Chateau Keyboard

Wednesday, May 14: Money and sax

We managed to blow up the lawn mower the other day, so take it in to see the nice M. Laurent who, as soon as he sees us pulling up outside, gets on the phone to his wife and tells her to upgrade their cruise liner cabins and extend the holiday from a fortnight to a month. It's Les Anglais!
On to the bank to talk with our personal (as opposed to our business) bank manager. This one's about borrowing some cash to do all the work we've been promising to do to Chateau Keyboard since we moved in nearly two years ago. There will, it seems, be no problem. Once we've sent in our most recent tax form and some other bits of paper Mme claims she told us we'd need but which we don't remember hearing about.
Anyway.
Sax lesson this evening. Saxo, I should say - saxo is what us saxonauts call our instrument here in France. And can someone tell me what a 'Sol' is in English? It's the note you play with the first three fingers of your left hand on the sax. Is it a C? No idea here. Just to give me a point of reference. And if anyone can translate Do, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si into A, B, C or whatever, that'd be cool too. And don't tell me Google is my friend here, that's what I say when you're being lazy.
Françoise, my teacher, wonders if I'd fancy joining group lessons next year. When I started playing, I was firmly of the opinion that this was for me and me alone, and playing along with others - let alone playing out loud in public - was definitely not on the agenda at all. Not a bit. Now, though, just playing along with her as she accompanies me on the flute or guitar, it's adding an entire new dimension to what I always thought music might be about. It is, in brief, fantastic fun. And blimey, do I now see the need for a conductor. Good grief, those chaps and/or chapesses are worth their weight in harpsichords.