Countdown to Italia-Florence to be precise!!!

Life is smiling at me from every angle.

My students have done very well, my children are all set up to start new lives and I am ready to experience life as a student once more!!

I am getting ready to go to Florence where I will be for a whole month. I got a scholarship from the Italian Institute in Edinburgh to study Italian Language and Culture (History of Art). I am really looking forward to it. The Language school promises a very full programme of lectures and visits to museums, galleries, churches and neighbouring towns to study different art periods.

Think of all that and another aspect of Italian culture: Food, glorious food!!!!

Summertime approaching!!!!!

I love the light and the smell in the air. It is so fortunate that I am so near the Botanics and Dean Village where I walk and think, relax and work.

Someone (my ex) once told me that because I enjoyed my work it didn't really count as work. I have been thinking about it and funnily enough, just by chance, I met a friend today, who in the course of the conversation said: "you can't make your hobby your work". This started me thinking again. May be it is the case that a a job is something to be taken seriously and a hobby is something you play at, to take your mind of things such as ... a job!! I am not sure but the more I think about it the more I am inclined to see my jobs as something I enjoy tremendously.

The tourist season has started. I had my first 3 tours and hope there will be many more!!!
I definitely love my jobs, all of them.

Blessed and energised

I feel as if I have been born again!!!. May be it is the case and may be we should renew or recycle ourselves every so often!!!!

I have had the most wonderful experience at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival. I used to be a regular many moons back but for some reason put my harps aside for too long until this year. I joined 2 classes this year, one with Patsy Seddon (on Technique) which was just what I needed at this moment in time, specially after not having been playing for so long. Patsy is great, such a good teacher, very methodical and encouraging. The other class which I took was with Diego Laverde on Arpa Llanera. It was great fun. Diego is from Colombia and lives in London where he performs and teaches. Check his website http://www.arpalatina.com/

On the last day of the Festival, after the afternoon concert, I invited home some people I met during those glorious five days. Amongs the guest there was a venezuelan musician who has been living in Paris for the last 27 years. What a man!!! He exuded vitality and above all an overflowing joy "un torrente de alegria". He was staying with his niece who has a gorgious little boy called Marquito. The other musician was a Paraguayan harpist who has been to Edinburgh many times as a teacher at the Harp Festival. He is a Guarani speaker, very proud of his culture but with a big heart open to everyone. These two fellow musicians filled me with joy and laughter . Thanks to them both !!!!!!! for what was truly "una noche inolvidable"