Weeknote #5

Sat 2026-03-21 07:56

This week mostly revolved around music. I'm starting to enjoy playing (for its own sake, rather than strictly as practice), although it still feels as though I'd hate anyone else to hear me.

I've been immersing myself in You Tube videos of music I find interesting. I'm really enjoying hearing and watching people playing European folk-dance music. Breton "An Dro" tunes.

And the Hurdy-Gurdy. What a magical instrument.

I have to remind myself that I want to concentrate on my "main" instrument (mandolin) along with the recorder. I can't start looking at Hurdy-Gurdy as a potential new rabbit hole to go down. Stay away from the Nerdy-Gurdy website.....

Nerdy-Gurdy

I should make a link-list of You Tube tunes I like, at least.

Monday 16^th March

work My van was in for MOT this afternoon. A long and tiresome story, of back-and-forth between MOT station and dealership etc. It failed and needs brakes (discs and pads) as well as tyres. The brakes will be done next week, and I'll get tyres fitted myself in the meantime.

home I decided to treat myself to a new set of mandolin strings. I can't remember when I last changed them, and to be fair I don't think that, however long ago it was, I can have played it enough to wear them out. But they must be getting past their best.

So I visited the local musical instrument shop.

It's in a new location since the last time I went, which was presumably when I last bought strings. I had a look around - a mixture of guitars, fiddles, banjos and of course a multitude of ukuleles in all different sizes, shapes and colours. Ukuleles seem to have taken the world by storm in recent years ¹.

They had a few (but not many) sets of mandolin strings so I bought a set of D'Addario XS light 10-38. Chatting to the owner & the guy behind the counter I mentioned that I was coming back after a long break from playing, and that my last set of strings were from their shop before the move to the current location.

We've been here for 10 years!

So it's at least 10 years ago that I was playing enough to buy new strings, and at least 10 years since I hung it on the wall and only took it down every few months for a quick play, before hanging it back up and ignoring it.

I also bought a small selection of plectrums.... and as an afterthought I asked

Do you have any recorders?

We've got one left, an Aulos, we have for the school kids.

It's an Aulos "Robin" 205 soprano. £16. So I bought it. I now have a small portable recorder I can carry with me everywhere. It actually plays nicely and I'm finding it more fun than the bigger alto/treble (although the alto sounds much more mellow).

Tuesday 17^th March

life set up a new Folksy shop for selling K's art. She produces so much good stuff and it needs to be sold. There's only so many opportunities to sell, and potential customers, locally. She needs to get her art online. Etsy would have been the obvious choice a few years ago, but it seems to be awash with drop-shippers and other tat. There's a UK based site for artists and creators that has a much better vibe, called Folksy, and that's where we've gone. It's still in development and there's no stock listed for sale yet, but it's a step forward to have set it up, at least

Roar Shack on Folsky

music

I'd fitted the strings to my mandolin and took the opportunity to give it a good clean - years of dust and fluff and accumulated smeary finger marks. I re-set the bridge position to improve the intonation and was in the throes of setting the bridge height to adjust the action. The new strings buzzed a little in certain places on the fretboard - and the action was very low, with the bridge adjusters wound down to their lowest. So it was a case of un-tune strings, wind adjusters, retune strings test action & buzzing.... and repeat....

Then I accidentally tuned the wrong machine head - plucking one e-string and tightening the other, before I realized what I was doing the string snapped. Oops.... They don't take much over-tensioning before they go ping!

Time for another set of strings (the shop won't sell singles!)

Wednesday 18^th March

After a quick work-job I went back to the music shop and bought another set of strings. There were no d'Addario XS sets left, so I couldn't get the same. So I got the next best thing - a d'Addario non-coated set with the same size/tension strings. And changed only the 2 top E strings. Keeping the rest as the XS. At least I can play again. And yes, it's a bit of a waste of money, but that's the price you pay for clumsiness.

Thursday 19th^th March

work an early start - had to meet a delivery driver who was bringing an "emergency" spare unit for one of the TV transmitter systems (I'd found a fault with a unit yesterday, but no spares are kept locally). He'd had to drive from Glasgow to Aberdeen yesterday afternoon. He came on the overnight ferry from Aberdeen, leaving his van behind, and had to get a taxi from the ferry terminal to meet me at the office. At 8 AM! Got the parcel from him. What's he going to do all day, until the ferry leaves again tonight at 7 PM? Get a bus and tour the islands. It's a pleasant sunny day of weather today (after a run of miserable gale force winds and rain and hail all week).

Went to site and fitted & configured the new unit. It worked. Panic averted. And relax.

home K's pool team are away at Whalsay for a match. This is an island off the main island and needs a 1/2 hour ferry trip to reach it. I decided not to tag along. So I got an evening home alone. Playing mandolin and recorder. Enjoying myself. I still had to go out at 1130 PM to collect K from a team-member's house (they'd shared a car and she'd gone with them rather than drive herself). A late night.

Friday 20^th March

To town for a new set of tyres on the van. And a couple of hours afterwards of recorder playing in the office before going home.

More playing in the afternoon/evening.

I'm now certain that I should get a new mandolin - that this old and basic and undoubtedly cheap one I've plucked away on for 40 years has had its time. If I was starting to play now I'd probably never consider buying one of this quality. It's not really really bad, not like a cheap asian toy masquerading as a mandolin, it's better than the absolute bargain-basement instruments beginners often buy and find to be unplayable. It's a reasonable beginner instrument. But I've had it 40 years, and I think I'm ready for a reputable "real" instrument now.

I'm looking at buying something like an Eastman MD305. A-Style, F-holes. Very highly regarded as an serious beginner/intermediate instrument. Solid wood, carved spruce top. Everything my mandolin isn't.

I'll have to put it on my wish-list - I'm on a strict no-buy at the moment, saving up money for building a studio for K - for later in the year. It might be my one big purchase of 2026 - at the anniversary of my self-imposed 1-year No-Buy (I started it in September 2025). And that gives me adequate cooling-off time. If I'm still playing by September I'll look at buying a new instrument.

life, music, weeknotes, mandolin, recorder