It was Easter Monday a week or so ago, so we escaped the hullaballoo and went to Kutná Hora, a delightful town about 70 miles SE of here. Historic silver mining town, once the capital of this great yet little country. The pic shows the Town Hall.

Will post some pics (and hopefully an mp3 or something) of last weekend's big-time better-late-than-never St Patrick's Ball. The band was in good form I would say; put it this way, they wouldn't let us go home till nearly 3am.

Am trying to make rough plans to go to Edinburgh for a week or so for the NM event, but will have to wait and see.

In memoriam

Today I received, as did others, a circular from St Mary's about the memorial concert for Nigel. I was very moved to be asked to play the Strauss Metamorphosen with a reconstructed orchestra of ex-Nigel pupils, but I'll leave that to the professionals. However, I will try as much as I can to at least go, I owe it to him. But I must admit to being a little fraught at the prospect of seeing so many fellow pupils, who I haven't seen for maybe twenty years, all at the same time at such an emotional moment. The circular was sent to many who I have lost contact with, and now I find I don't have the courage to write to them. Why one requires courage to do such a thing I don't know. But, as I wrote in my reply to Ms Ellison (who she?),

"St Mary's has had a lasting and positive influence on many aspects of my life, and unknowingly provides me with inspiration and guidance today, even after so many years. I am indebted to those teachers who struggled to enable me to see and hear my way in the world, in particular Audrey Innes, Lyell Cresswell and Nigel Murray, whose recent death saddened me greatly."

I will try to go. It's far and expensive. But as I said, I owe it to the man. He tried against all odds to nurture in me an inner understanding of the violin. If I compare myself to his other pupils he had a particularly hard job with me, maybe he even lost the battle. But his approach, his teaching (and his enthusiasm for hillwalking) instilled in me a special appreciation of how valuable it is to have a musical understanding of the world we inhabit.

I will try to go.