I thought it might be appropriate at the end of the festive caroling season to mention about the importance of cleaning your instrument out.
I wash my instrument every 8 weeks or so, and I clean my teeth before playing when I can, yet still, when I washed my baritone out today I was confronted by the weird and horrible things in the photo.
I can't even begin and don't want to imagine what it is but it just goes to illustrate what might be lurking in your instrument if you don't wash it out every now and again. Remember mine gets cleaned about every 2 months and yet it still has gunk like this in it. When was your instrument last washed out?
Many moons ago I was helping one of my bands clean out their instrument room. When I went to clean out an old euphonium I found a dead mouse inside! The scary thing was I had previously tried to blow it to see if it still worked. YUCK !!!
Hopefully, you won't find any dead animals in your instrument but I can guarantee that, if it hasn't been washed out in a while it will have some unpleasant surprises.
New Year's resolution may be, make time to clean out your instrument.