Hire purchase from somewhere like Millers/Ken Stevens might make sense. Think of yourself as renting it for a while until you decide if you want it, and hey if it turns out you like it after a year you can keep it!

I am teaching myself (v slowly) to play my mum's acoustic guitar. In order to sing along to one of the first two songs in it I first learned the two chords needed, and then *using the guitar* picked out the tune of the song to work out what I was singing. I'm *hopeless* at sight-singing, even when I can sight-read to play something. It's weird. I'm already getting better at picking out individual notes on the guitar (which is much like doing the same on the bass, which I am also not very good at) but I think it's going to be a *long* time before I get the hang of chords. Not least because I keep reading the fingering diagrams back-to-front.

I don't play my bass much, I've not played mum's guitar much (though I have at least got it new strings and restrung it), and I barely touch the cornet, but I still feel overall glad to have them more often than guilty for not playing them more.