update

It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote, a bit of a whirlwind. Dad is getting frail and needs people around him a lot. This has had an upside in that my brothers have all rallied round to help. It's been weird and good. My three brothers are younger than me, and the only one I see with any regularity is my youngest brother, who lives in America. My next brother down is Barney of No Hit Records/Sounds that Swing - he lives in London and we may see each other once a year or so, and the middle one is Matt, the concert pianist, who I almost never saw. So strange seeing Barn and Matt, and looking for similarities and differences between me and them. So great to have a ready familiarity between us. Such a project to work on together, such complex arrangements. It takes all our energy, and work is just an unfocused blur at present, nothing getting done. Nice all meeting up in Putney together.
Phil and I made the pilgrimage to Pete Cooper again last week, and he said I could play something with Phil at his fiddle party at Cecil Sharp House at Christmasstime. Wow! Nervewracking. My new violin is very beautiful though and I am pushing myself to work hard at things I find difficult. It's very hard though, but will be worth it. If I look back to this time last year, or even December, and how I've moved on, there has clearly been some progress. A long way to go, but I may well be session-ready by the time we go to Whitby next year.