Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

Wow our Internet connection is a million times faster. And it was surprisingly easy to set up. Hooray!

Went to my old school last night for a charity concert. The last concert I went to (before that one) was a 40-credit degree recital by Gary, who will probably get a high first for his performance and is going on to do an MA in performance. But this concert had just as much talent and pzazz. It was so good! There were a few dodgy acts who clearly hadn't put much effort into practising their pieces, but there were also loads of really talented people.

Normally the school hires a grand piano for concerts, but hadn't done this time, so the concert was much less piano-centric than usual. And since the fundraising is for the guitar teacher Cormac Kavanagh (and sports teacher Ms Cody) who is taking part in the Africa Project, the programme was quite guitar-centric. Personal highlights were Luke's version of The Entertainer (I've never enjoyed a version on an instrument other than piano before); Luke, Orlando and Drew's version of The Monster Mash (surprisingly effective with just three performers!) and (as usual) the Chamber Choir. But best of all was the jazz quartet. They're absolutely fantastic. They're led by a superb saxophonist (who is hoping to go to Bangor after his year out), with a superb pianist, a superb drummer and a superb bassist. It was a really tight performance, just wonderful.

It was nice going back to the school. I saw two girls from my year, and had a lovely chat with my piano teacher. She's so lovely! What a great school.

In other news, I missed the cygnets hatching by about ten minutes yesterday. I arrived at the footbridge to see if they'd hatched since I'd last been home (you may remember the eggs appeared when I got home last time) and there were two women there all excited because the cygnets had just hatched. They're so cute and fluffy and tiny. I didn't realise they would be big and strong enough to go swimming straight away. Yesterday there were two cygnets swimming around and (apparently) another one tucked under Mommy Swan's wings. I went back for a walk with Ian today and he spotted another two under her wings (I was playing with the dogs on the other side of the bridge because they kept barking and I didn't want to distress the swans). So that was exciting.