String Them Up

I would be the first to congratulate Eloise on her violin skills, if she practiced consistently and managed to move gracefully on from the Strangled Cat phase of bowing skill, but try as I might in my inimitably irascible way to encourage stroke discourage her to stroke from fingering properly, intoning correctly, and correcting the jittering bow, she is taking her sweet goddamn time in making the transition to being a sweet fiddler.

Thinking back, it probably took me many years, and I suppose I must thank my parents for their patience and indulgence, unable as I am to recall their exhibition of these qualities.

Eloise does play in an "Orchestra" by which we have previously been awestruck in their rendition of varying little-known ditties of dubious provenance. Frankly they were pretty dire, but time and plenty of early-morning practice have improved them immeasurable to the point where they have entered a competition.

And on this day, a Sunday no less, Eloise did don her music shirt, and she did pack her musical instrument, and we did journey South into the Badlands of the Southside to Calamvale, that most distant of distant suburbs, where on the way we did become lost and wander in the wilderness before finding said school which was to all intents a wilderness in its own right, titanic and sprawling with schools within schools. And we did eventually find ourselves, near a sausage sizzle, where more Wilston Parents did appear, and thence did the assembled students depart for to practice and we did stand around chatting while the time of our proud discomfortable viewing did approach.

And we filed into the Auditorium and the children did ascend onto the stage and we did watch mistily as they played their music. And it did please us.

They did all right in the end, though they were gutted to get only a silver award, but I thought it reasonable as the Judge delivered his fair assessment that they needed to work on their intonation (i.e. they couldn't really play in tune).

The Plastic Trophy was held aloft and we did hoof it away, a tout vitesse, back to the Sunny Northside, where the living is easy, the traffic light, and the women so much more comely.