Bishops

It’s a good job my birthday drinks on Sunday were only in our local bar; I was able to just fall across the street and to sleep. With a full recital of Janacek, Mozart and Dvorak the next day in the depths of Suffolk, I needed my sleep!
The Bury St Edmunds concert went very well; I had lots of family members there. I was pleased to see even my 90-year-old uncle Jack even made it. When explaining what our quartet name meant, I was able to joke that there was a whole row of Peacocks in there somewhere!
The venue was wonderful; the beautiful Atheneum, with lovely acoustics and even chandeliers. We got a huge cresecendo of applause for every curtain call. Hopefully that cheered Jen up; she had found out in the interval that her new flat in Clapham had been broken into. I’m so impressed she made it through the second half!

Tuesday found us in Valladolid, near Madrid, playing in a monastery (!) to every Catholic bishop and archbishop from England and Wales (!!), who were there on a conference. It was one of Dom Alldis’ talks on the relationship between music and management, using our quartet and a jazz quartet as examples. The Archbishop of Westminster, after a chat over pudding and wine, is now my new best friend and invited us to give a quartet recital in his church in Rome! He said he would have to invite all the other cardinals!! What about the Pope? I always said that if the Spice Girls can meet him, then so can we!!