PARADISE REGAINED

For those of you who read my last blog post about the tragedy of my beloved piano, I have a happy update. 😊 Yes, paradise has indeed been regained! Thank you, Sir Milton, for lending me those pertinent words, even if they are almost four hundred years old.

And talking of pertinent words from the past, here are some more that just came to mind:

Ah, love, could though and I with fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire

Would not we shatter it to bits and then

Remould it to our heart’s desire!

So, to transport that eleventh-century quatrain by Omar Khayyam to the modern world, or rather, to my world, and to be more specific, to my living room, in which stands my proud and handsome 1920s Berdux grand piano, here’s what I’d say:

Ah my piano love, you and I have conspired against all odds

To grab the sorry state of how things were after the flood,

How we longed to shatter our doomed future to bits, and then

Remould your broken body to my heart’s desire!

Actually, that sounds a bit erotic, doesn’t it? Hmmm. It’s a piano, for God’s sake.

So here’s a question. Can one actually be in love with an instrument? No, not that kind of instrument (you have a dirty mind), I mean a musical instrument. Can one feel physical desire for a piece of wood, albeit with a complex mechanism inside? And by ‘desire’ I mean awe and adoration and yearning and allure and … well, all the things you typically feel when you’re in love. Can one? Can I?

Yes, I can, and yes I do! After two husbands, a couple of lovers and countless boyfriends (this is going back over rather a long life, starting with Boyfriend no 1 at the tender age of thirteen), none of whom are with me any longer, I reckon that my good old Berdux piano is better, safer, and, more to the point, still with me. Yep, he’s right here, in my home, in my living room, by my side day and night, steadfast, waiting for that magical moment every evening when I approach him after my mad dog’s walk, and we reunite and connect – fingers, to keys, feet to pedals, heart to strings – ah, yes! This kind of love is WAY better.

Um – I think I’ve travelled a bit beyond my original point. Which was … anyone remember?

Oh, that’s right. Paradise regained.

So, after all that devastating water damage to my piano about a month ago, when a leak from the upstairs shower went through the ceiling and on to my poor old Berdux in the living room below, and when I thought I’d lost him forever (remember, water damage is VERY bad for pianos), I was proven wrong!

So here’s what’s happened since my last tragic post. A rather frail piano expert (whose sons and grandsons also work in the family piano repairs business) came round to examine the sorry state of my Berdux, and, after frowning and umming and aahing and poking and prodding for a good few minutes, he then smiled at me and said, “It needs a new set of hammers. I can order them from Germany, and in a couple of weeks it’ll be good as new. Shall I order them, madam?”

I could have hugged him and kissed him and jumped in the air, but I didn’t want to alarm the poor guy (he was rather frail-looking, as I said), so I just smiled right back, and said, “Oh, yes, by all means please order them,” with typical British understatement.

However, in my blog posts I do not believe in understatement. I believe in shouting out the truth. So here goes.

I am one VERY HAPPY WOMAN, reunited at last to her HEART’S DESIRE!