Of gardens and animals

 

The last week of this month,what?

Well contrary to what your bones may of been telling you it is actually spring as yet again it's started to rain as I type this Thursday morning after a more spring-like day before with the sun very much on your legs.

There always appeared to me a difference between the gardens we had in the three houses I allegedly grew up in and that of other boys you knew and even that of your extended family in that was there less formal planted areas with specific plants and flowers that were seasonal.

The garden shown is more like like that of my much missed grandads, an unsual for the area long rear garden in the middle of a terrace that as raised from the rear of the property it was he'd made dedicated corners that we played in.

As much as we got to anything like that were roses on side panel, planters dotted about and the pyracantha I inisisted upon having that the birds love.

The one thing I didn't do a lot of was play with dogs chiefly down to us only having a dog for an extremely short period and that relatives didn't visit with dogs much and never in the garden.

The dog playing and walking bit was exercising our science teachers dog at boarding school in all weathers from the grounds and having a pass out to a nearby field along a narrow path I was trusted with.

Although our cats did go outdoors, they were always on leads during the spring and summer as they were not semi-feral.

Pawsing for rest

It's Friday so we're back.

It's been a bit of an odd week here recovering as sadly one does from pretty severe miagraines from the weekend that at one stage I thought I'd end up missing my life long favourite program as the light from the tv screen badly affects me when I'm like that.

There was even a conincidence of sorts where  Abby, one of the three BP Presenters and wheelchair user started having issues with her left wrist which you do use turning your wheels as she was preparing for the challenge of "running" the London Marathon in a sports wheelchair adn it urned out after a MRI Scan she'd damaged it and so needed to recover.

That sadly means she can't do that challenge.

Well my left wrist was playing up with very swollen tendons that left me in excusating agony when doing things like washing up, locking up for good measure so I needed to rest hence having to take things steady online as well as in the real world.

That's how these things just pan out I'm afraid.

Great conductors: William Steinberg

After last weekends adventure, we take a look at a new box set of cds.

This week a special four compact disc set was issued.

William Steinberg was one of America's finest conductors, making recordings for Capitol-Emi,Command and RCA Victor but whose career co-incided with a drop in record label interest in recording American orchestras so were overlooked at the time.

Including 'vital and inspiring performances', this set features William Steinberg conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which includes some of his 'best entries in his discography, and the finest recordings of the works'. 

Mendelssohn's own orchestration of the 'Scherzo' from his 'Octet' and Stravinsky's 'Scherzo fantastique' and 'Scherzo à la russe', coupled on CD 3 with formidable virtuoso renderings of orchestral showpieces by Dukas, Richard Strauss and Saint-Saëns, were originally prepared for release on LP LSC-3155 but remained unpublished - until now. 

All recordings in the set have been newly transferred and remastered.

After these were recorded, the orchestra signed a contract to record for DG, one of Europes leading classical labels and made a serie sof well respected performances that I do own on compact disc.

Drama

 I won't be around that much this weekend which is why things are just a little rushed as things involve a very early by my standards start and we have eaten all the eggs here, a slow process given the need to be mindful of miagraines and an intake of higher than normal sugar levels.

Looking over one site which I won't name, the attempt to assist a girl to rejoin a site was frustrating for their inability to comprehend that when a site makes itself practically invisable to all be registered, logged in members then you can't google to see how it looks and that an instruction to email the site at ----@-----.com and include some detail about you and preferred username means you cannot register via anything on site.

Is that the best way to balence keeping people clear of trolls and unwarrented attention on the one hand and get new members?

Probably not as some sites manage a overview of the forum that does't allow you to see posts on sub forums so things are kept confidential and equally while the site colour scheme isn't disablity friendly for having small text and white backrounds, there's nothing I can do about that.

Just somebody decided to make the layout appear uber pretty rather than accessible to all in the way one music site at least allows me to change text backrground colour and size to make it easy for me to read.

They were just getting snarkier and snarkier so when they said it had been settled for them, I just left them pretty much with it.

I like to be friendly, I'm that kind of a boy but I really don't need that grief any more than those who don't see past reminsciences as being a part of the regressive experience even if you don't just want to see only that on a site.