I didn't think I needed a mandolin. But I did.

I was having trouble playing guitar around my hugely pregnant belly last year, and borrowed a mandolin from my brother, who had in turn borrowed it from his best mate. I loved the sound and feel of it, but felt unmotivated to put the work into learning to play the darn thing because it is (truly!) one of the most hideous looking things I've ever seen, and I was embarassed to be seen playing it in public. Orange and red paint - big pointy shoulders (that manage to jab you in the most uncomfortable places) - just UGLY in a 70s kind of way. Callie calls it the Jimmy Page mando.

Tonight, just before a gig singing for Nelson Mandela (yes, I DID just name drop), Callie solved my problem. My lovely lovely lovely cow of a friend had ordered the mandolin of my dreams from a website in the U.S. and it arrived this morning. I'm so blissed out on the sound and feel and GORGEOUSNESS of the thing, I can hardly bear to sit here and type rather than play it.

Yes, unbeknowns to me, I needed a mandolin. And now I have one!!!

(Thanks again sweet Callie.)