Learning from children

Now the kids are adult I find it fascinating how much I end up learning from them. I always have learnt from them of course - they teach you how to rear kids (by practical experience), new maths methods when helping them with homework (how do you do long division??) and so on.

Now though I can find out lots of things from their interests and their activities. I am learning a lot about horse racing these days. Now Nicky is working in racing I am finding out all sorts of things about how the racing world works which I didn't learn by reading Dick Francis novels (though they were quite enlightening too). Yesterday she was in the Racing Post as the Person of the day at Huntingdon races on Sunday (which involves a little paragraph about that person). I now know the difference between a claim race and a selling race, and all sorts of things. I do start with a certain knowledge of horses which is useful, but the depth of information is increasing the longer she works there. I still don't understand betting though. We looked it up on the internet and were none the wiser by the time we finished. I think it is like Mah Jong - you need to learn by being shown, not by reading the book.

Tomorrow however I am pursuing my own interests, and am singing. The choir is singing Palestrina's Misaa Beata Virgine in a service in Ewenny Priory. Thankfully we are not singing the Credo, because we haven't had time to learn it properly since Christmas. Fingers crossed that it all goes ok, though the congregation aren't a very critical audience, and singing a mass as part of a service is a really nice thing to do because it puts it into a proper context. The were written for liturgical purposes, not as concert pieces and I do enjoy putting them back into their context, expecially in a church which is the right age. Actually it is a lot older than Palestrina, being 13th century, but it was around at the same time as he was writing.

However now I must go to listen to a newer piece of music as Brian has written something and wants me to hear it. Even listening on a computer it is still exciting to be the first person to hear something newly written.