Winter episode continuation

So.......the last two months......
October I was invited to Aldeburgh..my musical home to coach strings on Albert Herring. Lots of resonances and nostalgia for me,.having performed this with Stuart Bedford twenty years previously at Snape. He was directing again from the harpsichord. I adore this piece and know it so well. My students were articulate, lively, and young! We had a lot of fun working together upstairs at the Britten Pears school. I did the sailors path walk with Melinda Maxwell from Aldeburgh to Snape and we laughed a lot and got lost and had to fight our way through a spiky bush to the road. Next I made a brief appearance with my violin in a concert with Imogen Cooper and Nick Daniel at Kings place. She is passionate about the Scottish West Coast too.....but we had no time to share those things. We were both too busy with Mozart. It's a lovely hall.lots of wood which glows beautifully in the subtle lighting. Really lovely to see some musical friends again........Caroline, and Clare, and Sarah Burnett.
A few days later we flew to Crete for a week with Marios on his Iyengar Yoga course. The best thing about this week is Marios' wonderful teaching and the discipline, BUT the food comes a very close second. It is exquisite. We have a class for two hours in the morning from 8.30......then a leisurely and enormous feast. Jugs of the sweetest fresh orange juice, slabs of glistening sheep's yogourt, almonds steeped in honey liquid, deep fried hot feta pie with honey drizzled over, crumbly feta and tomato brushettas, avocados, fruit salad......it goes on , and we give in to these delights and feel like Kings and Queens. In the evening Cuttlefish stew, Moussaka like you've never had before with perfect nutmeg balance, fresh amazing green vegetables, calamares.....all cooked by Nikki beautifully from her own produce..her own goats,sheep, rabbits . She sits all day preparing and looking quizzically at the yoga class happening under the trees. The beach is ten steps away and it's the end of season and quiet and a bit chilly in the evenings. The body complains about the stretching and general demands for the first few days....but by day three we are all more radiant , shoulders back, with open chests, and perhaps more open hearts too. We stay an extra week in Crete and stay in an ancient town house hotel in Chania and wonder at the Venetian harbour. Then to the Lassithi plateau, a mystical raised area high in the mountains .....journeying there reminded me of Conan Doyle's Lost World. It is a different world up there, full of the relics of windmills sentinel like , desolate, beautiful. Venetians again..they invented them to irrigate the land..miles and miles of them. It seemed we were the only visitors at this time. We stayed in a simple farmhouse taverna and the beautiful rugged Cretan mama sat by the fire smiling at us whilst we ate her food. A short stay at Sougia where we walked through a gentle gorge and up and over the plain to Lissos.......Minoan ruins and mosaic floors just there for us in the sunshine..old bits of pillars just lying around..magical...all with a backdrop of the sparkling azure sea. On the last day I walked the Adrehna Gorge alone to Loutro. This was dramatic and intense. Picking my way down into the bottom of the gorge and imagining the river that fills it in the Winter months made my heart beat faster.  I will never forget being alone in that landscape with vultures overhead and the quiet heat and the shadows, gradually making my way down to the sea .
On the way to the airport we stopped for a light lunch, and on returning our hire car found the boot empty and all the luggage had been taken! It was a very strange feeling.....letting go of all those things....clothes scarves, and travelling back to the UK with virtually nothing. The worst thing was my notebook that I had been scribbling in for a couple of months. Realistically though I didn't NEED any of it. Poor Greece is in terrible trouble. They were so upset at the airport at Chania that we had had things stolen. Very kind.
Next stop was the Crucible in Sheffield for the first of the trio gigs with Kuljit and John.....playing music from our album!!! What a thrill that was!  We just smiled all the way through and the audience were right there with us. We sold 44 CD's and had to sign them and everything. This was a first for me . I will not forget that night. We had no idea really how it would be received. Lovely lovely audience.Very relaxed and open. Brilliant. Can't wait to do more. I have to go to sleep now. Sorry..I have so much more to write about. Next instalment I will describe a few things about my trip to Brazil,Chile, and Argentina, ten days on the road with Peter Gabriel!  Crazy times! Richness of experience! Beethoven, Hebrides, Suffolk, Crete, Sheffield, Chile...........Again, I have to say I know and feel how fortunate I am to have this year for these things........I really do.
Tomorrow we catch the plane to Inverness and then to Gatwick. Curry in Southall with Kuljit and John to talk about the future..then 3 days til Christmas!