You Gotta Start Somewhere.

This is my very first blog post so please go easy on me ;) I've been putting this off because I just didn't know what to write about but here I am. I'm just going to make a start and see what happens.
 
I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the question I get asked most about in the whole world.... where does my name come from? My mum tells me she made it up by combining Trieste (the name of a town in Italy) with Tristesse (a French word meaning sadness). I know right? Well, it has certainly been a conversation starter throughout my life and I guess that's not such a bad thing. Oh and by the way, it's pronounced Tr-zet or Tr-set but I like Tr-zet best. It's a little less formal.
 
I'm number four of nine children and I grew up in a gorgeous little town on the Northern Rivers of NSW, Australia called Grafton. Grafton sits beside a majestic river called the Clarence and has a crooked bridge which I think is charming. Grafton also has a LOT of Jacaranda trees and every year in November we'd have a day off school to celebrate the Jacaranda Festival. All the students from the local schools would get together and perform May Pole dances in crepe paper costumes which was great until it rained!
 
There'd be a Jacaranda Queen competition and a float parade down the main street in the evening. And no, I didn't aspire to being a Jacaranda Queen hehe. I was too much of a tomboy back then. I preferred to hang with the boys and go motorbike riding.
 
I don't know how they did it, but my parents made it a priority to have each of us kids learn an instrument (mostly classical piano) as well as join the swimming club and tennis club etc etc.  Below is a picture of the piano I learned to play on after my parents purchased it in Brisbane. It was a rare London Chappell & Co. Grand, and though we appreciated it was a magnificent instrument, how were we to know that it would end up in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney where it still sits to this day.
 
I'm so grateful to my parents for forcing (I mean encouraging) me to take classical piano lessons even if I did play mostly ragtime and pop songs when I was supposed to be practicing my scales. It definitely had a huge impact on my life considering the career path I have chosen.  My major influences in my teens were Carole King, James Taylor, Lionel Richie, Eagles and Elton John. I was a sucker for a good ballad and still am. 
 
Part of being one of a large number of children meant that you had to be very independent. We rode our bikes about 3 kms to school from day 1, at the age of 5. Rain, hail, shine, swooping magpies or snow. Well, it never snowed in Grafton but you know what I mean. Sometimes we'd have piano lessons or swimming club before school which meant a very early start and more often we had piano lessons and orchestra practice after school as well. It was a very full and energetic childhood and I feel blessed to have had the privileges that I had.
 
I hope you've enjoyed my little story today and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog page.
 
Until next time.
 
Trysette.

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