The great thing about being a musician for me is variety; being in different venues, playing with musicians for the first time, playing different styles of music, and the whole impulsive nature of music, you don't really know what's around the corner!

One such situation arose in Bangkok at the World Saxophone Congress last month. Accompanying me playing 'And Everything Is Still' was Bob Hayden-Gilbert, who I hadn't seen for 25 years. Bob was my music teacher at Poole Grammar School, helping me no end to pass music A level in a year, after making disasterous A level choices the year before. Geography and maths weren't for me! He was incredibly enthusiastic, led from the front, and established a very good school big band.

I remember Bob complaining about Britain, the poor weather and so on. Not one to stand still Bob moved to Thailand. Coming up to date, when I realised that I needed an accompanist for the WSC I thought I'd try and contact Bob and see what he was up to. Twenty five years is a long time, for both of us, and fortunately I made contact with Bob and he kindly agreed to come along and play piano!

We had a great few days catching up on the last quarter of a century news. Also, I had a look at the Saxophone version of Bob's ibegin series (online lessons for various instruments where you can print out solo parts, play along with recorded tracks, learn about the instruments...). All in all a lovely opportunity to be able to say thank you to someone that helped my music all those years ago!!