Vivaldi! Yes, *actual* Vivaldi!

So there I was being a tourist in Florence and, thinking as I do with my stomach, looking very hard for the address of the restaurant I had just learnt about thanks to a flyer, and suddenly I hear something familiar. Opus 3, No. 6 in A minor to be precise - and for those of you who knew me back when I had a full head of hair, the same concerto that I had played at my quarter-century birthday bash.

(I'm right posh, me. Violinists and everything.)

Utter perfection, to have my favourite violin piece played for free by a busker in an time-warp Italian city. Then I got the final movement of Summer too, which was totally impressive. Then I got a pizza.

(Verdict on Rome vs Florence: Roman food wins, hands down. But ye gods, it's expensive. Even for those of us earning Brown pesos.)

Hmm. Hungry now. Where is my supper?

Happiness is an hour at the Wig

Or, more precisely, an hour of Haydn string quartets at Wigmore Hall. Scarcely, dear reader, does one find a Haydn performance and almost never four string quartets played back to back.

I was - and still am - in heaven.

No, the mathematically minded of you are not wrong, I didn't stay for the second half. This is because I have a very hurty head indeed and general not-feeling-well and also a loudly rumbly tummy, owing to having forgot to have lunch. Yes, it's been that kind of a week. Anyway, now I am propped up with a hurty head, my anti-rumbling Pot Noodles and the last movement in my head.

Haydn's a bit like Austen - his works are just so irresistibly happy.

Thanks London, for dusting off those Haydn quartets for us.