I managed to fly out to Milan on Thursday in between all the ash chaos. I’m not staying in Milan, though. The competition I’m participting in is in a small town about the size of Sligo or Athlone, about half an hour’s drive from the Swiss border. Needless to say, getting here on public transport was… an experience. Most people here don’t speak very good English and some get downright irate at the notion of speaking anything other than solo Italiano. I got a bus from the airport, a metro to the north and then a regional bus further north again. The bus stop for the last bus was a pole, nothing more, lying against a wall. I walked past it four times until some people gathered and I figured that it must be the stop. Sigh!

I have no good pictures of the nice little square of the town because – and I’m not exaggering (oh, I wish!) – it has been cloudy with intermittent torrential rain ever since I got here. Yesterday was the best day yet so, when I was finished with my appointment in the morning to try out the competition piano for a few minutes, we went to the nearby city of Como. It is about the size of Cork and very famous for its lake. With all the rain recently, there’s been a lot of flooding along the prom.

We walked through the city and all through the market. It has a very large market for everything from wellies to wallets and it attracts a lot of people from Switzerland when the exchange is good. So it was funny to hear a lot of Swiss German all of a sudden. The market takes place on the border of the old town. The old part of the city is very well preserved and also a very upmarket place to shop. We just went to look. In the middle is a spectacular cathedral.

This is only a tiny part of it. At the front beside the door in, there is a statue of the man who documented the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii. I can’t remember his name but he was born in Como. Inside, there are many tapestries that were woven by local women during the last millennium depicting scenes from the Bible. They were really faded so I didn’t want to take a photo but they were huge and very detailed.

Erminia, my “host mother”, showed me a shop that sold Como silk. Apparently the place is very famous for its quality of woven silk fabric. They don’t grow it here, they just weave it. They sell it to the big Italian design houses and there were many spectacular Valentino ties for sale. I explained to Erminia how most Irish men simply cannot wear ties like that. She looked sad at the very idea. She brought me up the wee train that goes up the mountain so we could see across the lake into Switzerland.

Close by is a lighthouse in memory of Alexandre Volta, also born in Como, who figured out the Volt. The lighthouse shines green, white and red at night…

The host family I am staying with are great. It’s a quiet house with a piano and I can practice as much as I want, so long as it’s not in the middle of the night. I was concerned about the cooking arrangement because I have allergies and really didn’t want to be annoying, but Erminia insisted that she cook and we all eat together. Lunch and dinner consist of many small courses, especially dinner. Typically you have pasta or rice first, then the meat (by itself), then cheese, then fruit, then dessert, then coffee. Friday night, we had company and a local licquer emerged, called grappa. The skins of of grapes that were used for wine are fired in a kiln and left to ferment. Often it is fermented with blueberries and lemon or orange.

Needless to say, they are very proud of their local produce and have made it their mission for me to taste the local cheeses they like best. Yesterday, I was presented with a whole ball of mozzarella from their local mountain, made from buffalo milk. You put oil and salt all over it and cut it up into tiny pieces. Delicious – but a bit strange! Another favourite so far is gorgonzola. Very like Cashel Blue only creamier, almost like a cream cheese. Because I couldn’t eat it with bread, I was given walnuts as the only sensible alternative. Again, strange, but delicious.

I play tomorrow morning and have spent most of today practising and listening to the others play. I find out Tuesday evening if I get into the next round. If I get in, I play again on Thursday or Friday with orchestra. Then the final is on Sunday. If I don’t get through, I will probably come home on Thursday. This gives me time to listen to most of the others in the first round. I have much more news and funny things to tell but they’ll wait until tomorrow when I’m finished. Ciao!

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April was a pretty horrendous month, work-wise. I was travelling a lot for rehearsals and concerts. I was teaching in NUI Maynooth – which, although convenient for me to get to by train, is still a fair distance away. Then I had my own lunchtime recital with my duo partners last Thursday and a concerto run through on Friday night. Last Christmas, I decided that it would be a *really good idea* to do a concerto competition in Italy this May. The problem about deciding to do things in the future is that eventually, the future turns into a flight on Thursday morning!

Anyway, this weekend was my first weekend in well over a month where I wasn’t working so we vamoosed to Galway. Despite my best intentions, I spent much of Saturday and Sunday asleep. Today has been better and practice is going well. This weekend has been the first chance I’ve had to concentrate solely on the piece I’m bringing so it’s a bit strange, having so much brain space! The way these competitions work, you play one movement for the first round, and then another for the next; then there are semi-finals and the finals. I don’t expect to get through the first round at all. I’m not being pessimistic: solo playing hasn’t been my concentration at all this year. The reason I’m doing the competition is to keep my solo technique up (which it has, oh boy, it’s hard work) and for the experience. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m really curious to see how it all works. Also, because I don’t really care about the outcome, I’m not wasting so much energy worrying about it!

