Icarus @ 59 # 251

The last day of August and the third trimester of my sixtieth year is underway. This picture was taken in a Japanese garden in San Francisco (goodness, but I have done some travelling this year). But the sign tickled me a little. There is no 'the' in the 'stay on path' and being a westerner I read the picture sign to mean, 'please stay on the bamboo path'. I though it just might be a quirk in the way I read signs, but it turned out to be true, that is what I was being asked to do, to 'stay on the bamboo path'. So I looked into it a little and discovered the spiritual lesson of bamboo is embedded in Japanese culture - ten of which I list here:

1. Remember: what looks weak is strong
2. Bend but don't break
3. Be strongly rooted yet flexible
4. Slow down your busy mind
5. Be always ready
6. Find wisdom in emptiness
7. Smile, laugh and play
8. Commit yourself to growth and renewal
9. Express usefulness through simplicity
10. Unleash your power to spring back

This comes from this idea - which I don't know a huge amount about but hey, a new month means new things to read and learn and understand:

Ichi Go Ichi  E
Literally, “one time, one meeting”. Every single meeting is unique.

I am going to try to remember the list for the first 10 days of September and take them one by one - not as some spiritual awakening but as a way of seeing the world and thinking differently. I was never a big S&G fan but sometimes you have to acknowledged a a couple of recently decent songs - and performances - like this flawed and creaky version - being as one who approves of creaky, human performances:

Icarus @ 59 # 260

Dan and I are crouching down (and even then Dan is still too tall) - its curious because I always remember my Dad being a big man when I was growing up. Strong as a horse - there was this one time me and the other members of my band were trying to carry a piano up the stairs (I had been given it by someone who wanted it out of her house - common beck in the seventies - and I like having a piano in the house). We were struggling until he got behind it and then suddenly the whole weight just lifted away from it and we breezed up the stairs. Indeed my old friend Alex Sharp will well remember that too. Though even now my Dad has a handshake that would crush a walnut - and I should know because that's how he still greets me, with such an affectionate, hand crushing handshake - hugs are for my sisters, who gush over him, and us for that matter. I had a crushing day yesterday, sometimes its like that in my job - especially when I am examining, there is so much at stake and right at the cutting edge. Undergraduates are examined en masse but when you get to PhD you have to look them in the eye. You so want it to be good for their sake. But if I am honest I much prefer that to the Australian system when you just send of a report. Here you can talk them through the difficulties and the problems. But it is so hard to negotiate. I did a lot of driving yesterday and listened to this in the car. It has become such a cliche these days, serving lifts and shopping malls but in allowing it to become muzak we can forget how nuanced it can be - and uplifting, I am no classical snob, I really enjoyed sweeping along the motorway in the rain with this pulling me along - I like a bit of Mozart, I do:

Icarus @ 59 # 259

North Wales really took me by surprise - this huge beach which ran for miles, all the way to Aberystwyth (where I was once interviewed for a job). I guess its not always like this but having spent time with my Dad, my brother, his boys and Dan, flying a kite along here it will linger long in the memory. And kite flying, what a wonderful way to while away hours. I was concentrating so much just to keep it in the air that I found I couldn't think about anything else - like a really good yoga session, so unbelievable cathartic and relaxing at the same time. I have some examining to do today at Brunel, and have to get my skates on, so more pictures later. It is trendy to like this woman at the moment because she has made a 'live' comeback  (she looks a bit like an old girlfriend of mine - though not with the short hair in this film, which is relevant to nothing except this came out when we were going out). I am not a huge fan but I have always loved this song and since I have been kite-flying recently it seems appropriate to put it back out there:

Icarus @ 59 # 258

Wales # 2

flying kites

the three Andrews

three generations of Melrose boys

Icarus @ 59 # 257

No picture today because I am on a 3G connection which is barely hanging in here - and am in a new country, Wales! Yesterday was such a treat, three generations of the Melrose boys flying a kite on the beach. Pictures to follow. Music for today, lark ascending methinks, which I will post straight to fb.

Icarus @ 59 # 256

I have given up my subscription to the London Review of Books. Two reasons, the first is I found I was reading that more than the books themselves and it seemed counter-productive, the other is that I was tidying up my study and found thereof them still in the wrapper. This reveals I just didn't have the time. Its not really a case of making time, like using your gym membership but it was a case of which one should go and I decided the gym membership was better for my wellbeing. But just a short one today because I am off to see my dad and nephews for a three generational dialogue of Melrose boys which should be a great deal of fun. I wonder if they will know this song:

Icarus @ 59 # 255

Well today I got back up on the ladder after the fall in January. It wasn't too bad, I felt no vertigo, no need concern, though I am now beginning to realise my daughter thinks I am getting a bit doddery since she asked Diane to watch out for me because we didn't want to have another six months like the last. I am just surprised she didn't insist on a skype supervision herself. Is this what its going to be like for the next 20 or so years? Nah, there is still some blood pumping round yet, lots to do and see, yet. Today I read an interesting poem by Jack Gilbert called Failing and Flying, to be honest I wasn't overwhelmed by it, I found it a wee bit humdrum, but it ended with the lines:

    I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

    but just coming to the end of his triumph.

