Preparing and stuff

It's a busy time for me with just over a week before I'm away for short while so there's sorting and freshening up things to go as not only is there just so much room in my case plus any 'hand luggage' there is the fact it's damaged pawed wobberly me that's carrying it until I get a friends so I can't take tons of stuff with me either 'just in case' or for a change every few hours for several days with all the co-ordinating that takes.
That means I restrict it to a few things I'm comfortable with that co-ordinate with  common 'base layers' which sounds rather close to uniform which you could say it is.

 Great Britain is a country where very many schools, State and Independent have uniforms that pretty much have to be adhered to the style of which has change for a good number over the years although the current trend is toward more traditional forms such as the pinafore perhaps a backlash from the late 1990's, early 2000's fascination with more casual almost track suitish  'sporty' attire that also influenced Girl Guilding uniforms.
Believe me I'm much happier with that kind of approach as it makes managing and picking out what to wear much much easier.
Another kind of preparing of a less pleasant kind is getting my head together for Thursday when the funeral service for my Aunt will be held as currently there's a three week waiting list for them at least in my district and at least the service is within walking distance.

Weird Wintertime

Sometimes the seasons seem well a bit weird to me  having spent part of last week with strong gales that blow rather a lot like next doors fence into the garden  and left the curb side here covered in debris.
Yesterday I even went out wrapped up well walking in the sleet getting very excited!

 Then, that being said having had only on Tuesday some sleety stuff, would you of expected to see the Catkins out? Well when I was out walking late last week as I find it good for my mental health as well as physical fitness I did spot them on our subsiding public meadow that had trees planted on to help stabilize things as everything was starting to fall in a hole.

 Equally in our subsidence hit village would you expect to see Crab Apples growing on the other trees in the middle of Winter although I think the top ones a bit off? Seemingly we do as the birds flutter past this oasis of calm by the main road.

 I was having very much the sinking feeling as I stood trying to steady myself as my shoes were going into the ground but as you can see some even fell off but it didn't look as if they'd been pecked by the local bird population.
No wonder the wildlife feels confused!

Classical sacd round up part 4 - the Beethoven edition

As readers are aware I bought last year a Super Audio cd player that plays those discs in addition to regular cds and I have been buying a number to add to my classical cd collection that goes back to the early days of cd.
Beethoven is a major composer and so a set on super audio cd of his symphonies was something I had been looking for.

This set is one I am familiar with as it was issued for the first time on cd in 1991 and I bought it in early 1992 during one lunch break putting it out of harms way until I got home
If you look the sticker indicates like most for Europe discs, it has a ordinary layer and the super audio cd layer on the one side so it can be played on practically any player

 There are six super audio cds in the set with two symphonies per disc on four and a bonus disc that has some thirty minutes of rehearsals for the Ninth

As you can see although this is called a box set apart from that bonus disc really all you get is a short booklet outlining the history of Herbert von Karajan's Beethoven symphonies recordings for DG is a slip case as the discs are otherwise identical to the originally released individual ones and just fit in.
There's no attempt to put them in as the 1991 mauve cd box set into space saving multi cd cases or of the use of card or paper sleeves.
The recordings date from 1961 through 1962 and were issued in early 1963 on stereo lp records and was the first stereophonic series issued by DG.
One reason I bought this is I am less taken to the combination of the use of replica original instruments  the sounds some of which I'm not keen on and of the tendency to play it faster and often less consideration than traditionally had been the case which is very much the current flavour in performed and recorded  classical music.
In general I would say these remain amongst the most consistent sets of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Ninth being one of the finest I've ever heard for the singing of the Ode To Joy with only the Sixth, the Pastoral a little fast in playing although I feel it does hold together well even if it is different to most.
The recording quality for the period is very high and unlike a good number of modern recordings where lots of microphones are used and fed to multi-channel recorders before being mixed, this was done with simple stereo pair with just the odd 'spot mic' to aid the odd section of the orchestra which captures the scale of performance better in my opinion.

To go with this set, I needed some Overtures that traditionally were added to the lp record versions and so I bought this modern set played by the Bremen Chamber Orchestra that also has a multichannel sound layer as well as stereo.

