I continued to work on the full score of the Dunstan cantata over the weekend, adding in some detail to the percussion and harp parts and putting the preliminary layout together. As of this morning I consider the work to be finished barring a last minute emergency which will, in any case, be small given the number of times I have been through the piece with critical eyes and ears.

It goes without saying that at this point I know the entire cantata rather well, but I think that I shall step away from it a little this week once the parts are laid out, not because I have had enough of it but because I would rather hear it afresh when the time comes and, besides, there are other pieces to work on. Those pieces include some links for the same concert, which I should be getting on with this week.

I finished another short piece over the weekend and sent it off for a competition, because I seem to be doing fairly well at those at the moment, and have already moved on to two other pieces which will end up serving the same purpose. Suffice to say that I am scribbling away happily and productively at the moment.

We also managed to survive the storms unscathed, despite doors blowing open and bins trundling nonchalantly away down the road. I swear that there was a moment in the middle of Saturday night when the house dug in its heels against a particularly strong gust of wind, but maybe that was just my fear talking.

There is another busy week of writing ahead, and over the weekend I shall be heading north to give an after-dinner speech, which will be a novel experience. I have done this a couple of times before and am already working hard on the text, treating it like a composition, in fact.