I'm stuck here at home waiting for a promised deputation of builders to come and replace the window broken in April. After they've kept us waiting for 2 months, what's another few hours?

Monday was the first productive work day I've had in ages, as my dad has been undergoing major surgery - he's still in hospital, coming out the other end of post-pump psychosis, which is a huge relief. After all the public money that went into the building of the then Abu Dhabi-owned private HCI hospital in Clydebank, it's good that the NHS got it in the end - staff and facilities are very impressive indeed.

On Monday I made some headway on the setlist for our 5 July concert: with a bit of luck, we might manage to fit in a gig on the 4th too. We've just heard that our recording of Hertel concertos with Mark O'Keeffe is going ahead, so we now have to work out where, when and for how much. And I've been granted a scholarship by the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation to do some research at Edinburgh University next year into the historical accompaniment of Scottish fiddle tunes.

Now, if anyone out there knows why my Proteus VX plugin now crashes Cubase every time I try to run it, could they let me know?