There was a special offer of a violin in the neighbourhood discount supermarket for just under £30 and Mia wanted this. We advised her that the quality may be dubious but she agreed to buy it with her own money anyway. I couldn’t believe that we’d got not only the violin but also the case for the above price. I thought there had been a mistake at the checkout but no that was the deal!
After one of Mia’s teachers offered to fix the strings and tune it, it seemed to work passably well though it is the bow which seems to be the weak point as Mia’s bow from her rented violin works well on the new instrument while the new bow seems to have areas of weakness where it just won’t play the note. Not bad for £30 even if we end up having to buy a new bow.
Mia is dressed as a Christmas pixie in the picture because it was the last day of school and she was distributing sweets dressed like that together with her colleagues from the school council. She had a friend to stay that day who desperately wanted to try out what it was like playing a violin. Of course Mia is the expert on that in our house and she was a severely critical teacher to her friend. But Johanne was persistent and prepared to overlook the harsh comments. ‘It’s no good, you always make the same mistake!’ and so on.