kjp

So there's another post on my parents blog that describes the situation.

Things are going downhill. "This is serious". ***

I keep things (ie: emotions) in check so that I can be of service and help my family as best as possible. But this (the keeping in check) will be bad in the long run, I'd imagine...

When I came down, I was thinking that it would be 'just for a long weekend - until Tuesday'; but tonight I wouldn't be surprised if I stayed and went back after the service.

Back to today events.

The day started off with a walk around a bit of the Pinnacle with mumsies; followed by a joke along the backtrack with Red and Holly. Then it was lunch time, then afternoon.

In the early afternoon Pembleton and I went down to the church to 'jam' (? if you can call it that). The piano is at her place in Sydney, so the church was a nearby spot to play piano and clarinet pieces. I've brought a fair chunk of my music down. The purpose was threefold: get some music into me and her; hang out with her; and sort out some ideas for the service (whenever that will be?...). We'll probably be playing some clarinet / piano pieces and some hymns from the songbook as people enter for the service. She'll play the piano for the songs during, I might play along as well.

Anyhow, of the "clarinet and piano" pieces that we went through, the artsy-fartsy pieces or too exciting pieces won't be appropriate. We've picked out a few 'nice' ones (and the most 'celebration of life' attendee friendly out of the ones that are available): Tartini - Concertino (I); Finzi - Five Bagatelles (III - Carol); Corelli - Gigue; and from the lime green book - Stamitz - Romance; Gossec - Tambourin; and maybe parts of (except the 2nd movement) of the piece that has no name (other than "Gavotte"). Hmmmm. They all have nice melodies; I think, which is important for this kind of 'gig', and aren't too hard (no time to practice heaps; and we might be thinking of other things on the day...). Unfortunately we won't be playing one of the best pieces for clarinet ever written Mozart Concerto (Adagio)... we'd need to do a fair bit of practice... which requires time, which is better spent else where.

We also went through a few hymns from the church songbook. The electronic piano that they've got is pretty cool; as it has a modulation function - so that you can specify what middle C is. So, you can shift the piano down a tone to play in B flat; which means that I don't need to transpose the music up a tone on the fly. Woo hoo. I'll leave that to my grade x clari exams.

After the piano / clarinet session; we sung a bit - choir music of mine. Arbutus; Banks of Doom from old choir; The Sally Gardens from new choir. They're all English / Irish / Scottish folksy type songs. Ohhh, and Thanks Be To Thee as well. No irony intended. No thanks from me to anything that probably doesn't exist for the crappy situation we're all stuck in.

And then it was back home. Then back out to get some dinner (chicken and chips from the shops, ahh the memories), and then helping dad, and then it was time to write something.

Must watch the chaser thing on ABC tonight - humour would be good for me.

Ohh, another thing I can't forget - for my list of memories of dad - the infamous olive restrictions at lunch time; and "tickle-torture". We got a little bit back earlier this evening when we were giving him is hand / foot massages (I had right foot - the one with feeling in it)...

*** This is kind of a joke between just me a dad (and now with you out in internet land now as well) (and fits in freakishly well with the downhill comment). You had to be there - somewhere in the hills above Adelaide ~11 years ago.