Well my domain transfer went through without hitch, it just took me a few days to update DNS, I thought I had copied the settings correctly but I hadn't so propagation took a while as I neglected to adjust TTL. I really should make some time to update website. This last week has been quite packed and doesn't yet show signs of easing up with midweek roadtrip to conference in Wales lead by Roy Godwin from Ffald-Y-Brenin  and a bank holiday weekend with good weather, sort of forcing me to start addressing the wilderness I loosely call a garden (this ranks amongst one of my least favorite things to do, maybe I could grow to enjoying it). My procrastination, in this instance this blog, isn't getting the work done so I finish here for now and go out into the jungle...

I have just embarked on the scary process of domain transfer. It feels like i'm in a black hole, a no-man's land between registrars. At some undermined point my hope is that it will have occurred without hitch when I can again tell the world where my sites are hosted. I think the process would be more reassuring if instead of having to cancel in one place and order in another (the very thing that is creating this anxiety and post) they changed it to order in new place and ask old place to send requester a release code. I'm sure it will be ok but to me it is like selling your house and having to wait a few days before moving into the new one, tbh I would be far happier with that scenario but I think you get the gist.

I have depreciated my older blogs, and will try and just use this one from now. As you can see I only have one life so am trying to empty all the boxes into one place and then see what needs to be kept and what needs to go. I hope my decompartmentalisation does not cause you too much distress, but I think it should be better in the long run. Thankfully Bloggers export and import routine works quite well and seems to have preserved image links.

You may think this is a fundamental thing I have missed but I found out last night that the rod I use for cleaning is also used to aid tuning. I think things like this, missing some of the basic building blocks, are a side effect of self learning. I am sort of looking forward to practicing this evening as after last nights practice I tuned it and it did seem a bit easier to play.
This may be a bit of a tangent but my friend Chris and I where talking about The Church and mission as we are looking closely at some videos of Victor Choudhry and are about to look in more death at a book by Alan Hirsch (the forgotten ways handbook). At this juncture I am cautious but, and here the tangent does a u-turn. I do like the idea that we should learn mission through activity and not academy.  I likened it to my thinking which says: In my mind, I can hear the great melodious tunes I can play with my flute; then I discover the truth when I actually pick it up. It is so easy for the intellect to say I can do this but in reality it is the practice that should develop a clearer and real truth (currently this is that I am hardly beyond the first few faltering steps and need more practice).

So now I am a few months in and the momentum slowed, for one reason or another I have not been able or inclined to practice (I will so not make perfect like this). I am still not at the give up stage yet, I think that targets would help maybe. I picked my flute up again a couple of nights ago and was still able to make, what I loosely call notes, some sound out of it (so that's a plus). I have a few tunes that I can almost follow the music and almost make the notes, the lower ones at the moment being more difficult. I would say I can play the lower part of F major (not sure if I have this right but from the lowest F on the treble clef staff to the one on the top line) with it not sounding too awful, my daughter may disagree with this I will ask her when she comes back from camp. Hopefully the next update will be a little sooner.

I am now one week in. I have read we older beginner learners are impatient, I don't know if I am but its definitely slow going. I am managing 20-30 mins a day in the evenings (I am sure Melissa will say I need to do more) before one or another part of my anatomy starts to ache (mostly hands and lips).
Initially I learned which keys to depress for B, A and G and was finding it very difficult to get any consistent sounds at all and G was particularly hard, the first 4-5 days I was lucky if I could get it at all. My next obstacle was C, not that it was difficult to make a note but that it was impossible to change from B to C without loosing complete balance of the instrument. After some adjustment of the mouthpiece and the way I was holding it this now seems somewhat easier. The last couple of days I have also added B-Flat and F (I thought G was hard, this is worse) and I sort of guess where E is but both have the sound of rushing air. At least its making G seem somewhat easier. Reading music, as long as I go about five times slower than I should, is doable (I assume this will get easier with time, I have printed out some aide-memoir's to help me, maybe I should make some flash cards).
The book I have is meant for use with a tutor, it is second hand and has pencil notes for it previous student, so I do not seem to get the most out of it but for now am content to try and make sounds and change between them. Hopefully, soon, I will be able to play enough notes to start playing tunes I know.

Melissa decided I should learn to play the flute. I took a few weeks looking for a second hand one on e-bay which arrived on 11th Jan 2013. Initially I could not make any sound at all and I was trying to blow across the hole and not into it! By the end of the evening, with Melissa's help, I was able to get it to make some sort of sound and even start to learn some of the finger positions.
I had to go out Saturday morning but when I came back in the afternoon I encountered Melissa playing several tunes on my flute, I really don't know how she does it, one of which is Concerning Hobbits which she plays rather well on her tin whistle. By Sunday evening I can get some unstable sounds from this contraption that I am finding quite difficult to hold and am having a tendency towards putting my fingers in the wrong places.

I have started to look at music theory, some of this is returning to me since I last did this when I dropped music in the third year of senior school, now almost thirty years ago.

I wonder if I can do this? I think this will either be a very long up hill journey or will be cut short through utter frustration. At this point only time will tell.