Yesterday was a day of mistakes and failures, and general panic. But with a wonderfully restorative ending.
I planned a short ride to Ripon, where my originally planned concert had been displaced by a massed choir serenading Her Majesty. There’s a beautiful square, near the cathedral, with a bit of a market, a huge monument, and lots of activity.
Surely there could be no better place to play a cello, sitting in the sunshine, serenading the market?
But it didn’t go well. Perhaps the good burghers of Ripon have more exalted tastes. I was comprehensively ignored. I persevered for forty minutes, and earned £1 – from a gentleman who appeared to be selling paint rollers (though perhaps he’d just bought them, and didn’t really know how to carry them).
He had a story to tell – he was writing a book about arithmetic, explaining why it didn’t work. I couldn’t quite follow the argument.
I should have stopped here a bit longer, and found somethng for lunch. But I pressed on, to Harrogate, looking for better luck. En route I had another argument with the GPS, which absolutely insisted on a farm track.
I met the farmer, who explained it was a public right of way, but that if he didn’t maintain it eventually people would stop using it, wouldn’t they?
Eventually, after only thirty miles, but a bit too much emotional turmoil, I found my friends’ house in Harrogate.
Now that was a perfect end to the day, especially the look on nearly three-year old Samu’s face when he heard the cello.
