It went to Spain and back - but it's finally condemned to the skip!

As a child I played the piano. I loved playing the piano and I wasn't too bad. I always wanted to be able to play free-style, where I could just sit down and play for a 'sing-a-long'. I always thought that was such a cool thing to be able to do.

College years saw me move away from the family home and away from the piano and I lost the skill to play even with sheet music infront of me.

Then marriage to someone who wasn't interested in music meant that several years passed without me touching a piano, although I still had some of my favourite books of music on my bookshelf.

In the early-1990's I finally decided I would get back into playing and bought a mini-keyboard. I couldn't play it. The smaller keys meant my piano training had me instinctively reaching beyond the keys I wanted to play. An 8 note octave covered 10 notes. It sounded like Les Dawson on a bad day.

Once again I lost the enjoyment and put away my keyboard.

In 1996, as a final birthday gift my ex bought me this keyboard. It has full size keys so now I hit the note I was supposed to. But it only had 6 octaves and I missed the extra 2 - even though the majority of the times I didn't need them.

I tried very hard to to play it well, but it never captured my interest as much as the piano had. I even had lessons to try and make it sound right, but it never did. But it was a good keyboard, it wasn't its fault I couldn't get on with it.

Then Dad decided he would like a keyboard, he loved computers and he wanted to play around with connecting his computer to the kepboard and make music.

Eventually he bought a newer model and I got my old one back. I still didn't play but I was reluctant to admit I wouldn't play it again.

When we went to Spain, it came too. Wrapped in bubble wrap it went into storage with the rest of our furniture and there it seemed to develop a problem. It was probably from the extreme summer heat, but when we finally got it out of storage parts of the casing seemed to have melted and certain keys didn''t work anymore, and it did odd things.

Still I kept it. After all, I wasn't working so I had time to set it up and try once more to master it. Oh dear, that was never going to work. Some of the notes were definitely not true anymore and made my amateurish playing sound that much worse. It sounded as if I was playing half a note to the left of where I should be.

Even then it didn't get thrown down the Rambla to join the other oddments of kids toys, clothing and the old wheel chair that were tipped down there when the original farmhouse was knocked down. No, it went back into its bubble wrap and came back to the UK with us.

But finally, during a clear out it has been condemned to the skip. Not only does it not work properly anymore - neither do my fingers. Arthritis is finally starting to restrict the movement of my fingers. When the pain flares up it is difficult to stretch my hands and straighten my fingers.

And so, it is with some reluctance I admit the inevitable, I am never going to attain the level of competence where I will be able to sit down at a piano in a bar and entertain the masses.

Maybe if I'd had another piano things may have been different but it's too late to find out now.

I still have my music books and can still read them and hear the notes being played.

Somehow I think those will stay on my bookshelves for the duration.