Music lesson

Little OCD is having his first piano lesson. We arrive twenty minutes early for the normal one's music lesson so that he can have a go. I have had three hour's sleep and am righteously hungover. The doorbell goes right through me. This doesn't bode well for the saxophone class to come.

The impossibly cheerful Justin and Jane have been teaching our children to play various instruments for eight years. The middle one seems to have an undeserved fortitude for this; and continues to fly through a series of music exams with merit despite the fact that he hasn't been able to access any of his instruments since converting the room they live in into a scooter workshop last year.

We are gaily ushered into the house and the child is parked on a stool at the piano. I need a cheese twist and am frantically tracing spirals up and down the arm of the sofa. "Let's start with Middle C," trills Jane. She demonstrates gently how he is to play the note with the thumb of his right hand. After a belligerent pause he jabs it with the index finger of his left.

"Shall we put this helpful hand on our lap?" she beams brightly, removing it gently from the keys. "He's sad that he can't join in right now but we'll ask him very soon." He scowls at the unnecessary personification of a body part, but it is the announcement of an imminent rhythm game of Tadpole Frog that sends him off down the deep end. "Listen," he says, "It's Jaws. Daa da daa da dadadadada." Or," she bats back, "It's Frog, toad, Frog, toad. Tadpole tadpole tadpole tadpole tadpole." A rapport is struck. There goes £32 a week. Respect.