A thoughtful airport moment

On Sunday, I was sitting in Stanstead airport, delayed, and annoyed. I was only there because my Heathrow flight with BA was cancelled due to the strike, and all my plans had to be changed. So I started to wonder what would happen if I said I no longer wanted to fly, ever, anywhere. Like the old days. If it means crossing water, I'll get a boat.
While I'm following this train of thought, how about I throw out my mobile phone too. Just travel the world with a pen and paper, on a boat.
I've often thought about this. The stories my old teacher Ruggiero Ricci used to tell, of learning to play the 5th caprice of Paganini, backwards, or of learning left hand pizzicato because it was the only technique he could practice lying in bed, could only belong to a time without planes, high-speed trains, blackberries and, of course, TV. My generation has come of age, slightly awkwardly, during the exact time the internet took over the world. We didn't have computers as children, but have had to build careers and lives in an age which revolves around them completely.
I shall use mine to watch a movie on the plane, to keep up with emails, to skype with my 2 year old daughter when I arrive. A daughter who thinks I exist in two forms- in person and on a computer screen- neither particularly less odd than the other. She will grow up completely at one with the technology my parents are still fairly confused by.
But, this year, for the first time, we will take a holiday- a no-phone holiday, where the only criteria are flip-flops and a hat. And maybe I'll learn the 5th caprice, backwards.

Never forget...

Finally home after another long trip. This time I came close to actually drowning in all the music I had to play, but there were some lovely concerts along the way.

I sometimes feel that playing music for a living is a little like childbirth. (For the mother that is, not the child.)I mean this in as much as that you forget, completely, just how stressful something was almost as soon as you finish doing it. I can be standing backstage, swearing blind to all who will listen that I have had enough, and that a life of simplistic pleasures was all I ever really wanted, and I can't imagine how I ended up doing something so silly and so stressful. 29 minutes later I'm busy explaining how my only real sadness is that I don't play a concert every day.

I'm very happily relaxing in Paris now though, with a concert on Sunday to raise money for Haiti, which is the least we can do really.
Then back on the road Monday.