A former piano student wrote to say she still plays when she needs a quiet evening, though she apologised for not being very good. I was touched and slightly indignant about the apology. She doesn't owe me a concert career because I taught her scales. I told her that, in friendlier words, and then thought of all the times I've introduced another former pupil by naming the conservatory they got into. Perhaps she had noticed what I praised. The message was a pleasure all the same. There is a piano in somebody's home that gets played because she wants to hear it, and I had a little part in that. I read her note aloud over supper, twice by my husband's reckoning.

The radio was playing big-band music while I made lunch, and I found myself shifting from foot to foot in the kitchen before I noticed I was dancing. Nothing anybody would pay to watch. It felt good to move without counting an entrance or keeping a student steady, just letting the next bit of the tune arrive. My husband came in and joined badly, which is his preferred style. I could feel my face warming from laughing, not from effort. Later at the piano my thumbs were less cooperative than the rest of me had been. I played slowly and left the demanding passage alone for the afternoon. The kitchen performance was apparently enough brilliance for one day.

I keep returning to one wrong note from Sunday, which nobody has mentioned and probably nobody noticed. I know precisely what happened: I looked toward the choir a fraction too soon and my hand carried on with an older version of the passage. The explanation is available, the correction is easy, and still the mistake keeps volunteering itself while I do the dishes. Meanwhile I can barely recall the long stretch that went well. If a pupil brought me this account, I would have something sensible to say about proportion. As my own pupil I am less receptive. I have played the measure correctly several times now. At this point it may simply be a very boring thought looking for attention.