 Around the mid 1990's the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra began a project of recording a collection of central classical repertoire at low cost enabling people to build a useful self contained collection that would aid musical appreciation.
At the time they were issued in conjunction with Tring records on regular cds a good number being well worth owning which I bought at the time but they were recorded at better than regular cd quality using the dsd technology used by super audio cds and briefly issued on sacd in association with Membran Records.
One of the discoveries of that era was the Manchester, England born pianist Ronan O'Hora and he recorded a superb account of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas 5 "Spring" and 9 "Krutzer"  with the violinist Jonathan Carney. It sounds really smooth .
That title was one re-issued on sacd around 2005 which I recently bought  to join my increasing number of classical recordings in this format.
When it comes to recordings of Beethoven' piano works I'm generally in the camp that prefers Wilhelm Kempffs recordings including his 1965 stereo piano concerto cycle but these have not been issued on sacd for North America and Euope. Indeed titles from Deutsche  Grammophon usually only show up as very limited releases in Japan with large price tags.

 One recording I did like of the Fifth piano Concerto growing up was Christoph Eschenbach's 1973 account with the Boston Symphony Orchestra which was recorded in four channel ("Quad") multichannel sound too  for DG and issued in late 2014 by PentaTone on sacd coupled with an account of the Third with the London Symphony Orchestra.
I decided to add this issue to my selection of Super Audio cds by this most important composer.

On the loss of a dear Aunt

Today's entry was not the planned one but as one increasingly realizes not every eventuality lends itself to such an approach not least anything involving people.
We received a telephone call on Wednesday from Mom's brother in law saying my Aunt who had been unwell for a period moving into a care home about five miles away for about eight months following a fall, showed that she wasn't really safe to be 'at home'  even with some supervision, had died having contracted pneumonia on New Years Day.
That didn't particularly surprise me as I had seen over a two year period when I visited her, a marked deterioration in her condition an her moving from limited informal oversight from family and neighbours to more formal careworkers coming in and a 'careline' being put in although she always looked after her personal hygiene and ate well.
My Aunt was one of the central characters in my life because I often visited her at least once a week if I was 'home' myself as it was a home from home where given the many issues and incidents on my weirdo family history that would break out. I go spending hours with talking about things as she'd try to settle me down from the drama around my home life having left often with a book, some money and my plushies.
She lived with her parents because she needed a some support although she worked for a good number of years at automotive factory locally until taking retirement and so that unit was in my ways an alternate family for me that did accept what we know would see as a more child-like regressive side from my teens and older.
They also spend a lot of time talking to me about pasts, my families pasts, their pasts and how we ended up where we did encouraging me to talk more about what was was on my mind and why it was troubling me.
This was a link I kept up for a very long time so outside of my regular at least once weekly  visits I go with Mom around birthdays and Christmas, chatting along the way with her neighbours and indeed it did get to me this christmas past as it was a ritual I missed from the previous year.
The one thing I know is I'll miss her.

New Year thoughts

As I sit here typing my minds thoughts move toward what I and this blog have been doing and what we are so looking forward to from this New Year onward and I think I know how I'll begin this even if only directly applies to a section of my followers.
The life we lead as age regressors matters more than the labels, their definitions and what different groups may think of what words we use to describe this thing we do and what by extension a good portion of this blog talked about last year.
It's what you do for real that actually matters such as the various meet ups I attended out there in the real world and wrote about doing things together, forming friendships, exploring for yourself  what in age regression it is you love and having found out what you don't, respecting your friends who have different likes.
It's also the things you may do on your own  or share less in real space but in cyber-space because they feel right for you and no one online community such as on Tumblr owns you very own regression. Indeed the most they can say is 'don't post about this and this' in a community you've chosen to join with their name and tags on.
I dislike discourse with a passion but there have been some occasions last year on here I've just needed to say a few things because I firmly believe some of that drama we see in age regression on Tumblr is causing harm to those who do regress due to trauma and other conditions and disabilities.
Getting that out of the way, another good thing is to spend as much time outdoors as you can switching off from the online world and allowing yourself to be in the moment with nature whither or not you walk as I have started to do more of, learning to reflect and take comfort from the everyday stuff of life. It's not just mental resilience and healing it will help either but overall wellness even if you face heath or disability related limitations.
One thing I do write about here is things like colouring which can help with de-stressing and improving your co-ordination skills which if they are like mine, poor and with reading which can cover things around the age range you regress to for sheer enjoyment or if you like me you struggle with reading by carefully selecting more upper junior fiction that stretches your vocabulary help in learning to read more for information and picking more the feeling of characters in those stories. The books I wrote about last year fitted that definition to a tee.
You for me it'll be that I'll be doing this New Year, sharing it with you all here and for some fortunate folks even under the same roof together.
Happy New Year!