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It is that time of year. Time to get the thermal underwear out from the back of the drawer and dust off the scarves, hats and gloves. It is time for the orchestra's November tour of north Wales!

It sounds a little bit pathetic, but after last week's education concerts, and the four concerts we played during the Wales Millennium Centre's open day, I was rather fatigued. After a couple of days off, however, and a lovely trip to Riverside farmers' market, I am feeling ready to face the journey north.

With us this week is Japanese conductor Takuo Yuasa, and the soloist in Mozart's Oboe Concerto will be our principal oboe, Dave Cowley. I love having the chance to hear my colleagues as soloist and over the next while there will be lots of opportunities to hear our principals. On 2 December principal bassoon JarosΕ‚aw Augustyniak will perform Jolivet's Bassoon Concerto in Hoddinott Hall and in the new year, principal horn Tim Thorpe will perform Strauss' Horn Concerto No 1 at the Brangwen Hall, Swansea.

However, back to this week. There's actually a lot to get through during our rehearsal period. Although it will be the same concerto and symphony we play at each concert, each night we will play a work by a different Welsh composer. One of the works is by a gentleman called Daniel Jones and my fun trivia fact for the week is that he was a code breaker at Bletchley Park during World War Two - how cool is that?

On Tuesday morning we concentrated on the symphony, Beethoven's eponymous Pastoral. There is something so refreshing about this work. Almost everything about it feels simple and fresh. It is a bit of a tiring play though. The Storm section in particular is rather labour intensive for the violas. This is not helped by the fact that the music moves attacca into the subsequent allegretto, with the violas holding long pianissimo chords; your arm feels like it might fall off, but you've got to hold this ridiculously quiet, controlled pedal.

In the afternoon we tackled Hoddinott's sprawling work Landscapes, and the following morning Mathais' Helios and Daniel Jones' Cloud Messenger. Wednesday afternoon was dedicated to rehearsing the Mozart Concerto and me walking to the Post Office depot in the rain to pick up my bow and to the dry cleaners to pick up my concert dress (I finally got that rehair for my bow, and as for the dress, I'd spilt foundation on it backstage a few weeks ago - absolute disaster).

It's now Thursday morning and despite a rather inauspicious start to the day - I ran out of coffee, then didn't realise the milk was off and took a big gulp of sour tea - I'm rather looking forward to heading north. The roads may be a car sickness victim's nightmare, but the scenery is fabulous. There's no wi-fi where us girls are staying, so will update you on all the tour news next week!

The orchestra will be visiting Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday; Prichard Jones Hall, Bangor on Friday; and William Aston Hall, Wrexham on Saturday. Tickets are available on the door.