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VE Day! Socially distanced street parties galore and still the weather holds. We have afternoon tea in the garden
May
8 (suitably decorated) with echoes of Vera Lynn and Glen Miller coming from all directions.

Panic!! The MD of the National Children’s Brass Band of GB gets in touch. The course is going ahead after all - now
May online - can we have a programme note? The sketches I put aside in March will clearly not work in a virtual
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environment. Deep breathing doesn’t help.

My mother’s 90th birthday. All of the family get together online to have a virtual party. We already sent supplies/
May presents up to Scotland where she is in isolation with my father (who was 88 earlier in the month). Fortunately my
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father is quite tech savvy (with iPhone, iPad etc.) and is able to stream the event to his TV!

June My wife’s birthday, and after much online hunting This will enhance the “staycation” no end.
2 an inflatable hot tub arrives justin time. Shut your eyes imagine you are in Italy.

West of England BB Contest in Cornwall where the set piece is my “On Alderley Edge”….cancelled. Music is taking
June a back seat at present. Having found lots of lego sets in the loft we have all (except my wife) become obsessed
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with the stuff. I have my eye on the recently released Lego Grand Piano

Finally we can travel for a mini-break (though sadly not yet to our cottage in Scotland). Manage to get an airbnb
in Aldeburgh and am at last able to realise a long held ambition. We visit the Red House! My knowledge of Britten
is paltry but this sets me off on a learning curve. Death in Venice - a masterpiece! What a composer!
June
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It appears the owner of our airbnb is a cultured individual. The bookshelf is full of Britten biographies and
Aldeburgh Festival programmes. Flicking through the pages of one of the latter I find an autograph. Harrison
Birtwistle! A different class of celebrity in Suffolk obviously.

Taking advantage of the lifting of restrictions and the (still) glorious weather we head for West Sussex. Arundel
July
19 is absolutely beautiful and we bag a riverside cottage. I can see why the Downs have inspired so many composers.

My NCBB commission is streamed live. “Strange New Worlds” (!) is the title and the virtual band play brilliantly. I
August will start work on a wind version soon. A trip to adjudicate a music festival in Sydney Australia at the end of the
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month is cancelled, but good news, Scotland is open!

A few days at the cottage near the Borders and then on to the island of Arran. Peter Graham
Finally the weather turns and for the first time in our lives we are stuck on an
island! Ferries cancelled because of the storm. We manage to get on one next
August morning only to find it can’t dock and has to return to port. A mad dash to the
16 other side of the island and we squeeze onto the tiny Lochranza ferry (thanks
mainly to my little “classic” sports car). Miles from Ayrshire but at least we are
on the mainland - except that the famous road “rest and be thankful” is plagued
with landslides. We get through just at the right time. A weekend socially
distancing with family in Scotland.

And there ends an eventful six months since lockdown. Ensemble activity in the UK
still on hold but there are signs of recovery in other parts of the world. A socially
distanced concert is streamed live on social media by Eikanger Bjorsvik Band from
Norway. Delighted that they programmed my “Dynasty” which bit the dust in
Switzerland this month. Just wish I could have been there to hear it.

Peter Graham is staying busy working on a number of projects and still admiring
his red cedar garden fence.
www.gramercymusic.com

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