Well, one concert in St Andrews in the Square down, two to go. 

Thursday's gig was very interesting from a musical point of view, as it was the classical core group: Lucy and Sarah on violins, Alison on bass viol, and Liz on archlute.  At the end of the rehearsal day (Wednesday) I was in a really good mood, as things were going well. We all know each other's playing, and rehearsals are easy.  We don't need to talk too much, we can just play, and as we're all working towards a common aim it just gets better the more we do.  It's very liberating not to have to discuss every detail in the music, but to develop a common mind instead.  Our keyboard technician Roy actually re-arranged his day on Thursday so that he could listen to the whole rehearsal, as he thought it was the best we've ever sounded.

On Thursday we had a photo session with Kevin Low at lunchtime, and then we played the gig to a small but appreciative audience.  I wasn't in such a great frame of mind that day, and I'm not sure why.  In the interval, Alison and I sat on a table backstage and I tried to work out why I wasn't smiling - the music was great, why wasn't I just enjoying it?  After a couple of post-gig beers (and post-gig beer is the nectar of the gods) I felt just fine.

When we came off, there were some guys playing tunes in the bar downstairs, and one of them was playing smallpipes.  There's a piano there too, so I think after the 'ceilidh baroque' gig on the 15th, we'll have a session in the bar - I must ask Chris to bring a flute at 440Hz.  We'll do the posh bit of the concert upstairs, and then revert to modern pitch and carry on with pints to hand, and the audience at closer range (and possibly joining in) downstairs.  This could be fun.  

We went to see The Others at the cinema tonight.  The director Alejandro Amenábar wrote the script and the score (and a pretty good score it is too), but after 45 minutes we decided that neither of us really gave a toss about what happened to any of the characters apart from Eric Sykes's gardener, and he hadn't been on screen for the last half an hour, so we came back home.  I think it's one of those movies where you're supposed to admire the film-making and ignore the fact that the drama is a load of cheap cliché: nice direction, not so great writing.  If you've seen it through to the end you can let  me know what happens, but honestly I didn't get that interested.