Another new post.

 I just rang Peter only to find that he is still in bed. 

He said they had no electricity (there won't be any red wine chilled today) and the road to town was blocked. At least the toilets seem to be functioning. 

Be safe up there, Peter and Lynn.

My work today got cancelled, not because of a storm but because teachers have been freed up by the year 13s being away from school. Suits me. My job this morning will be to do double bass practice.

I went to an old time/bluegrass jam yesterday and played for two and a half hours. My brother Daryl said to me, many years ago, that if you're going to a jam, take an instrument that is fun to play - he was really talking about taking a melody instrument, as opposed to something like a bass. I took my violin and my steel string guitar. I only played the guitar on one tune.

There were roughly twelve or thirteen people at the jam. About half of them had banjos. About four had guitars and one of the banjo players also had a violin. There was a guy with an acoustic bass guitar. My violin was the loudest instrument there. Yes, it was louder than all the banjos! The other violinist played quietly and was often out of tune. It reminded me of the importance of working on tone and tuning. 

The tunes they played had very easy chord progressions and the melodies were pentatonic - which made them easy for me to pick up. Someone there said that most of the tunes were in D or G because it made it easy for the violinist. Personally, I found that boring and wondered how many of them could play in, say, Eb. I told them there is only one scale on the violin, but they didn't seem to get my drift. It turned out that the banjos only worked in a couple of keys, so the chosen keys were probably more for them.

Wind and a bit of rain have arrived in Nuova Lazio, but I don't think we're going to experience what Peter is going through up north.

I guess it is time to get that bass out.

Let's hope that things settle down quickly in Whangarei.

Ciao tutti.