all I want is a cellar somewhere

It'd be lovely and cool in the summer. Much better than an attic, judging from the way my parent's loft heats up in the summer. Instead all I have is a small cupboard containing bicycles, three lawnmowers left by previous residents, one strimmer owned by the woman in the flat upstairs, a few bits of hose, some boxes of vaguely gardening-related crap and probably a vast number of spiders. It's not even really that cool despite being beneath the stairs as the back wall gets the sun on it all afternoon in the summer.

More stringy-quartet this morning with the Pavel Haas quartet, mostly uninterrupted by rustling oaves although the evil shite who spent last Saturday scratching his neck and sighing audibly during the performance was also in attendance (though out of earshot) but must have been really irritating the people beside him who could probably hear the behaviours he was visibly repeating. Can't remember what they played without looking it up - nothing I'd heard before and probably nothing I'd rush out to buy or download but it's always nice to see and hear stuff live. The sound's not bad in the Queen's Hall at quartet/quintet level though I've always had to settle for seats fairly near the back wall where strange effects occur; my left ear was getting loads more cello than the right today, either due to it bouncing off the wall or father-wingpig absorbing a disproportionate amount of the other sides.

Although it was raining when we emerged it was dryign again by the time I got back out in the afternoon and went to the bicycle-shop to pick up the wateproof I had dithered over without buying yesterday. Seeing as it had taken almost a week of heavy daily rain to make me even start properly looking and trying things on it was a wonder that I ended up buying anything though the rare combination of being on sale, not being bright yellow, not being black (why people even sell bicycling-raincoats in low-visibility styles in northern latitudes is always puzzling), fitting almost well (a little bit small of cuff but it'll stretch) and being nice and small-packable almost had me worrying that I should have bought it yesterday in case it had been sold this morning, forcing me to start searching again. Luckily it was still there though since buying it it hasn't been rainy enough to warrant testing.

I thought this evening's Usher Hall stuff would be mild opera but it turned out to be slightly more open-throaty chamber-singy stuff with the singer (Anne Sofie von Otter - never heard of her though my dad seemed quite keen) with the orchestra using gut strings and the odd bit of period instrumentation for which the current politically-correct term is apparently "historically informed" rather than "accurate" just in case someone takes offence at someone cleaning their valveless trumpet with modern Brasso or using the wrong grip on the bow when playing a viola da Gamba. The higher-pitched strings sounded a little bit buzzy but the basses positively benefited from both the reduced volume of the other strings and from the quality of sound they generated. There was also one bloke toting a vastly long member of the lute family with a normal, fretted neck from which an extension arose leading to an additional floating headstock from which a bunch of other unfretted strings were attached which I thought might be there as resonators but which were occasionally plucked and identified in the programme as a Theorbo. Not a massively interesting sound, even when played solo (which was pretty much the only time it could be picked out) but it did provide a little amusement when the po-faced bloke plucking it stood up to swan like a swain up to the front of the stage on the final encore and swatted the dangling microphones with the headstock, possibly a common problem with instruments over eight feet long.