Racket in the Basement

What with both the A Team coming for a visit on the weekend and spring coming sometime in the near future (he said with many things crossed), I made a move to the basement yesterday. And I ended up spending much of the day down there.

What I mean, for starters at least, is that I moved the fiddle down there. I prefer to practise in the basement because I feel that I inflict less painful din on the other inhabitants of the household: i.e. Cuppa and the cat. Another major plus it that it's also cooler down there come the hot weather. It's too cool in winter, and that's why I move the instrument upstairs for that season. So, when spring comes, I like to head to the depths as it were.

Since proper springlike weather isn't exactly bursting through yet, the weather wasn't hurrying me to move down there just yet, but the fact that the girls are coming, prompted me to make the move now. So I took my fiddle and stuff down there yesterday morning, and set up shop, so to speak.

And so the racket began. It's not just my playing, but the speakers that I can attach my iPod to. I have some of my repertoire on the iPod, and sometimes I play along with the music rather than just play on my own. So, I added that noise to my own, and I do have to have it up fairly loud to hear it over my own noise, don't you see? And when I wasn't blaring my iPod, I may have been experimenting with my metronome. It's not really loud enough for me on its own, not with the fiddle almost in my ear. But yesterday, I realized that I could plug the metronome into the speakers and produce a wonderfully loud click. Good for me, but maybe not for the neighbours on the other side of our shared wall. Oh well.

Then, with Cuppa still out, I decided to blare even more music and review some line dances. It's been weeks since we were there, and we haven't been very much for many months, and some of the routines are becoming rather murky in my noggin, so some review seemed in order. But wait, there's more.

When I was done with my linedancing, I decided that I should really lift some weights. I had neglected them for a long time after my operation late last summer and had just begun to get back to them a few weeks ago when my back decided to play up. So, yesterday seemed like a good time to get return to it. Of course, that requires even more loud music. When I was done with that, I decided that another short session on the fiddle was in order. In all, I ended up spending hours down there making one racket after another.

The Barra McNeils once produced an album called Racket in the Attic. Yesterday, I ended up producing quite a Racket in the Basement.