Thanks greg, I am praying I get a violin teacher, but I think thats a fairly long shot, just have to wait and hope now.

Thanks Emily, I have been really down for the last six months, I am hoping my constant run of bad luck is going to change. I didnt realise. how much pleasure just plinking along gave me until it got severely restricted

Probably still go ahead with the build, I have been talking to builders and such like. I have found I will probably need a seperate space for practicing depending on who I get, and if I get a young family I will need somewhere quiet to get away, like Emily says really I need a lottery win. My playing has really suffered over the last six months its been very frustrating fitting in ten minutes here and there as I used to do two hours solid a night, now I spend all the time I have doing scales, I have just started practicing them in thirds, which is good for double stops as well as intonation, the reason for me doing so much scales is because I suddenly listened properly and found I was about 3 cents flat all the time, dont know if you noticed that.

my intonation has improved on the b and c note which I have always struggled with but I can now hear  those and other notes much better,  like a switch being turned on suddenly, takes a lot of fixing though. lol

Ripton would be great if I got someone like that next to me, your cabin sounds great, I can imagine sitting on the porch playing. conjures up images of the old hound dog lying there and a jug of moonshine close by, sounds good to me anyway. That would be a good night few of us on fiddles and a few on banjos and guitars, my idea of heaven, of course we would have to play Irish as well as blue grass