Okay, biking friends and family, I need help.

How do I beat the sixteen-year-olds?

See, these kids, these little boys have joined my Saturday morning road biking club. Up until now it's been a bunch of 30-60 something men and me and that's been just fine. But now, these kids, and their terribly, terribly fresh legs, are shaking it up.

In short: They're faster than me.

I know I've got them beat on endurance, which is great, but they've got me whipped every time we hit a hill. And it's the English countryside, so it's only hills. Big, terribly hills. So, quick! What can I do to make my legs as strong as a boy who's not quite graduated high school?

There is a double-pride issue at stake here. Not just age, but, also, as the only woman in the club, I feel it is my responsibility to strongly represent my gender and not be the last one up riding (or walking...) up these hills... .

Funky Bunch

So, on Wednesday, I played a gig, recording a track for an upcoming film. A film starring Mark Mark and Christian Bale . Which, at first, I thought was hilarious, but then I remembered 'I Heart Huckabees' and 'Swing Kids' and it was a little bit more cool and less hilarious.

Funky Bunch aside,

I've done soundtrack work before, both in terms of score and songs, but this was the first time I've done a song that's been specially commissioned by and for the film. I'm not going to get into this-case specifics too much; however, this is an interesting musical/cinematic phenomenon. Essentially, in this situation, the film-music-bosses contact a band and say, "write us exactly this kind of song." Whether or not that's the kind of song the band would normally write/sing/like. And they generally do, maybe losing a tiny bit of artistic integrity but gaining a tiny bit more fame/fortune. (And then they hire us to play awesome hard rock string riffs. And then play them again. And then again. And then again but up the octave. And then again. Until three little players sound like the London Phil... only much cheaper. And easier to fit in the studio.)

Another week, another quite fun/funny thing to do with one's viola.

Home-made-making

Soon, a post about adventuresinPortugaland.

But first:

Reason #74 why Charlie is brilliant to live with:

Today, while I just played the same few bars of Beethoven again and again, he:

-pickled beets

-candied ginger

-candied lemon and orange peel

-used our expired milk to make cheese.

(Grandma Old (and Gloria, for that matter) would be proud.)

Hypersonic.

I know, I know, real, proper string players change their strings, like, every year. Or every morning. Or something.

But it's expensive, and scary. What if the new strings sound horrible and ruin everything and I can't afford newer-new ones and my career is ruined? Etc.

It's kind of like getting new shoes as a runner. You know you should do - or need to do - but you've formed such a bond with the old ones, and their run-down has been gradual, and therefor hardly noticeable and your knee problem is probably more to do with eating cakes or something than those Mizunos. Just leave the Mizunos alone, okay? Okay.

It's the same with strings. So, I do with strings what most runners do with shoes: I spent years (and years and years), more than ten years, in fact, using exactly the same brand; waiting until the absolute last minute and then replacing my dead Helicores with new Helicores, like a clever magician's swap, in hope that all will sound and feel the same.

But not this time. No. No. Not Helicores anymore.

There has been a slow creep of discontent with the Hs. They're maybe just a bit too mellow, the C's maybe just a bit to floppy, and, really, they're kind of studenty. I can afford better now. Maybe I deserve better. Like:

Evah Pirazzi

The 'Evah' stands for: Extra Value Added Hypersonic. Seriously.

So, obviously, I took the NEW-new-strings plunge with these.

Review thus far: like metallic butter. Which kind of sounds like a bad thing, but is actually such a good, good thing. I love them. They're clearer while at the same time softer, while at the same time hinting at this crisp metallic sheen.

So...change can be good? Weird. All I can say is: it's a good thing I like them, as I'm not planning on switching again for at least another decade or so. Phew.

Squirmorama

I guess it's time to tell you about our other 100 pets.

Well, here's the package that came in the post:



These guygirls are brilliant. I love them. We built them a wormery out of two rubbermaid bins and, at first, there was drama, there was initial shock and an obstinate refusal to accept said bins as "home," resulting in dried out streches of dead worm discovered across the kitchen floor each morning, as the deluded things tried to escape...perhaps trying to get to the window or maybe out the front door, down the three flights of stairs and out into the lush worm-paradise of Bennett Street.

But they didn't make it. They never did. They just stretched and stretched across the dry floor for a meter or so and then died.

Then they quit trying, which was best for everyone, really. Because much as I love cereal, scooping up dead worm corpses isn't so good for the breakfast appetite.

And now they're resigned to their fate, and, I'm assuming, very, very happy. They squirm, they eat our banana peels and tea bags, they squirm, the excrete miracle fertilizer, they eat our leek ends, they squirm. And everyone is happy.

I like to open up the bin and just look at them. It's bonding.