For some reason this morning, I have two great first lines from novels floating through my head. In "I capture the castle", it starts "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink". The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay starts with ""Take my camel, dear", said Aunt Dot on her return from High Mass." Both of these are among my favourite books. I think what triggered this was an article in yesterday's Telegraph Review by Neil McCormick on his hundred best songs. Naturally this started a great deal of debate between us about versions, inclusions and omissions and we went to bed still debating what songs we'd include in our own top 100. This might be a nice idea for a blog posting later. By this morning, somehow my brain had taken this overnight and morphed it into my favourite books, hence my musings on great opening lines.

We had an enjoyable day yesterday. It was dry and sunny after a wet week, and after a relaxing lie-in (joined by Booty) we ventured forth on a lovely walk by the river Wye. Using a starting point downstream from Erwood that we've used before, we walked down the bank rather than up, so a new area revealed. Again, it was stunning, with primroses and celandines studding the ground, lots of lovely trees, the river sparkling, lambs jumping, and birds calling. We watched a treecreeper for a few minutes and Andy enjoyed scoping out the area for squirrels. Came home via the butchers shop and the newsagent then a big pile of bacon sandwiches, a pot of coffee and the paper. Out later to do some grocery shopping and then in the evening we went to a concert over in Llandrindod. Held in a church, it featured a programme of late Renaissance and Baroque music, both sung and played. I loved listening to some trios played on old instruments - viols and bass viols - the forerunners of today's violins and 'cellos - the sound is quite magical. The choir tried some good stuffwith lots of Monteverdi, and some dramatic double choir pieces by Schutz (a pupil of Monteverdi's). One or two were a bit wobbly, probably under-rehearsed, but I was impressed at an amateur choir having a go, as these were tricky and unforgiving pieces to sing. The tenor soloist, Meirion Wynn Jones had an outstanding voice for this type of music - really excellent. One particularly endearing moment was when the choir had finished a piece called "Saul, Saul" - based on the Damascene conversion, with multiple spaced voices crying out "Saul, why do you persecute me?" - very exciting - the conductor turned round with a huge beaming smile on his face, and told the audience how much he'd enjoyed it. He then suggested singing it again, just because it was so exhilarating. So they did, and it was just as exciting the second time. The concert finished with Allegri's Miserere, a very well known piece but also very beautiful.

The concert was introduced by the church vicar who stood at the front, near the chancel rail. We were sitting at the back and could not hear most of his words as they got lost in the space. Several audience members bellowed out "We can't hear you" but it made no difference. I wonder if vicars are taught to project their voice. If not, there is no shame in using a microphone but simply mumbling amiably is not a good advert for church. Obviously the main altar cloths and church hangings were purple for Lent, but I noticed a number of quilted pictures of Welsh saints hanging round the pillars of the church. I was able to have a good look at the techniques used on the hangings which were very beautiful.

As I write this, the young master is still snoozing in bed. When I took the dogs out first thing, I noticed we were low on bird food, so have topped it up. Now, I can look up from the computer and see nuthatches, chaffinches and blue tits in the garden, all enjoying their breakfast.