The challenge

In Which I Entertain The Notion Of Learning The Bassoon

Take up an instrument you've never played before and learn it to Grade 1 before the end of the year. That was Making Music’s Grade 1 Challenge.  I chose the bassoon. I’d had a thing about the bassoon for a while. You’ve got to love a bassoon. It’s the, well, woody sound. Organic. And so human. 
The bassoon is the clown of the orchestra: the grumpy grandfather in Peter and the Wolf, Charles Laughton staggering back from the pub and falling down the cellar in Hobson's Choice, Tony Hancock's sig. tune of course. No, that’s a tuba. But it's also the sinister unstoppable broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the cavorting trolls in the Hall of the Mountain King. And there's always a bassoon solo in Midsomer Murders - just before somebody turns round, smiles, and says "Oh it's you..." and then it's the adverts and you know they're going to be a squidgy mess when you come back after the break.
Perhaps at the back of my mind was the thought that I wouldn't be able to find an affordable instrument, and that no teacher would take me on at my age. (I'm 65. I know; I don't look it, but thank you for saying so.) I'd played the trumpet at school, and various folk instruments since, and I sing in a choir, so I can read and understand music, and the concept of blowing into one end of something and getting music out of the other end is not foreign to me. Also I read bass clef. Because I’m a bass. It’s what I sing.  I replied to the email on the 8th of January and expected nothing to happen.