Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday (today) are about as cold as it ever gets down here. Tuesday morning I headed to Windsor for the first piano performance group meeting. There are currently three of us: Alde, Nadia, and myself. Both are teachers and piano performance majors. The program I am working on has 7 pieces by Bach in the first half. I played four of them on Alde's grand piano. Next, Nadia performed a set of Beethoven variations, followed by Alde's reading of the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata, also by Beethoven. The meeting spurred each of us to bigger and better things. Alde wants to take a piano exam that he never took (A.R.C.T., the top exam of the Royal Conservatory); Nadia wants to get a whole program together; I have increased my practice time from about 12 hours per week to about 17 hours per week. All of us are looking forward to our second meeting, here at the Homestead in February. Because of the harpsichord, it could night turn into a Bach event.
The next cold day was Wednesday. I didn't have to go out, but two new windows were installed. We have used Centennial Windows and Doors throughout the upstairs of the house. They are the best there is, pure and simple. Very expensive, but one gets one's money's worth. Their guarantee is a real guarantee. They will even come and replace the draft stoppers beneath their doors when they wear out. At 9:30 am, when the workers arrived, it was about 11 F outside, with a nice breeze blowing. By the time they left at around 2 pm, it was 16 F. Since the front door was going to be opened up so many times with the two workers coming and going, and since the furnace thermostat would be influenced by this, I shut off the boiler and turned on the wood pellet stove.
The kitchen window replacement came first. The space was wide open for less than half an hour before they plopped the new window in. Because we kept the original wood frame, that was a much faster job than the next window. With the wood stove chugging happily along, the downstairs was kept pretty toasty (67 F)! Upstairs, unheated with no furnace on, we had a small electric space heater running, which kept the temp up there above 60 F.
Next came the bathroom window, which was glass brick. What a job taking that out! It took about an hour to smash their way through it all. Then they had to build a frame from scratch, then finally install the new window. That bathroom got mighty chilly! But we now have soundproof and air leakproof windows installed in 85% of the house, along with the two new doors. Only two windows left to replace! Once the bathroom window was in place, the wood stove was turned off and the furnace turned back on. I was worried about the piano going out of tune, but it held up really well! End of home improvement segment, except for a few photos.
The old kitchen window, showing frost buildup whenever it got cold. Noise and air came through as well.
The installer at work in the kitchen. The other guy was outside.
The new kitchen window. Air tight, no frost, and almost totally soundproof.
On to my two movie pics for the week. First up was our fifth or sixth viewing of Peter Weir's The Last Wave, from 1977 and showing on Criterion. There is also a ten minute short with the director talking about the film, which we had never seen before. The film is one of the best fantasy films ever made, and though it has flaws, it also has greatness. The plot concerns an urban tribe of Aboriginals living in Sydney and practicing tribal ritual and tribal law. One of the tribe breaks a law, and is killed by the others. Richard Chamberlain, a tax lawyer, ends up defending the native men against the charge of manslaughter. But he is more than he seems; he has the power to dream of events that will happen. The plot is great, the music is great, the photography is great, the acting is great, and the opening scene in a rural school yard is by now a classic. Highly recommended, even if you have seen it more than once. It's always great!
My leaving Feb. 28th choice was called Patang (Kite), an Indian film from 2012. A minor family drama is an excuse to show the city of Ahmedabad during its annual kite festival. With the colourful city and thousands of kites as backdrop, the plot matters little, and is pretty inconsequential. A man and his daughter visit the city from Delhi, where his sister-in-law lives along with his mother, and his nephew. The latter blames his uncle for the death of his father. The young daughter has a little fling with a local boy during their two-day visit. The nephew befriends some street urchins and tries to look after their welfare as much as he can. The uncle, whose brother died after he left to set up business in Delhi, has purchased a new condo for the family, but they don't want it. That's it for the plot, except for a lot of kite flying. An easy film to watch, there are many striking city scenes. There seems to be a lot of people in India.
Back with more news as it happens.
Mapman Mike
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