At aiwendel's birthday party on Saturday there was a considerable amount of impromptu music-making. In particular, there were spare violins lying around, and I picked one up and had a go on it.

The next morning, however, all the embarrassment came back. I don't often get that ‘oh god, what did I do last night?’ feeling after parties, but yesterday morning I suddenly felt as if I'd made a huge, attention-seeking prat of myself for the entire evening by pretending to violin-playing skill in public.

On the other hand, curiously, my left wrist felt fine this time (though my right shoulder was killing me for most of yesterday, but that seems less likely to be caused by violin-playing – I probably just slept funny). So now yesterday's retrospective embarrassment has worn off a bit, I feel almost tempted to scrounge a cheap violin from somewhere and have another try at it in the privacy of my own home (and then perhaps risk exposing other people to it again after I've practised a bit).

I suspect it's probably still a bad idea, on balance: just because I didn't manage to hurt my wrist noticeably in one evening doesn't mean I wouldn't still do it cumulative damage if I kept it up for longer, and really, I do depend on my wrists…