In Tune with My Piano

I always enjoy my piano tuner’s annual visit. No matter how much dust has gathered on my bookshelves, or how much laundry is piling up in my utility room, I know he’ll restore at least this one small corner of my house to perfect order.

I’m intrigued by how many tiny adjustments he needs to make. I like to think I’m sufficiently musical to recognise which notes have gone awry, but any slippage of the strings takes place in such tiny increments that I don’t notice them as they happen.

It’s analogous to not noticing how much my nails grow. It may seem only five minutes since I last trimmed them into shape, then overnight they turn into talons.

For the piano tuner witnessing a year’s worth of changes at a glance, it must be like doing a spot-the-difference puzzle. His task is to pick out the details that need adjusting to restore the instrument to how it was when he left it twelve months before.

While he’s at work, I leave the room, pretending not to listen, yet fascinated by the numerous tiny adjustments. I only return once he’s played one of his party pieces to test the net result. This time, it’s a bit of Grieg’s “Peer Gynt”. Then I watch him replace the front panels he’s removed to access the instrument’s inner workings.

Only after closing the lid does he realise he’s lost his glasses – the equivalent to a surgeon realizing a probe is missing only after stitching up a patient.

Fortunately, he finds them on the floor, where he’d been inspecting the pedals.

It could have been worse – at least no cats were trapped inside the piano

When he’s gone, I run my fingers across the keys with renewed appreciation of the piano’s aesthetics. No matter how muddled the rest of my house as I scurry about my busy daily life, my piano will only ever look neat and tidy. I’ll never come down one morning to find all the black keys have pooled at one end, or that the white notes have fallen on the floor, waiting like lost Lego bricks to pain the soles of my feet.

If only all aspects of my life were as easy to reset as my piano. Then I might even find time to play it.

(This post was first published in the June 2025 edition of the Tetbury Advertiser.)

(If you like stories about piano tuners, check out “Perfect Harmony”, one of 20 flash fiction stories in my collection, Quick Change, which I’ve just realised I first published 10 years ago. Where did that decade go?! It’s still available in ebook and paperback.)

 

IN OTHER NEWSSaints Alive – It’s a New Sophie Sayers Story! Home to a new Sophie Sayers short story

As you may know, I love writing short stories set in the world of Sophie Sayers, the central character in one of my series of cosy mystery novels, (first in series is Best Murder in Show). So I was delighted when my author friend Helen Hollick invited me to contribute to a new anthology she was compiling on the theme of fate. Although Helen is primarily a historical novelist, she adores Sophie Sayers, and says my novels about her inspired her to write her own cosy mystery series about young librarian Jan Christopher (first in series A Mystery of Murder).

Given that the other nine contributing authors are historical novelists (although some write contemporary fiction too), I decided to write a story with a historical twist, focusing on the saint that gave Sophie’s parish church its name: St Bride. “Saints Alive”, written especially for this anthology, includes Sophie and many of her Wendlebury Barrow friends and neighbours featured in my novels. This time, Tommy’s wily little sister, Sina, takes centre stage, in a mysterious encounter in the parish church. I was pleased that Helen placed my story at the end of the anthology, as it provides an upbeat, happy ending to an anthology that subjects the reader to a gamut of emotions.

Just launched, Fate is starting to gather some super reviews, such as the following on Amazon:

Excellent writing that drew me right into every story. Not a dud amongst them. – Highlander, via Amazon

This delightful collection of stories takes us on a journey through time (in one case quite literally), and into the realms of magic and mythology. The reimagining of events and legends creates a riveting collection of stories that are both connected by theme and also very diverse in style and content. At the heart of them all is a sense of fate, of things ordained, of serendipitous encounters. Each story is so different but somehow the anthology hangs together beautifully. It is hard to chose a favourite and each one left me wanting more! Happily, each author represented has a body of published work that is there to be discovered. I highly recommend this anthology and hope there may be a second volume. Who knows what the fates will decree! – Lew, via Amazon

These stories are exclusive to this anthology, so you won’t be able to read them anywhere else! Available in paperback and ebook, Fate could be just what you’re looking for to read on your summer holidays.

Now I must dash – I’m off to interview Helen Hollick for my next blog post, when she’ll be telling me all about her new non-fiction book, Ghost Encounters: The Lingering Spirits of North Devon, co-authored with her daughter Kathy, who has had fateful close encounters at first hand!