the confidence of youth

Earlier this summer, some young neighbours of mine were moving from their house near me, to further up the village. They borrowed a flat bed truck to move their furniture and dozens of black bin liners, stuffed to bursting. Between our end of the village, and the bit that they were moving to, is a very steep hill with a blind bend right at the top. They set off, fully loaded. Just as they got to the blind bend, a large van came towards them at high speed. Brakes were slammed on, everything shot to the back of the truck, the back flap shot down and their furniture and black bin liners were scattered far and wide! The road had to be closed for a couple of hours whilst they collected their splintered furniture. And the daft thing was that if they'd turned their truck around before they set off, they could have gone along a perfectly flat road with no bends at all. But "the other way was quicker" apparently

Too true, loopyloo.
A more appropriate requiem for my dear piano:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUNOmN3YVL0

We've had many a piano, grand and upright, moved in or out of our house, always by professional movers, and it can be quite a hairy business. Years ago, a couple of small brothers came to move a large grand. They were very quiet and polite and got the piano on end on their trolley when it slipped. In a totally expressionless voice, not raised by one iota, the smallest brother said" Oh Fred, you have dropped that piano on my toe." On another occasion, the movers had to get an upright piano up a narrow flight of stairs and round two sharp bends. They looked at the access ( or lack of it) and said to me " If I were you, madam, I'd take a little walk down the garden right now while we sort this out"-- so I did. How they managed, I shall never know, but I expect the blue air was a lubricant!

And go for it, Jalima!
Perhaps not tonight as DH has gone to sleep although I feel quite wide awake having slept through Blue Planet

New Year's Resolution!

Yes, the traditional pianos are very heavy and every time they are moved they need tuning.
When we sold ours I was ashamed to see all the cobwebs lurking behind it - it was far too heavy to move although we did get it tuned regularly.

You have told us many times that you voted Remain.
Oh dear, DH says I repeat myself
but that's because he never acknowledges what I say

chicken......is that where the ‘right said Fred’ song came from?

Top of my bucket list is to play a station piano. There seem to be quite a lot dotted about but I have never been able to pluck up the courage to sit down and play one! I have only once ever seen anyone else playing one.
Congratulations to the youngsters who got yours into a van, fennel; I hope they manage to find, and can afford, a piano tuner when they get it off again - they will almost certainly need it ?!

What a lovely positive post fennel it really gave the flavour of giddy 'can-do and have a laugh while we're doing it' carefree days of youth. Thanks for sharing and making me smile

lemongrove----the song came long before our piano move. Anyway, Fred's piano was an old upright wiv fings wot 'old the candles!

varian If that wasn't what you meant, why the unpleasant comment?
You could just apologise if you did not mean to be unpleasant but you are being a bit disingenuous.
I would always encourage young people to be optimistic. There are too many 'what if' people in the UK - it is the one thing that I prefer about the US - but people need encouragement and to know that failing is not the end of the world.

Bought myself a baby grand when I retired. Got it home myself, seller helped me lift it in and my hubby helped me lift it out.
I can only imagine how happy his girlfriend is going to be. What a gift and what thoughtful young man.

Yes indeed, she's a lucky girl!

Are you going to buy something to replace it after you've moved Fennel?

I know a gentleman who was given piano lessons by his stern Scottish grandmother when he was a little boy. He hated them and gave up as soon as he could.

He recently decided to start learning again and has been having lessons. He passed his grade 1 with flying colours and is enjoying grade 2. He will be 70 next birthday!

Surely Laurel and Hardy did the definitive demonstration of how not to move a piano in 'The Music Box'? Including taking it the more difficult way round like your young neighbours, Chewbacca!

And who can forget Morecambe and Wise with Mr Preview?

Rather like me, playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order.

Hear hear Fennel.

Jalimal108
My piano lessons were wasted too. My teacher was a b*** and would let me carry on and take my mothers money knowing I would never make Carnegie.

Ok I've read from the beginning and still don't get it! Who said what and why are folk getting annoyed. I'm either very naive or simply a bit thick!

So hope the piano arrived in one piece and that his girlfriend loves it.

I never got beyond 'In an English Country Garden' - and my piano teacher didn't believe in exams either. So I didn't even get Grade 1.

merlotgran's reference to a milk float reminded me of a house move when I was a teenager. We were moving across the road to what had been a very old village pub. Our piano was extremely heavy so neighbours were enlisted to haul it across the road on a farmer's milk float, heaved it up the front steps and down a creaky wooden floored passage to what we called 'the end place'. It was a few days later that dad discovered that the passage was suspended above the beer cellar and was propped up by a rotten pillar - he said that his blood ran cold when he thought of what could have ensued.

Three years of weekly lessons and an hours practice every evening and I still can't play. The teacher was very nice but the old style of teaching music that I did not know was never going to work.

It’s an expensive business these days, learning to play the piano. I started to learn again when we stopped globe trotting and bought our first house. I got to grade 5 and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to get any better than that, and I may as well save the thirteen pounds fifty per half hour that it was costing me. Totted up over a year, it amounted to a goodly sum. When I started, it had been ten pounds. I liked my piano teacher. We got on okay except for when I told him that I didn’t care for Mozart much. I thought he was going to throw me out of the house bodily!!

DD's piano teacher has retired now but for a few years before she did retire a good proportion of her students were adults.

I got up to Grade 4 with my one and only piano teacher, then the poor man died. But by then I'd got the skills to tackle a big range of music.
As a teenager I had a book of Fats Waller songs (anyone remember?)
I had an email from the young man who bought the piano to say he got home safely - 250 miles each way!