My music.

I love my Ipod and also my little mp3 music player which can also give me the Archers and Afternoon Play.
It can also give me Woman's Hour with 'sympathetic voiced' Jenny Murray - but she then gives me hives !

With these pocket sized machines I'm able to hear my music in my head as opposed to in the background of life around me.
It's like switching on Blackpool Iluminations in my eight year old head.
Magic ! as Dave, 'our Denise's' husband would say.

This is what I hear . . .

'Lily the Pink' from The Scaffold makes me smile every time. It's a simple little ditty that lifts my spirits.

'By the sleepy lagoon' is the theme tune to radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
The gentle sound of the waves lapping in and out insantly transport me back to 1963, where it's the weekend, no school and being surrounded by family and feeling satisfied after another of Mum's delicious meals.
It's a safe harbour from the barbs I felt outside.
I've never had much of a thick skin.

'Ride of the Valkyries'. This was my mobile phone ringtone for years.
It denoted me.
I remember hysterically laughing as it suddenly rang forth from my bag on the coat hook in Mum's hospital room, where everything felt like some frightening nightmare.
I did subconsciously feel as if I was riding forth to fight evil.

Intermezzo from 'Cavalleria Rusticana.'
From the first note, peace just floods mind and body.
A good relaxant.

'Elizabethan Serenade'.
Now I am whisked back to 1965, as a schoolgirl in full uniform; tie, shirt, etc.,
My pleated skirt was folded over at the waist for 5 years !
Definite money's worth
Anyway, Miss Ashton, our musc teacher, never did tap me on the knee for entrance to the school choir but I think I snuck in anyway.
I loved this song about the gentle Avon flowing and the casement curtain fluttering and blowing by candlelight (health and safety? pah !)
Answer came there none - a sad and peaceful song.

I can't get enough piano concerto's !
I play along with it, wiggling my fingers over the imaginary keyboard - note perfect - with all the delicacy and force of Paderevsky.

If I could tickle the ivories as effortlessly and enjoyably as my Mum did for the majority of her life, I'd be in 7th heaven.
Sometime in the '80's she began picking up where her music lessons were abruptly left off as a youngster.
She even had organ lessons by an organist at Liverpool's Christ the King cathedral to improve her playing at St.Patrick's church.
The keyboard was a constant source of pleasure throughout her life.
I should be so lucky !

At some point I must sit down and discover the real meaning to all these pieces and get double the pleasure ! !

I don't know my music but I know what I like, it just feels right.
It's like putting the wrong grade oil into an engine.
The wrong type of music just shouldn't be in my head.
There probably is just as much justification for Meathead or Madonna, Elton or Elvis Costeloe (although I do like him but I couldn't think of anyone I didn't like beginning with an E) but it just jars in my head.

So, pop-pickers ! What spins your wheels ?