tea with Tchaikovsky

Though I am back home in Manchester this photo was taken thirteen hours ago some 80 miles oh so outside Moscow in Klin, where Tchaijovsky had a house for eight years, and it is now a beautifully preserved and presented museum. So many signs of the real man are there, and this was a little nook off the main music room, and it jutted out over the garden like an enclosed verandah. Apparently he used to sit here and watch the garden in silence. That is his tea cup. Wandering through the rooms, there's his piano, and his desk where he wrote Symphony no 6. I was unbearably moved by all this......Tchaikovsky is a real hero of mine (but please don;t tell Verdi) and to be so close and to touch the same wood and walk the same floor was a bit overwhelming.