Guitar maintenance

Minus one when I got up in bright sunshine with the rising sun illuminating cirrus cloud over the horizon and frost on the ground. Clare made pancakes for Rachel's breakfast with gluten free flour, improvising a recipe as she went along. They were slow to cook, so it was just as well Rachel got up late. 

I went to the St Catherine's Eucharist on my own and did some food shopping on my way home. The girls were on their way out for a walk as I arrived, but I didn't go with them as I felt a bit light headed, though not as bad as when my blood sugar is low. 

Shopping in the Coop I found difficult with many visual distractions and items to hunt for, not always clearly visible. My brain processes slow down when it comes choosing and finding things on shelves as well as navigating my way around cramped aisles populated by other busy shoppers and shelf stackers. I find it drains me, and I need recovery time to clear my head. I have to be much more patient with myself, and that's perhaps the hardest thing of all to do.

We had our customary Sunday lunch of salmon, roast veg peas and snap peas, followed by mince pies, and went for a walk before tea. Out came the guitars for music making again, but this developed in an unusual way. Rachel discovered that my Bernal flamenco guitar had a broken D string. The spare D string Kath put on for me on a previous visit had snapped yet again. I was once told when buying strings that the D string is the one most prone to break. The reason for this physically speaking is unclear, as there's no flaw in the neck alignment or upper bridge of the guitar. Rachel took on the challenge of mounting a new string with a tiny cushion beneath the string where it connects with the bridge to spread the stress at the point where it is most likely to break.

Not only is she an accomplished guitarist, she loves working on instruments. She successfully fitted a sophisticated electronic pick-up to a guitar of her own, a job involving some careful carpentry. She said with enthusiasm that she'd love to train as a luthier. My 65 year old Tatay guitar is one she loves to play. it is a special instrument full on memories, scratches and dents. She's keen to give it some TLC. Decades ago the original machine heads needed replacement. I bought a pair and fitted one but either lost my nerve about fitting the second, or just never found time to finish the job. When she found the unused spare, she set about fitting it, a rather tricky task, but one which made her eyes light up with pleasure. I have a third guitar, a nice acoustic Fender, inherited from my sister Pauline's daughter Kay with a machine head that no longer turns. It's jammed. If I can buy a replacement machine head, I foresee Rachel bringing that instrument back  into service too.

We had a lovely relaxed evening playing together in different ways, piano, flute, guitars in action, pauses to  re-tune guitars as the strings settled down after maintenance, until tiredness defeated us all in the end and drove us early to bed.