Kristina from Croatia, Tuesday and Wednesday

It has been a very busy few days, so I'm a bit behind with the blog. Kristina and I had a very early start on Tuesday, much too early for Kristina I think! We had to drive up to Norwood in London where I had arranged for her to see some Sound Start (or Wider Opportunities) sessions with our lovely ukulele friend, Cornelius Bruinsma. Cornelius is Head of Guitar for Croydon Music Service.

The first school was Heavers Farm where we heard an end of term presentation for parents. There were two classes, one playing a mixture of keyboard and guitar and the other playing ukulele. It was excellent to see and hear them. We were particularly impressed with their own composition which was about chocolate. Now that's a good topic.

After Heavers Farm School we walked a short distance to St Chad's School. Here we saw two classes of ukulele players - they were very good - and then a much smaller group of guitar players.

All the work we saw was absolutely excellent. It's great to see our society through the eyes of someone from another country.

In the afternoon we went to Just Flutes where Kristina spent a happy few hours looking at music and everything else they stock. After this we went for a nice cup of tea at Gareth and Abbie's house and then Abbie came with Kristina and Andy to Nando's for a quick dinner. Gareth couldn't come because he was playing in Carmen at Whitgift School.

On Wednesday morning it was off early in the car again, this time to Atwood Primary School in Croydon to see the excellent teaching of Carolyn Kelly. Carolyn has over 20 young fife and flute players at this school, nearly all girls, and they are all great. What a lovely school it is and what great young people. Most of them started their flute playing lives using my fife book so they all wanted me to sign their copies. Again, we saw a day of excellent work and it made me so proud to be British. Our music education is of a very high standard in this country and, maybe the most important thing, is all young people are involved in music education to some degree.

After this we drove home and I prepaed a meal for the family and friends whilst Kristina did some practice.