Go on, ask me!

Ask me what I was doing at 11.30 last night!

I was translating a paragraph from Latin.

Aren't you glad you asked?

Strictly speaking, I was trying to translate a paragraph from Latin. And not having a great deal of success. I foolishly mentioned to Dr. Stu Savory that I liked Latin; he kindly sent me 'a bit of Latin practice'. I forgot to say that the last time I did any Latin was 36 years ago. Still I'm not giving up. The challenge is good for the remaining brain cell.

That brain cell was exercised good and proper last night: I went to drumming for the first time for ages. The rhythm we learned consisted of three parts on djembe (as well as several din din parts). I opted to play the simplest part, which consisted of slap, tone, slap. How hard can that be you might think. When you lack a true sense of rhythm, trust me, it's hard.

One of the problems I have is differentiating between slap and tone. A tone is simply a tap on the edge of the drum; a slap is altogether more complicated. These are the instructions for a slap from a drumming website: To make the sound, cup your fingers slightly as you strike the head. After your hand contacts the drum, relax your fingers and let them bounce off the head. The slap stroke makes a ipopi sound of a higher pitch than the basic open tone stroke. When your hit is just right, the sound is bright and projects clearly.
The proper slap sound is like the perfect golf swing or the perfect baseball pitch; some days you have it, and other days you don't.

Let's just say that most days are 'other days' for me.

Oh, the postman's just been. He's early today. Why is all my mail always junk? I have got into a habit of not bothering to open mail that looks boring. One day it will catch me out.

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Logging on to Blogger today I noticed the Blog of Note is Geek & Poke. I took a look; couldn't understand any of it. I'm doing better with my Latin.