The experience in the Amazon left me sorry for one reason: coming back home I realized I never thought of asking someone to take a picture of the ‘opera house in the jungle’ -- I must soon put this right but I no longer bother with cameras and prefer to let my inner eye indelibly fix images so I can bring them back, ‘on demand’.

I had to resort to the ‘beckoning’ process during the last rehearsal with the Valencia orchestra to get what I require in Ravel’s sunny ‘Concerto in G’: “Guys, you are as much soloists as I am! And if you don’t play as such, it won’t work!” Luckily, my surprise-approach caused the ‘pin to drop’ and the results were most satisfying.

Comes the second evening, different venue and town, as I walked onto the stage a surprise awaited me: would you believe that, in order to fill a wider area the stage-hands had spread out the orchestra miles back from me (had I been directing from the keyboard I would at least have used the rehearsal to make sure hat I could see the key-players; instead, following the prior night’s performance the conductor didn’t even bother to ask whether I wanted to rehearse anything in the Concerto...) Next, I noticed that the piano stool had not been set at the inclination I like, so to put that right I had to crouch and fiddle with the screws under the hind legs. Then it turned out that the piano had been placed out front, American-style, which I hate: “me, in front (they would never say correctly I) and the rest of them”. When I realised that I could barely see the cor-anglais player, I shut my eyes while counting to 5, breathed hard and gave the nod... I should say, a concert better forgotten!

Am I alone in letting things like this get to me? I wonder.

Live and learn should remain my motto: experience tends to breed relaxation > wrong! One must forever keep watch: one second one’s feeling great, everything is going fine, and the next: BANG on the head, it never fails!

Later in the month one last engagement: a lunchtime-recital -- of some ‘heavenly’ Schubert plus Debussy in one of my favourite smaller venues: the lovely acoustics of Wesley Chapel, in Harrogate. I arrived in town the evening before, just in time for the birthday celebrations of the ever-so-well-informed and enthusiastic music-lover in charge of local events.

“Thanks Andrew, for including me in those happy moments and by the way, you don’t look a day older ... than 50!”