Oh No....

Himself had the long awaited first rehearsal for The Band the other day, which he was in charge of organising. I was expecting him back in a fervour of excitement, with jazz buzzing through his head as it usually does. Instead a despondent figure emerged, clutching his cornet case like a small boy with a satchel.

"How did it go?" I said with a sinking feeling.

"It wasn't good Pop. I kept fluffing notes. It was awful. I've got to get better - I'm leading the band for God's sake."

I tried to calm him down, suggested that perhaps he was nervous. And my heart went out to him. This forthcoming gig means to much to him and I couldnt bear for it not to work out. And he can play - he played really well at a gig several months ago. The question is, what's the matter now?

I think it might be partly that they haven't all played together before and it is different when you do. And partly confidence. Who knows what else?

He thinks it is a yeast allergy. Now this is something that came up exactly a year ago when he went and had an allergy test to find out why his mouth felt as if it was full of sand all the time. The results showed that he was allergic to yeast and so for a month he was really good and stayed off everything to do with yeast. This is more difficult than it sounds. It also means excluding milk, yogurt, cheese, mushrooms, chillis, bread and wine. (He hit the gin but we won't go into that.)

Unfortunately after a month he went back on everything, rather than adding things back into his diet gradually so he could identify the culprit but hey, what can you do?

I have to say, give him a problem and he will do his utmost to solve it. So the following morning at 6.30 am he was up and running down the corridor. "I'll be back," he said ominously, and returned with the results of last year's test.

So now he's back on it with a Vengeance. He has zip, he has zeal and he has purpose. This man is Intent on Solving his Problem.

So the freezer is full of bread that he won't eat (but his sister and I will)and he has stocked up on Ryvita and gin (no comment).

"As a wedding anniversary present you can have the rest of this bottle of wine, Pop," he said. I shan't tell you what I said in reply.

In order to prevent himself from overdoing the gin, he has wrapped some blue tape round a small glass to show him exactly how much a 35ml measure of gin is. Not that I expect this will make any difference, but he has 10/10 for trying.

It will be interesting to see how long this diet lasts. As he has a Purpose now, it could work.

I can only hope it does the trick with regard to his cornet playing. I couldn't bear for that to go wrong.