The next step.

This morning I went and 'tipped' the oven from school before going onto Accordions of Coventry with my machine, what a delightful couple who own the shop and so helpful. Unfortunately my machine is not worth a huge amount and would need around £100 to repair and bring it 'up to scratch' or as much up to scratch as the original Chinese workmanship could ever get to! The kindly agreed a part exchange value against a lovely German Hohner machine of £100 and even threw in a free set of luxury shoulder straps and a £200 case as well! I am now the proud owner of this little beauty..

Boy, I thought my old unit sounded OK but this is beautiful - rich, clear and unclutterred sounds and even my basic 'beginner' playing sounds vaguely acceptible! Unfortunately I don't have any excuses for duff notes now!

Returned home and after a quick 'play' went into school for the rest of the day. Managed to get 3 sets of books marked and brought home 35 detailed projects to mark tomorrow, (these were a 5 week task so you can imagine how much there is to trawl through). The irony of it is that they are canal projects which 'kick started' our Victorian study so of all the marking - I guess these are the most interesting! Once they're marked it will be onto the books and then I've begun to catch up with my tail!

John from the marina has booked a function room for our marina Christmas meal. A lovely pub with bags of character in the local village so I spent some time in between things sorting out marina bits and bobs!

The week ahead doesn't look too hectic in the diary - I've probably tempted fate now by saying this but there are actually a few gaps where I can focus on teaching without it taking second place to meetings this week which is good - perhaps I can have a week of not being in 3 places at the same time!