Ode to Our Piano – Flowers & Phew!

(Here are the links to the previous 3 chapters if you want to catch up: Ode to Our Piano: A Faithful & Long-Suffering Friend, Ode to Our Piano: What Happened Next, Ode to Our Piano: Guess What?)

I know some of you want to know the latest in our Piano Saga and I said I wasn’t going to write Part 4, partly because I thought people might be bored but also because I was too scared to discover the final outcome myself!

This premature decision was hastily reversed, however, when on this radiantly beautiful morning I received a visit from Garden Glove Love Lady (see earlier posts and later in this one) bearing some pink carnations, which she handed over with a radiantly beautiful smile and a laughing ‘thank you’ at my happily bemused expression.

I gushed with pleasure both at the flowers but mostly at her being on my doorstep, because secretly I really had wanted to find out if she did acquire the piano after all and if it was still ok. I metaphorically bundled her in to tell me all about it, not giving her a chance to say Oh but …!

She was so happy and so grateful that we had passed on her phone number to the first lady who could no longer keep the piano due to her neighbour’s complaint about the noise. At present it is sitting in her garage as they can’t get it through the hall – uh-oh, my stomach lurched – but she thinks it will be fine, they are going to take it through into the house via the garage.

She also said that her husband, a mechanical engineer, who didn’t really want the piano and had to be coaxed into it by wife and children, was now keen to have a go at fixing the flat key and  left pedal which has never worked. He also thinks he can tune it! So now he has a project, the children have their piano to practise on and GGL lady can finally have the piano lessons she’s always wanted to have in the privacy of her own home while the family are out at school and work and not around to laugh or offer ‘advice’!

It is fascinating to me how these things turn out. We have been neighbours for 8 years but never met or spoken until she answered a leaflet my husband had distributed about my request for old garden gloves to donate to the rag children of Nepal. She came round a long time after I had given up hope of getting any response from anyone and handed me some gloves she had found at her sister’s. We exchanged first names and she said she would find some more. I didn’t see her again. Then we advertised the piano at our garden gate and the first lady came and arranged to have it taken to her newly built house down the street. We had never met either. A couple of days later GGL lady came to ask if the piano was still available. We had to disappoint her but took her number just in case. And then we were able to put her in touch with the first lady, whose daughter is so disappointed at having to give up her prize after being so excited to have it.

It turns out that she is school friends with the daughter of GGL lady who has told her she can come round and play it any time she wants!

And so the circle is closed.

Our precious piano has a new loving home, is helping a very sad  child come through her disappointment and is providing the opportunity for a woman to fulfil her dream of learning to play but not having had the confidence to do so before. Her children have an instrument to practise on and the husband has a new project. Apparently, her son strokes it as he goes past and they all love her looks despite her best years being well behind her.

And best of all, I get a new room!

We took the carpet up the other day and look what we found:

I am smiling again ☺️

Copyright: Chris McGowan