Needless to say, my knitting has been pretty brainless lately. I have been concentrating on my Featherweight cardigan. I’m using Malabrigo Lace in Hummingbird from This is Knit. It pooled really horribly when I started it so I ripped it out and reknit it, alternating skeins every two rows. I’ve already completed the body and a sleeve. Right now, it is all bunched up on a small circular for the bands on the front.

You can at least see here how alternating the skeins breaks up a lot of the pooling. Hopefully I will get this finished up soon and you’ll be able to see it in all its glory!

I got new shoes lately and with the weather slowly getting warmer, I had a hankering for some cotton socks. Cotton doesn’t really work very well for socks so I’m keeping them to anklets.

The yarn is Debbie Bliss’s Eco Cotton Baby, which is a sort of heavy 4ply, a lot like the Baby Cashmerino. I quite like it. It is a bit splitty but otherwise very soft and not hard on the hands. I’m wondering if I’ll get a pair out of one ball!

Hope everyone saw a bit of sun this weekend and got at least half of what I slept…!

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…but something to tell. I’ve been pretty busy this week getting ready for my audition and putting off getting ready for my audition. This is what I was doing whilst putting things off.

Yup, another hand towel. I told you I had a lot of that cotton! It is so nice to work with and the pattern, like I said, is easy without being too mindless.

That’s all I have to show for now but I can tell you that as of next Thursday, I am a college student again! I am very excited. The course is a masters in piano accompaniment so there will be lots of playing as well as research…and knitting, of course.

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The last three weeks have been really busy. Really busy! I had an audition for a music school in Mannheim (a little south of Frankfurt) on Wednesday. So there has been a lot of practicing, rehearsals and lessons. Tuesday we flew over – I had to bring a singer with me, did the audition on Wednesday afternoon and flew back that evening. Getting there was a piece of cake: there is a train service direct from Frankfurt airport to Mannheim and the airport is really easy to navigate.

The audition went well overall. It was an odd experience, really, and I couldn’t glean any sort of reaction from the panel. But I played well and managed to get through it all without having to resort to speaking in English. Now all I have to do is play the waiting game!

I have been knitting. I started Amelia a few weeks ago. Before I knew it, it was nearly finished. All that remains is to knit the neck band and sew on some buttons. To my reckoning, it fits really nicely but I won’t know for certain until I get the buttons on.

The yarn is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted and I love the colour! It will match light blue, cream and white – the colours all my blouses seem to be in. Speaking of yarn, I had a little time after my audition on Wednesday before catching the train back to the airport to suss out some wool. I found quite an adequate shop. They had quilting, crewelwork, embroidery, cross-stitch and knitting supplies. Unfortunately all of their embroidery patterns were of the maids-in-bonnets-chasing-geese sort… but I had a good time poking through the wool. At least a third of it was sock wool: they like their handknit socks in Germany! They also had a really good selection of high-grade merino wools in various weights and colours, so if I do end up moving there, I won’t be stuck. I came out with some Lana Grossa Secondo, 55% cotton, 25% polyamide, 20% silk…

…and some Regia Hand Dye Effect sock yarn… although to me, it is far too pretty and nicely spun to use for socks.

Plenty to keep me occupied! Hopefully I will have pictures to show of Amelia tomorrow if I find suitable buttons in town today. In the meantime, keep your fingers, toes, needles and hooks crossed for me!

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There has been a lot going on here, some good and some sad and some a mixture of both! For now, let me show you how that green top has been coming along. I finished the body of it last night.

Moss stitch hems always seem to suit cotton, I think. Don’t worry about the neckline for now. I am going to pick up and work a neckline that will overlap in the middle and button. I tried the whole thing on on Saturday night and I like the depth of the button band as well as how the waist shaping turned out. I just have to do the sleeves now – three-quarter lengths so hopefully they won’t be too torturous!

The weather has been a bit up and down here recently so during those chilly evenings I have been working on Pioneer. The body is about half done from the underarm.

Even though the Ultra Alpaca Lite is worked on the same needles and to the same tension as the green top, it is much slower going for some reason. It is probably the cables: there are tiny cables running down the centre back and along each side seam to make it fitted.

I suppose it is a little strange to be making a wool and alpaca t-shirt for summer but I am one of those people who, unless it is 30 degrees, constantly feels chilly so I think I will actually get a lot of wear out of it!

My sad/happy news is that I have left my job at the shop. As my piano commitments have increased over the year, so has the stress of working full time and trying to keep all balls in the air. I am happy with my decision to go back to the piano and to have clear goals in front of me. I have a lot of deadlines coming up this summer and it is great to finally have the time to give them my focussed attention. At the same time, I am sad to leave such a lovely little shop and to leave such a lovely staff! Still, it will be nice to go back to being a regular ole customer again.

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