Didn’t get so much done today – sister-in-common-law and her small son arrived to stay for a couple of days, which is lovely and I’m really looking forward to spending some time with them tomorrow at the British Museum. Today though was mostly taken up with pondering the notes I took in my first composition-teaching lesson yesterday. I’ve been through them and made some extra notes and had a really good think about how to approach the whole thing and I think I’ve come up with a vague sort of plan that might work. It’s going to be a bit random but hopefully fill in some holes. Got to run it past my student now. Hope he likes it!

Did a bit more work on the violin piece too. It’s getting tighter and tighter. I’ve sped it up a tiny bit, which pulls the duration in and gives it a bit more sparkle. Still having a little trouble with the opening 2 bars though. The rest of it I’m pretty happy with, but the opening’s a bit dirge-like and isn’t really gelling with the rest of the piece. Thinking about maybe removing most of the chordal stuff to keep the rhythm cleaner, and possibly whacking it up an octave too.

Made a little Greek feast for dinner which went down very well – chicken souvlaki with garlicky bulgur wheat (loving that recipe), salad and tzatziki.