Last night's was one of our best gigs for a long time. Kate sang wonderfully, everyone contributed musically, the programme was a mix of bizarre curios and seriously good stuff, and the audience was warm and appreciative.  Excellent beer in the bar afterwards too (Caledonian's Golden Promise, the Deuchars IPA had run out).

The Kelly pieces we were trying out for the first time were very interesting - his one and only song is nothing special, but the C minor quartet is a wildly bizarre exercise in Sturm und Drang, with a beautiful Andante movement in the middle. His violin duo is tough to play but a great listen - the normally unflappable Sarah at 6.15pm: "I am so stressed".

We rehearsed the Mozart Divertimento in D the least (and quite deliberately so: we'd played it through the night before, made a couple of logistical decisions and then decided to wait and see what happened on the night) and it was easily the easiest and most relaxed piece to play. It felt like an educated discussion between the four parts, supported from below by Nin on bass and with me in the middle chucking in my tuppenceworth on the harpsichord from time to time.  It was very satisfying to sit there thinking 'well, this sounds great - I hope the audience are enjoying it as much as I am'.  That's the advantage of playing harpsichord in early classical music as opposed to baroque - you can't actually play very many notes or they get in the way, so you get to sit and listen instead. Judging from the reaction at the end, the audience did enjoy it too. 

Alison likened the first half of the concert to having a few glasses of wine and a nice meal, sitting on the edge of a cliff: below the calm and relaxed surface, a continual sense of narrow escape from disaster. And she's realised for the first time why violinists don't look up much, but keep their eyes glued to the music a lot of the time.  It's because there are so many bloody notes to read.

On Tuesday I was at a meeting of St Andrew's in the Square users, to discuss what capital projects should be put started next: staging and lights are the front runners here, besides trying to quieten the heating system.

On Wednesday morning I realised that if I'm nervous before a performance these days, I don't worry about the show itself, I just become gripped by a total disinclination to do it. I was doing a bit of last minute research and translations of texts in a reluctant kind of way, wishing I could just go back to bed.  It wasn't until halfway through the first rehearsal in the afternoon that I really felt like I wanted to do the gig. Very odd. 

This morning I had to get the car to the garage by 8.30 - not the ideal way to start the morning after a concert but never mind.  The car passed its MOT for the first time ever - as the man at the garage said 'that's a result for a Friday night isn't it?'.  And I heard the news about George Harrison on the way there this morning - as life achievements go, writing Something, playing its beautiful rhythmically disconnected final guitar break, and making sure that The Life of Brian got made, are not bad for one person.  Well done GH.

The last three books I've read have been the biographies or autobiographies of Rolf Harris, Frank Zappa and Billy Connolly. Now what a trio they would make: guitar, banjo and wobbleboard (or didge). It's a great shame that Connolly and Zappa never met - I can imagine them together improvising hitherto undreamt-of absurdities ...