Author: Janet McKee

I currently wear many hats. My interests are genealogy, history, reading, knitting, and more. I now live in an assisted living retirement community.

How Do I Catch Up With My Irish Music Playing Friends?

~ Janet McKee ~ 1 Comment

Phew, this title s a mouthful. I have just watched and listened to a video about the Ullean pipes, a traditional Irish musical instrument. There must be similarities to the bagpipes played in Scotland. Be that as it may, I am more familiar with the recorder and tin whistle and the clarinet.

Morning consort group with Jack Ashworth – at a Recorder Playing Week in Tacoma Washington, 2011
Me (Janet) playing the clarinet – years ago in Dublin
Music making at Ida Culver Assisted Living in Seattle Washington, 2019
Janet (Me) trying to play the bass recorder

Peter’s Pondering Pipes #2

~ Janet McKee ~ 1 Comment

For music lovers.

Peter's pondering's avatarPeter's pondering

In my first venture into pipe music, here, I introduced the Uilleann pipes, most often associated with the Irish.

The tone of the uilleann pipes is unlike that of many other forms of bagpipes. They have a different harmonic structure, sounding sweeter and quieter than many other bagpipes, such as the Great Irish warpipes, Great Highland bagpipes or the Italian zampogna. Uilleann pipes are often played indoors, and are almost always played sitting down.

Here you can learn a little more about the Uilleann pipes with some interesting historical detail and even a bit of narration in Irish.

And here is a more light hearted look at how the pipes work and sound:

and if you are wondering what the young lady is sitting there for, here is the answer:

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Navigating WordPress After Moving

~ Janet McKee ~ 1 Comment

What a muddle to try to post a new entry to my blog! Yesterday we officially moved from one floor to another in this Assisted Living community. Difficult!!! But thanks to one of our sons who put some of our paintings up on the walls of our new apartment and that is helping to make us feel more at home in our new apartment.

Now to navigate WordPress.

This cat is as puzzled as I am

Another Day, Another Challenge

~ Janet McKee ~ 2 Comments

It is not easy to make a move around here. We are going to change apartments, moving from the spacious 3rd floor apartment to ta smaller studio apartment on the 1st floor. Why you might ask. Well the answer is that there are more services readily available for my husband. We will see how this works out.

It is particularly challenging to make the move at this time when I am the one having doctor’s appointments for a recurrence of skin cancer. Nevertheless the big move is scheduled for tomorrow.

An image maybe slightly appropriate at this time – there are lots of people maybe working at cross purposes.

I will look for a better one.

I

Pondering on the Latest Developments

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We are moving soon. At the moment we are struggling to try to co-ordinate the availability of the various actors in this drama.

Breakfast at our apartment
Picasso and his cat (image from the internet)

This image has nothing to do with our forthcoming move. It is just for cat lovers. As you know I love cats.

I Forgot to Tell You

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There is another thing I forgot to tell you about yesterday. Our in-house guide yesterday had actually heard of Bhutan. In fact, as a travel guide she had been to Bhutan 3 times. We have a lot to talk about! The future awaits! I can’t locate my Bhutan photos right now – I’ll keep looking but in the meantime here are a few to hold your interest (I hope).

Shelf outside our current front door
Early days in using a computer – 1980’s?
Our family 1973 – St Lucia