informed that we might actually not be performing this extra number, as there had been some problems with the singer of it during the tech run. Now, obviously, sitting in the pit and facing forwards, I only ever have a tenuous grasp of the action onstage during any show, but it appeared to me that this number was largely an excuse for the cast of "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" to show up in pith helmets and for a character called Frederick to tell a character called Gerald that he was being a bit of an arse. Needless to say, we kept it in. Frederick turned out to be an actor of slight talent and unfortunately sang his aria more slowly and more flat each night. Perhaps it was a very heavy pith helmet.

Then off to an abbey for Haydn's 'Creation'. This is a work that seems to polarise musicians. I basically love it - although apart from one duet, I could happily live without the clearly pre-feminist and frankly rather rambling Part 3.

So - another Saturday, another choral society, another incompetant conductor. This one had a beat which generally went in more or less the right direction, but he would keep stopping and wondering aloud (as if for the first time) how to deal with tricky sections. He stopped for 20 minutes when he realised he'd turned over 2 pages at once. That was helpful. He stopped for a little longer when he realised that he was going to have to bring the band in after a pause. I heard mutters from my friend in the second violins, 'good grief - it's not hard - just let us get on with it'. Yes - of course - usual conclusion - follow the leader, not the conductor. Sometimes though - simply by dint of standing on a box, the conductor is more visible than the leader. So it was a shame that, in the performance, the 'Great Whales' (which if you're a violist or cellist is pretty much the reason for your fee and existance) was marred by the man with the white stick. It had all been sounding gorgeous. We were playing it as chamber music and having a lovely time, until we caught sight of the baton - which was suddenly doing all sorts of unscheduled things. Some of us rashly decided to try to follow it into four, whilst others remained solidly in eight, as rehearsed, leading to a couple too many suspensions in the final chords. Ah well!

I believe there was a choir there. I didn't hear them sing, but I know they must have been there because I heard the benches creaking as they stood up and sat down, and I heard the chatter every time they sat down. And I saw one of them standing at the back of the audience during the second half. Turns out she was a doctor and had answered the 'is there a doctor in the house?' call at the interval. I've not done a gig in that Abbey yet without someone being stretchered out of the audience. Note to self - must think of a way of lowering average age of choral society audiences. Still - at least this choir managed to get a capacity crowd to their gig. Three ladies in hats had an unexpected reception. I guess they must have been quite pleased to see that there were still three front row seats available at 7.29pm. They seemed less pleased when the orchestra started an ironic round of applause as they hung their coats over the backs of the seats reserved for the soprano, tenor and bass soloists.

She's a stunning, slim, fresh-faced natural platinum blonde. She's mature, intelligent and quite a few degrees more musical than she thinks she is, with a taste for modern music which is unusual and refreshing in a teenager, and I've taught her for the last three years, seeing her through grade 5 and beyond. She's also a champion show jumper and I have every confidence that I will be watching her on TV in the olympics after next.

A few weeks ago she had a back injury from falling off a horse and has had to miss a few lessons. She's been very good about communicating with me by text and keeping me informed. We started the texting arrangement after the week when she struggled painfully up the stairs at an earlier stage in her back's recovery. If only others would be so efficient about apologising for missed lessons.

It didn't come as much of a surprise really, when she made it up to my studio today to tell me that, regretfully, she was going to stop viola lessons. The equestrian training and competitions were taking up too much time to be able to do justice to viola practice. I completely understand. It's only the people who don't have a passion for anything that wind me up when they quit.

Still sad though. We stood in the corridor in the music department having the type of conversation that, if it were between two 'adults' would end with a hug, but between a pupil and teacher isn't allowed to. I got thanked for 'well everything really', and I assured her that if she ever fancied doing a bit of playing, she should just pop in and demand a lesson, and then we sort of smiled and she apologised until my next pupil saved the situation by telling me that she thought she'd probably failed her grade 3 last week.

Back to reality then...