Earth Hour is an event that’s been organised to raise awareness of humans’ energy use. The idea is that for one hour (8pm-9pm your local time) you turn off all electrical stuff and do something else. It’s “the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis.”

I’m a bit sceptical about it all really. I don’t think it will make a blind bit of difference to anyone’s habits.

However, I do think something needs to be done about the whole thing and so I participated.

I am all alone in the house tonight, as Daisy has gone off to a friend’s hen party, but at 8pm (GMT – just) I turned out all the lights, turned off the computer (yes, I did set my Facebook profile before I turned it off!) and lit a candle.

Then what do you do? Well, in poor light you can’t really read or do the washing up, so I did the only other thing I enjoy doing to pass the time (oh, not that I enjoy washing up, but that does need to be done). I ate Tic-Tacs and played my instruments; guitar, violin and bouzouki. Tic-Tacs are terrible for the teeth so I must stop eating them.

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Me during Earth Hour

Tonight the clocks go forward from GMT to BST (British Summer Time). That means we lose an hour in bed (it must be there somewhere). Daisy won’t be getting back until 1:30 (GMT), then she’ll lose an hour (so that’s 2:30 BST) and then we have to get up in the morning at 5:00 to get ready and get to the airport for 6:30-ish for a plane at 8:00. We arrive in Tenerife at around 12:00 (I assume BST). Hopefully I might be able to blog there, but I can’t find the charger for my camera, so maybe no pictures!

So, I’ve managed to remember that I decided to keep a log of how I’m getting on with my violin lessons every third lesson. My wife got my 6 lessons for Christmas, so, in a way, this point is an important one: am I happy enough to continue and carry on paying the 20-odd quid an hour? Well, the answer is yes, actually. I am enjoying learning the violin and my teacher is a really nice bloke, so it’s all going very well.

Here’s the video of me after my 6th lesson. In this video I play Hut (not Hat) on Staffin Island, a Scottish folk tune, Gelasma, an ancient Cornish tune, and a marginally out-of-control Garret’s Barry, an Irish Jig.

I’ve actually already had my 7th lesson now, and we worked on the tone in Gelasma and on the jig playing. I think I’m already slightly better at playing than this video, although I always get nervous when recording so the recording probably isn’t as good as it could have been.

This blog is starting to become a bit of a travel blog. Not intentionally, mind, but these last couple of months have been mostly spent away from home.

Two weeks ago, I left on a Monday for Brussels. There I was having a review meeting on the Tuesday for one of the projects I was working on. It all went very well and I flew back that evening.

The following day I went to London with my family to see the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat show at the Adelphi Theatre in London. We went up in the morning and had a river cruise and a ‘flight’ on the London Eye before wandering across Hammersmith Bridge to the theatre. It was a brilliant show. Lee Meade, who was picked for the leading role by a TV talent show, was fabulous. The music is really brilliant. Anyway, we had dinner in the Ha Ha! bar and canteen near Embankment, and then went home.

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The family on the London Eye

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The London Eye at Night

Good job too, because on Thursday I went to Amsterdam. This time with Daisy and her Mum. We did the usual Amsterdam things, although it’s a shame (now I’ve been there) that we didn’t make it to the red light district and a ‘coffeeshop’. In fact, we were very close to both some of the time but didn’t realise. Oh well. They left on the Sunday night and I stayed until Friday in a meeting. It was during one of these nights (while searching for the best steak in town for our meat-mad South American) that we visited both of those things mentioned above (only looking at the first thing, incidentally!).

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A house boat in Amsterdam

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A view you can only see from a canal boat – 7 hump-back bridges

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A clog shop in Amsterdam

I arrived home late Friday and it’s off to Valencia for me tomorrow. Another meeting, another country, another bloody airport. This time it’s Heathrow – the Hell-Mouth of England. I think by my re-arrival on Saturday I will be ready to sleep a few weeks. It’s lucky then that I have at least a few weeks until the next trip which is a 4 hour flight to Tenerife for another meeting. Woohoo.