And I rather like that idea and In will stick with it - I was not failing as I fell of the ladder -I had just completed my task... It is absolutely chucking it down outside and it has been dark all day - what a day for a bank holiday, time for some music - I was thinking about downloading this album from iTunes, and then I saw I already had it, goodness, how we forget stuff - let it rain:

Icarus @ 59 # 254

This picture is like me and computers, the pieces never seem to fit together. I have a new computer and after a real bundle of hours I have it up and running, no broadband, no Word, no idea - why can't a computer be like a guitar, you just pick it up, give it a strum and off we go, 'the answer my friend is blowing in the wind...' I am going to have to get a guy to do it. When its all up and running I am fine, I can cope, get around, do stuff, I can even type at a good rate (I always think I type as I think) and when I type these posts I tend not to spell badly - sure hit the odd word or typo or, goodness, insert the wrong punctuation mark, but I get by. This is a rubbish post I know but sometimes its just like that - watch this space, they will get better, I am in the last trimester of the sixtieth year, ochone - take me to the brink:

Icarus @ 59 # 253

I can't remember where exactly I took this picture (or if I was allowed) - but I think I was in the GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane). Aboriginal art fascinates me and so too the culture. And I was reminded of this yesterday when I received an email from Australia, which I am going to share it with you because its just great - show your support at recognise.org.au: Dear Andy, Because I know you're concerned about the struggle for justice, and about how artists prosecute the struggle, here's a speech by the Yothu Yindi lead singer, made on the occasion of being inducted into the ARIA hall of fame. He goes straight to politics. (Because he has died, we can no longer say his first name, but his family have kindly given permission for his music and videos to be public, and his formal name to be used.) Yothu Yindi, you may remember, hit fame with their song Treaty - always determined to get the message out - our own Joe Hill, 'Because he has died we can no longer say his first name, but his family have kindly given permission for his music and videos to be public...' - you can listen to Yothu Yindi below:

Icarus @ 59 # 252

The flâneur has long held my interest, and I am a good one myself, but we can't be spectators all our lives. Innocent, anonymous faces, city strollers, taking in the faces of strangers who are part of the scene, in this picture, the man in the middle as life goes on around him. Usually armed with a camera, we snap as we go, forming opinions and juggling thoughts and ideas. I am lucky, I get a chance to exercise those thoughts and ideas through my job but I am now about to try and emulate those who record them through lyrics and poems and writing because I am coming to a new phase in my writing life. But first, next week I am off to see my Dad, Andrew, and my nephew, Andrew, and I am looking forward to the three generations of Andrews together, though I am taking Dan and Arron being there too will not diminish the experience. And talking of experience, I never knew what a graphical score was, until now, and actually I am not sure why I would bother looking at this as I listen to some great music. I guess some might, too much flâneurie involved for me, too much time wasted, but that's just me, I guess:

Icarus @ 59 # 251

I am feeling autumnal. Lots of reasons, the weather, losing a friend, realising I have reached the age of responsibility and so on. But that doesn't mean to say I can't reach inside for the inner sunshine and energy to cling onto summer as long as I can - like this flower in my garden. And that is the thought for the day. I have been working out in the gym, peeling of the Kms and Kgs (well trying) and I already feel better for it. I am not generally unfit, just need to get back to the fighting weight after having spent six months repairing 'the leg'. Its repaired btw - not 100% but close, considering how bad it was - which I kept from everyone. But I find the general health and fitness helps with productivity and I get so much more done - and today I have much to do. I love this song from my spring days spent in the coal mining community of Newtongrange, thinking of Californian summers (which I managed to get this year) - I travel on in optimism:

Icarus @ 59 # 250

I am conscious of the fact that as I approach the third trimester of my own life, there are older friends getting ready to leave. It is the natural cycle of life and in my head, philosophically, I accept that. Nevertheless, when it comes around and you lose a friend it kicks you hard. I don't usually make friends with my PhD students, there is too much at stake and you need to be there to give them the support they can't get anywhere else. You get close to them of course, usually mediated by their enthusiasm for their work and the work provides a bridge. But B. was different. Older than me and writing about his time in Spain after the death of Franco we just clicked. I enjoyed his company and will miss our weekly meetings. That, I have to say, was an unusual schedule - he needed the anchor it provided him because he had a lot of time on his hands but I don't think he ever realised that I really, really enjoyed them - he was an auld goat, a fantastic writer and storyteller - looking for Che Guevara in the Congo (you couldn't make it up) I will miss those meetings and him a great deal...

