Writing from the front-line: it’s Saturday morning, 11 o’clock, and we’re present at the University of Kent Open Day, having begun at 9 o’clock.

We’re wireless, and able to show visitors for the first time the department website and the blog straight away. The Director of Music is industriously working her way through a jumbo-bag of Rowntrees’ Pick ‘n Mix, and I’m taking the opportunity, in a brief lull in the morning, to report on how it’s going.

It’s been different this year, as visitors have registered in advance to come today: here at the Music at Kent stand, we’ve had a steady stream of visitors enquiring about making music. People have come from Chelmsford, King’s Lynn, Frome in Somerset, Slough, Camberley, Peterborough, Sissinghurst, Bournemouth, and even my hometowns of Worthing and Lancing, Sussex. We’ve also had international visitors, including one from Luxembourg!

It’s now 1pm, and I still haven’t managed to publish this to the blog: it’s been extremely busy this morning and it’s now lunch: I’m sure they’ll all now arrive as we decide to open our sandwiches: it usually happens… We’re about to avail ourselves of the bounteous foodstuffs provided by hospitality, so there’ll definitely be a queue form as I broach the sandwich cartons. I’ll publish this now – finally.

2.20pm: quite a few pianists, singers and brass players making enquiries: I wonder who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year about twelve years ago, when they were making decisions about which instrument they were going to take up ? Two trombonists, two tenor-horn players, a cornet player and a trumpeter: interesting…

3.30pm: with half an hour to go, there’s a lull in the thronging masses: I suspect Uruguay-South Korea or Petzschner-Nadal is commanding people’s attention now. People are still coming through the doors, though, and we’ve had a busy and productive day on the Music stand. If these enquiries translate into successful student applications and Music Scholarship students, the standard of music-making in 2011-12 will be very high indeed, and we’ll have to run several orchestras, a brass group, several choirs and a ensemble comprised entirely of pianists as well as the regular ensembles: Six Pianos by Steve Reich, anyone ?!