Learning to play harmonica

My new harmonica.

As it turns out, lectures don't start until Monday, so (excluding a short workshop tomorrow afternoon) I don't really start back at university this week. That's given me an extra few days to recover and get over this illness. My cough is almost gone, thankfully.

I bought a harmonica a week ago and I love the wee thing. I seem to have picked it up quite quickly and can knock out a few riffs and jam along to some backing tracks, but my embouchure could be a lot better. Practice makes perfect, though. Right now I'm doing my family a favour and practising while they're out of the house. Apparently my grandmother was a good harmonica player, although I don't imagine she jammed along to blues music. Maybe I'm wrong...

I suppose I'm the only musical person in two generations of my family. My grandmother came from a very musical background (I think her mother was a music teacher) and my grandfather was quite musical too, but it seems to have skipped a generation and no-one else plays anything. I've spent a lot of my life playing music, having played bass and guitar since very early in high school. Since university I've also started to play ukulele and harmonica.

Last week I was unable to do any exercise but as I'm feeling a bit better now, I've started to run again. I've ran three times since Monday and I'm slowly getting back into it. You'd be surprised at what effects even a week of illness can have on fitness. I know I'm not going to be breaking any personal records at the moment (actually that's a lie, I ran my fastest ever mile on Monday) but right now I'm just trying to limit damage.