Back in the throng.

Home after our first day of term at orchestra, and the pub of course.

Christopher and I play with the East London Late Starters Orchestra, which is a hilariously diverse group of adult learners of all sorts. Truly all sorts. The first day of the autumn term is when the beginners arrive. Our orchestra will taken you on even if you don't know how to read music, and have never played an instrument before in your life. It's quite fun to watch these new beginners with a violin in their hands for the first time looking terrified and incredibly excited. Today there were about 30 new beginners clutching instruments straggling back to the tube station after rehearsal.

Film students from Ealing Studios have found us, and are spending a term with us making a documentary. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before really, because we're tailor-made for one of those heart-warming and funny films. We ended up at the pub with them after orchestra today and they were saying how fun it was to watch everyone welcome the new beginners and how chaotic yet somehow still organised we managed to be.

And it's good to remember, no matter how hungover you are, or how much you're ready to kick your music stand over in frustration with listening to the first violins go over a passage for the eighth time, or how pissed off you are that someone took the last decent sandwich at tea time, that this is, in the end, pretty fun. And pretty incredible it's happening at all.

Read this (very old but still relevant) Sunday Times article about the orchestra.