"Who Made Little Boy Blue"

 

  Having honed down our CD`s to about 100, I thought it was time to make a start on my extensive collection of piano sheet music. It has been stored in the bottom drawer of our filing cabinet. All 1,290 pieces. Over the last few
weeks I have played almost every bit in order to decide whether to keep it. Here are the criteria ...

what key is it in? ie. anything with 4 or more flats goes

do I like it?

can I play it?

I even found some doubles.

Oh I have had a great time. I rediscovered music I hadn`t played for years and my fingers just found the right keys. I even discovered pieces I didn`t realise I had.

We love the film "A Good Year." The music in that film is evocative. There is a scene where Ludovine is mopping the floor with Max watching. The music is "The Wedding Samba."

I love it, though its not easy to play  ..... easier from seeing the film about ten times. It was my best find.

For some inexplicable reason I had put an address label on every piece .... why? So I have had to remove all of those plus my filing system letter and number.

I have kept over 500 and got rid of 700.

Some of my music is nearly 100 years old. The artwork is special. Yesterday I took photos of some that are in the charity box to preserve my memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whenever music has come into my possession I have repaired it with special tape but some is VERY fragile. It has left a papery dust on my lowest keys. I just hope someone else can enjoy the ones I am donating and that they don`t end up being burnt.

Now I need to decide whether to write a new reference book which might take some time. The old one has a lot of crossings out.

Everything I have left I am going to enjoy so much and I think  my piano may need tuning. 

I forgot to mention that much of this music can be found on YouTube so it is well worth looking it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slide Retrieval

 In my last post I mentioned that I was dealing with our 1000 strong slide collection.

 I wanted to share my experience because it may help someone else.

Those of us of a certain age may have boxes of old slides and are wondering what to do about them. 

Some people may be quite happy to load up their slides onto a projector carrier and enjoy watching them in the old way .... that is, projected up onto a screen or a wall. In the past we had a lot of fun at family gatherings doing just that. 

 Others may be happy to view them through the little viewers, still available, one at a time.  

But for several decades ours have sat untouched in the loft and we have wondered what on earth to do ..... we did not want to lose the memories. So it was time to get to grips with the problem.

Here are the slides.

I did a bit of on-line research and found something to help. 

A mobile film scanner.

(Our own A4 scanner was of no help.) 

 The new piece of kit duly arrived.

Here it is. It was £19. Battery operated (2 x AA)

In the meantime I had looked at every single slide on a small viewer deciding what to keep. It was easy. Mould, deterioration, poor quality etc. In this way we halved the lot and 500 didn`t seem so daunting.

The mobile phone rests on top, slides are placed on the tiny lit screen and after lining up and focussing, you just take a photo. Lining up is done just the once. 

It was so easy that I had completed the lot in two afternoons.

After each box, I did the first editing on my mobile phone .... cropping and some colour improvement. I then transferred these to my laptop computer, where I put them into files of their box numbers.

From here I was able to do more editing via my own photo editing app. When things were too orange or too blue, I actually changed them to black and white.

My family are excited to see them and quite a few have been back and forth on whatsapp.

And I think they may want copies. With this in mind I then re-categorised them under more useful titles which in our case were ...

house and garden

family

holidays

Finally I backed them all up on a memory stick and was astonished when they all fitted on one 32GB stick.

So it was this ...

..... to this ....

..... in less than a week.

This evening I got rid of all 6 boxes. The card ones were burnt but the plastic ones had the actual photo pushed out and were then binned.

I highly recommend this easy piece of kit

mobile photo scanner

It is easy and quick to use and a very reasonable price.

The memories are safe.

And being enjoyed all over again.

This was our first greenhouse circa 1976.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Old Slides, Old Music and Poppies

My goodness it has been cold. I suppose in some countries I would be laughed at for saying that but it feels bone-cold to me. 

We are not seasonal gardeners but nothing would entice me outdoors for the past few days apart from replenishing the logs for early fires. 

But I have had my projects. One of them is to hone down my extensive sheet music collection. With that in mind I have been playing every piece on the piano, before making my decisions. And its been very enjoyable. My delight is the dance music of 30`s and 40`s. The charity pile is growing.

The second project is to finally decide on what to do with our 1000 strong slide collection. At one time it was cheaper to have slides printed rather than photographs but it is a real phaffy job to get them in a projector screen and neither of us wants to bother. But there are many lovely memories there from 70`s including our little bungalow when it was new, family pictures, some of whom are no longer with us and holidays.

The first thing we have done is to look at every single one and decide if its worth keeping. Some have faded. Some have mould. In this way we got rid of 500. Many are over 50 years old.

Today a new piece of equipment is coming from amazon which allows you to line up slides and take photos. It is great to be doing something with them. Wish me luck!!!

Before this cold snap we did more to the entrance.

 

Its hard work but we are just doing a bit at a time.

The back of the gnome garden needs to be secured and the bank will have to be reinforced but we are hoping to recycle some wood. With a bit of luck we might get there tomorrow.

At home I have tried the poppies. I was a bit disappointed to find the crepe paper was not all good quality. Here are the poppies. 

 I like the right hand one best.

I have been getting some crafts ready for the school valentines disco this Friday.

The rag doll was completed. The head shape was rather peculiar but seeing as I took on someone`s unfinished work I didn`t mind too much. Someone will love her.

 

And finally, the hedge has at last been cut .... a job that used to be done in the autumn. This pleases me so much.