Away in a manger with the fairies

"Carols aren't that hard," says the vicar impatiently, as I chop my way laboriously through the rising sixths half way through "Once in Royal David's City," for the 19th time.

"They are if you can't play the piano," I reply, hands poised above the keyboard with about as much chance of hitting the right notes as a short-sighted bird of prey trying to locate a small, fast-moving vole.

He sighs. "If you play that again it'll be repeating all evening," he says, making my performance sound like a small, indigestible gerkin, and brings proceedings to a temporary halt by putting on a tape of carols at top volume.

It's the last day of term and the first parents are filing into the church to get the best seats. Jesus may bid the children shine with a pure, clear light, but it's an injunction that doesn't apply to pianos. This one is fitted with a very small clip-on beam that keeps the keyboard in deepest darkness and illuminates only the first few notes of the hymns, which is great if it's metaphors about the state of my soul I'm after but of limited use when it comes to belting out the music. I point this out to the vicar. "Did I tell you about our really excellent new director of music?" he says. "Really first class. Nothing's too much trouble. Marvellous man. He always has this light. Doesn't seem to have a problem with it."

It occurs to me, belatedly, that really competent pianists like the director of music probably don't need sight of every note at least half a bar before it's played, whereas visual clearance is an absolute necessity as far as I'm concerned.

The result, inevitably, is a sort of race, where my hands, plunged into darkness, take on an independent existence from the rest of me during the service, and I can only listen, often aghast, at what they come up with as they attempt to translate my woolly instructions into notes. As a result, carols with a lot of repetition - 'O come all ye faithful' a particular favourite for this reason - get faster and faster as my confidence levels rise, while others ('In the bleak midwinter' a prime example) are executed at the broken canter of a novice jockey confronting the hurdles of the Grand National for the first time.

Amazingly, we all finish the carols together, although the vicar, who spends much of the service cast down in apparent gloom on a seat next to the choir stalls, casts contemplative looks in my direction from time to time, especially when I attempt to add a fifth verse to the four perceived to be perfectly adequate by the rest of the congregation at the end of 'O little town of Bethlehem'.

The final chord rings out, then rings out again, this time minus the three extra sharps that had somehow crept in and I stop abruptly. The blessing is done and the children and parents leave, to the sound of five pound notes rustling into the collection plates like dry leaves.

For one terrible moment, I thought I'd never see my lovely hands again. But here they are, back in the light again, ready to come home with me for Christmas.

So let's hear it for the arrival of Jesus - not once, not twice but six - yes, SIX times. I've welcomed Him twice on the piano, once on the violin and three times as a spectator. My father would have been proud of me. Though, as he was Jewish, maybe not.

And what could possibly be nicer than those favourite old carols? After careful consideration, I’d say a double brandy would do it every time. Five renditions of Away in a Manger is enough to tip the bi-polar balance of the toughest brain cells into deep depression.

I decide to skip the staff lunch, pleading death, and leave home, trailing brain cells, spare notes and a palpable sense of relief in my wake.