Inside the Piano!

So, it's New Year's Day! Happy New Year Blipfoto People!

Exactly 4 years ago today I posted my first blip. A few of us who were friends on twitter at the time started around then, prompted initially by a girl who I knew online as Siansburys. I'm not sure what she's up to these days, and I spend very little time on twitter now, but that's where it all began.

I was very good about blipping for a long time, but it all broke down somewhere in 2012, which was one of the worst years of my life. I've not yet managed to catch up with the backblipping, even though I have made sure I took a photograph every day, but I now have a new plan!

As it's New Year, and a new start, I'm starting over with blipping every day from now on. As and when I have the time I'll backblip the missing entries as the photos come to light (some are on various SD cards which need transferring to computer, and some are now on my phone - I had a new phone a couple of months ago, with a much better camera than the old one, and I use it to take quite a lot of photographs).

In short, 2013 was a year of two halves. The first half was pretty similar to 2012, and we just struggled to get through. However, in June things started to improve gradually. I'm really hopeful that this improvement will be long-lasting and maybe even permanent and that I'll eventually be well enough to return to work and to get on with a normal life, free from illness and the ravages of bipolar disorder.

As the second half of 2013 progressed I started, gently, to return to socializing with people again and began going out into the world more. I resumed my OU maths degree, registered as a rat breeder, began losing weight (I've lost 2 stone in the last 6 months), and, significantly for this blip, started to play the piano seriously.

I've never been a particularly confident pianist, since I'm really a viola player and am happiest in the middle of a string quartet or orchestra, living my life in the alto clef. At College I regarded piano as my fourth study, after viola, singing and clarinet. However, in the last 6 months I've promoted it to second study, and have spent upwards of 2 hours a day practising. I have thus far learnt the first movement of Bach's Italian Concerto and Satie's first Gnossienne from scratch and memorized both of them - by pianistic standards this isn't much, but from where I started it's pretty good going!

So the piano has been an important part of the last 6 months, and I anticipate that it will be a big part of 2014 too. Although the poor piano does now need a tune and a bit of maintenance - that's on the jobs list as soon as I can get it sorted!

And there's SO MUCH REPERTOIRE! So much I want to play!

Life has changed a lot since that first blip on January 1st 2010. The last 4 years have seen a lot of ups and downs and I've learnt a huge amount - including what to prioritize when I'm low on energy and so on (part of the reason that I've had to forgo uploading blips and so on as I've been focusing on trying to rebuild my life). I'm very hopeful that things are looking up now - the Wonderspouse and I are certainly starting to make plans for the future again and the beginning of the New Year is a good time to start with those plans!

Backblips with as much explanation as I can manage will appear as and when, but for now, I'm back as of the start of 2014!

:-)