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Traveling while we can…


GeorgeLesley

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Well life has been busy here for sure. Lesley had a great time for two weeks in Iceland. She saw the volcano erupting there and many other things of interest. She has convinced me to go there in July. She wants to go back and see some areas she missed and I want to see it as well, so off we go. She went to Dollywood earlier this week with a lady friend of hers and that lady’s two twin grandchildren. After a swim upon arrival, the lady got a call and her father had passed away unexpectedly. So they all came back and Lesley hopped a plane yesterday to go see some family in Florida. She will be back next week. We will then start our final planning for our Iceland trip. We did go to a place called Maggie Vally, North Carolina last week with our motorhome and met some really nice folks that also travel with an RV. There were about twenty of us all together in the group. We will hopefully see them again someday.

 

All seems to be going well here and we are making the most of our health and travel opportunities that present themselves while we can. As we all know, life changes unexpectedly so we are making the most of it while we can. While Lesley was in Iceland I did get my entire “honeydo” list completed and did even keep up my music practice and exercise regimen. The exercise is not particularly enjoyable, but I do enjoy the results and what it allows me to do that I do enjoy so I force myself to keep it up.

 

I have gone thru an uncertain period in my music. When I started last year I did not even know if I would keep it up or had the basic skills to even play anything at all, so I set the bar low. Well I basically met the bar and now have been not sure where to go from here. No, I am not bragging, I am no great musician and never will be, but I have met the easy goals I set for myself at the time. I set the bar low because I did not know if I would want or could stay with it or not. So now I have been trying to decide what next? I have discovered that music is like most everything else, the first 80/90% is fairly easy, but the last part that makes you better and all you can be is not so easy. Rather like my stroke rehab. Initial improvements came relatively fast and fairly easy, the last parts not so much. Much work, less improvement. The devil is in the details as the saying goes.

 

Some examples that will make the accomplished musicians on this board smile are small to them things, but large to me. When I first started playing, just being able to play every note in the correct order was all I was trying to accomplish. No thought was given to tempo, pauses, holding notes, etc. now I am trying to learn all of those items since that is what actually makes the song recognizable. I am also working on lead in and ending songs and not starting and stopping abruptly and also filling in pauses with something. All small things, but what make the music easy and fun to listen to, but as I am finding out, also take a lot of practice and effort.

 

So our travels for the rest of the year after Iceland next month are back to Minnesota for a wedding in Aug/Sept, Lesley going to Hawaii in October, both of us going in the RV to October fest in Iowa in late September, and maybe another get together later in the fall with the group we stayed with last week in Maggie Valley, NC. Other than all that, not much else happening here.

 

Time for a tea.

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George I hope all your plans come to fruition. Here in Greater Sydney we have just gone into stay-at-home lockdown. My son and granddaughter Alice travelled for 13 hours to see me, they were coming for a week. They had been here ten hours when the shutdown warnings came. They had two hours to pack up and go back home if they did not wish to be quartered with me for two weeks. Very bad news for me as I love their visits. Iceland sounds cold but if it is where you want to go just go and enjoy it.

 

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Lockdown sounds terrible.

(What state, Banjo? I thought you were WA like me?)

 

I'm dreading it.

 

Iceland sounds amazing!  One for the bucket list.

 

💚👑

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I have my son and granddaughter from Broken Hill here for two weeks but the South Australian kids wouldn't come up here to their mother for fear of being "trapped". I guess different people different attitudes.

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We are a bit the same in WA, Sue.

 

We, generally, won't travel for fear of getting stuck in quarantine, either there or here, or both.

 

I really want to go to Mudgee where my brother is. Besides money, covid is what's stopping us.

 

Hopefully we'll all be free of that fear 2022.

 

💚👑

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I guess we are just tired of living in fear of a virus that is getting milder and we are doing all we can to avoid a bad outcome from. I believe the truth is we are all going to get this new variant and the best thing we can do is make sure we are as healthy as we can be and live our lives as normally as we can. When we travel overseas now we do take out the travel insurance which we never did before but now that is necessary because countries sometimes close without warning. Will try to post another blog soon, some new stuff to share. Thanks for the comments.

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