Recently I was staying with friends at their home on the beautiful Archipelago, south east of Stockholm. We always do a lot of strolling in the area around their house, looking at the scenery and the wildlife, and I usually take my camera. One day we decided to go for a walk at dusk, so for once the camera was left behind. You can guess what happened - the inevitable missed photo opportunity! I came across something that would have been perfect to show to pupils when we play The old tyre and some rope make an excellent swing from Video diary in Quartetstart 2. It was exactly the kind of swing I had been picturing when I wrote this movement, but it was almost the end of my holiday and somehow I never managed to find time to go back. However, when I got home, there in my email Inbox was this photo, kindly taken for me by my friend Catharina. So now this piece reminds me of lovely evening walks on the Archipelago as well as the tyre swings we used to play on in the long summer holidays of childhood.
A few weeks earlier, while travelling in the Lake District, I had come across a poster advertising a stone skimming competition at a local lake. This reminded me of Our cousins show us how to skim stones across water so they bounce and bounce, another movement from Video diary. So that just leaves Before breakfast, we jog ‘marathons’ around the garden to complete the hat trick. Anyone out there do this?