I am now sitting on the 20th floor of my hotel in São Paulo and have beautiful views across the city. John and I arrived late last night after a whole day spent travelling and this is our first complete free day so I am iminently going to the spa to have some rest and relaxation!

But, before I do, it's time for an update. It seems like an eternity since I was getting myself ready for the concert in Lima and indeed our day in Lima is one of the most enjoyable that I have spent for quite some time.

I had not remembered the backstage area of the concert hall but, seeing it once again, I wondered how I could possibly have forgotten it! It is a disused convent and "spartan" is a flattering way to describe it, if it is not too irreverent to say so. There are tiny little cubicles presumably for quiet contemplation so I promptly banished John to his cubicle! Our joint laughter ensured that he did not stay there for long plus there was much work to do as this was the first concert where our programme changed to replace the Elgar sonata for the Brahms G major sonata.

The hall in Lima is quite big - about 1100 seats - but the shape of it is more conducive to chamber music than the large hall in Medellin as it is quite wide so the audience do not go back quite as far.

We met up with a very nice young pianist who was going to turn the pages and, by the time we had finished rehearsing and checking the lighting, we had only 45 minutes to get ready before walking on stage. Our audience that night were possibly even better than the previous two evenings - and that was quite a tall order to beat. They were so demonstrative of their enjoyment right from the moment we had finished playing the Kreisler Praeludium and Allegro and so John and I knew that we were going to enjoy the evening very much. All in all, it may have been our best concert to date on the tour as the Mozart E minor seemed to flow effortlessly and we both felt highly spontaneous about it. It was the same with the Grieg G major sonata and the audience erupted into ecstatic applause almost before we had finished playing.

In the interval, Herbert came back to congratulate us and let us know that the British Ambassador was in the audience; then after three more rings on the inordinately loud bell which signified that it was time to go back on stage, we proceeded to play one of the great works of the violin and piano repertoire - the Brahms G major. What a truly amazing work it is. I have played it for so many years and it just gets more and more inspiring to play. We followed this with the Ravel Piece en forme d´Habanera and then launched in to our own composition - Tchaikovskiana, which is our version of Swan Lake with some (hopefully witty) bits of the violin and piano concerto popped in for good measure. It seemed like everything we played elicited an even greater response from our public and so, of course, we were more than happy to give them an encore and chose to play our own version of Czardas - another standing ovation followed and so we felt once again that we had done a good job and were happy about it.

After autographs and greeting of our audience backstage, Herbert whisked us off to another wonderful gastronomic establishment! This was a new restaurant which had barely been open two weeks and yet was already so popular that it is almost impossible to get in to. However, Herbert knows the owner and soon we were seated at a table with a pisco sour in our hand and the prospect of delicious food to follow. The restaurant is a converted Hacienda and is stunning to look at - John took some photos with his camera and we hope to have them when we get back home.

We were treated to a visit to the chapel in the grounds and then sat down to a wonderful meal of coquilles saint jacques, prawns in the lightest coating of batter and succulent beef all exquisitely prepared and washed down with pisco sour. The owner of the restaurant came over to chat and was very eager to see my violin (particularly when he found out it was older than his chapel!) and so I got it out of the case - I should have known better as he then asked if I would play! I was quite reluctant to do so, particularly after the pisco sour, but he was very persuasive and had been so hospitable that with good humour I joined in to the background music which was "Don´t cry for me Argentina"! It was my "debut" playing that particular work and, although I would never dream of walking on stage with even the tiniest drop of alcohol in my bloodstream, sometimes under these circumstances it can be better to be a little under the influence as it was certainly a very fluid rendition!!!!! The owner was delighted and thanked me profusely - and magically yet more pisco sours appeared. Ten minutes later, some friends of the owner came up to ask for another viewing of the violin but this time I declined to give a repeat performance and they were content to admire the instrument.

We finished up our evening of much laughter and amusing anecdotes with Herbert, and felt sad to be leaving him as he is such a wonderful person. But the packing had to be done and so we arrived back to the hotel, bade our goodbyes and prepared ourselves for the long day of travel to Brasil.

The next morning, we were up early for our departure to Lima airport and on to São Paulo and, once on the plane, John and I spent a highly enjoyable hour and a half watching the new film "Batman Begins" - only we chose to do so without the earphones on, as we could tell early on that the film was going to be really awful! Instead we supplied our own script together, with increasing hilarity as the film went along, and I am quite sure that our version of the dialogue was a good deal better and more suitably reflected the quality of the film....!

Having arrived in São Paulo, we were taken to our hotel and I was delighted to find that the Manager had upgraded our rooms and I was staying in a most luxurious suite! It was late by this time, as the clocks went forward by three hours, so there was not much to do except admire the beautiful rooms into which I had been put and then get some sleep.

I am having a lazy day today and now it's time to check out the spa....

Until next time

Tasmin