Yesterday Alison and I managed to waste a valuable hour of rehearsal time by driving to the wrong Linn factory to pick up the Kellie discs - oops. Still, the remaining time was put to very good use. It was particularly interesting (if hard work) rehearsing the Kellie C minor quartet as a quartet with added harpsichord, having recorded it as an orchestral piece. It's barely recognisable now: almost every phrase has a completely different shape. This is very encouraging, as it proves that we are still musicians, and that we're not just following the instructions that we wrote into the copies in the sessions nearly a year ago. In fact, most of the time we're doing pretty much the opposite of what we painstakingly wrote in. Ears 1, Pencils 0. A result.

Today we played a lunchtime concert at Glasgow University, which was rather good fun, with special guest star John Butt on toy keyboard at the beginning of Norrgården Nyvla. It was a chance to play some well-worn tunes, but they still have plenty of unexpected hazards for the unwary. The aleatoric C section of Alexander Don's Strathspey was an adventure, and we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by rounding the concert off with a very soggy Szapora.

post-concert: 'Can we go and have some tea now?'
L-R: DG, KMcG, DMcG, AMcG

But just as I was beginning to think that it was time to retire Echidna's Arf, that flew along in a rather satisfying and virtuosic way (much better than the CD), and old chestnuts like Martyrs/O lusty May don't seem to be getting tired yet. We tried out the new 'arse' set as an encore with us all walking off as we finish, like a miniature farewell symphony. And Barney my purple Yamaha melodica got his concert debut, after Eric the green Angel has developed breathing difficulties. I think he will soon be retired to a rest home for bewildered mouth-blown free-reed instruments.

We spent the whole afternoon in Tchai-ovna.