Icarus @ 59 # 249

When I came to Brighton in 1988, the first people I became friends with (and remain good friends with) were Deshinder and Raminder Gill - and later their extended family (Deshi's dad said I should call him Papa G.) They are Sikhs and being around them, rubbing against them, growing older with them has always allowed me to see the world differently, and I hope them us. So when the news reported yesterday that 35 Sikhs from Afghanistan (one of them dead) were found in a shipping container at Tilbury Docks my heart jumped. Of course its just one heartbreaking story about an underworld of migration but the idea that we live in such a world that makes this necessary fills me with profound sadness. On the same day, rockets hit a Ukraine refugee convoy, recently shells hit Palestinian schools and pockets of violence and refugee camps exist all over the world. What is it about the human races' inability to live with its fellow man. Goodness, even last night the UKIP MEP, Janice Atkinson, an elected member of the European Parliament, was urged to offer a grovelling apology after referring to a loyal party supporter, who is originally from Thailand, as a "ting tong" - not a nice term at all but a derogatory, racist, look down her nose at another human being. I guess there are people who think derogatory things about me - even at my University I used to have to endure 'jock jokes', and I guess its worldwide, Ferguson in the USA has such a problem right now. You would think we could have come further than this in the twenty-first century - sigh, its time to post some sublime music:

Icarus @ 59 # 248

Ever had that feeling that the world would be better if you only had wings? I had a really busy weekend but don't seem to have accomplished anything except bits and pieces of work, and then I wake up and its Monday morning and I have a panic because the 'undone' stuff starts kicking into my consciousness around 5 in the morning and gnaws away at any attempt to go back to sleep - see even this sentence lacks proper punctuation... and I live my life in the ellipses... Never mind, I think I have worked out a new tune on the guitar, though I am not sure I can remember it right now so I hope it will come back. Happy Monday, the start of the week that never ends - dear river, show me bright city lights.

Icarus @ 59 # 247

I would love to be a really good mandolin player but I am not. I get away with lots and I like to write on it. You hear different 'grace notes' from, say, a guitar. They are often insignificant slips or embelleshments on the chords you are using but on picking them out you can begin to pick out different tunes. Since I don't read music and have no formal training at all I am constantly listening for them. I guess if I did learn to read and play properly I would reach my tunes quicker, then again maybe not. Perhaps the accidental stumbling is the crucial part of the creative process and hearing those notes that my fingers bump into become the trigger for the tune that appears - and then when it does its a joy. Maybe I will post such a tune one day - like this lad, and sometimes I watch these just to see how its done.

Icarus @ 59 # 246

Puggled, glaekit, shoogly, dinnae, clarty, haud yer wheest, blether, braw, scunnered, craw, tattie, crabbit, slaister, aye these were once everyday type words in my young vocabulary and growing up and moving south meant growing away from them. Nevertheless, having shed them for a new life, where new words like simulacrum, deconstruction, monads and parthenogenesis took over, I do miss the musicality of my former language. I was thinking about this yesterday, I was playing my guitar in the attic, while sitting on a  shoogly chair, wondering if the Scottish version of Shake, Rattle and Roll is Shoogle 'til yer Puggled? Of course there is no reason why I can't use them, except I would come over as trying to be what I am no longer. And if Scotland get independence I will be cast further adrift, born and bred there I don't get a vote because being Scottish has, by voting regulations and definition, become defined by residency. Is that a way to treat the children of the diaspora and the economic migrants? Ah weel, ah dinnae ken, I'll haud mah wheest, a nod's as guid as a wink tae a blind horse, ken? I have posted this a couple of times and I can't listen to it and not think about my mum - och, away wi' yeh:

'S tric mi sealltainn o'n chnòc a's àirde	I'm often searching on the highest hilltop
Dh'fheuch am faic mi fear a bhàta	Trying to find the boatman
An tig thu'n diùigh no'n tig thu màireach	Will you come tonight or tomorrow?
'S mur tig thu idir gur truagh a tà' mi	If you don't come at all, I'll be distraught

Icarus @ 59 # 245

Now I don't care what anyone says, it was cold last night and as my mother used to say, 'the nights are fair drawin' in.' Its not such a bad thing, it feels like it has been summer for ever but like our middle years (ok my middle years) you realise it doesn't last for ever and autumn is inevitable. And with that life is like pregnancy, it is split into three trimesters, roughly thirty years each (I hope). Mind you, admitting you are in the third trimester is really a state of mind and we have to address it in the right frame. Thank goodness this blog only has 120 posts left to go until I get to 365/365. But that doesn't mean to say I intend to stop living (or writing it occasionally) but goodness, only 120 days until I am sixty, what a short year this has been. But the good news, Abbi has landed safely, via Atlanta, in Okie Cokie land and the world is still turning - here comes autumn.

Icarus @ 59 # 244

We send her to America drinking little stronger than water and orange juice and then a couple of years later she is living la dolce vita in Italy or sneaking of the Mallorcan beach to have an espresso, and then you realise your baby is developing her own sophistications and ideas an tastes - and that is ok by me. She is a top girl and its been great having her around all summer but today, this morning, hoo... we are off to Heathrow and she is flying back to Oklahoma. And then the year will be work, tennis, work, flying, Florida, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and goodness knows where as she swings a tennis racket while keeping up with her course work and all the other fun things in student life. Its a good life, in the gym at 7 a.m., Italian Renaissance art at 10 a.m., tennis at 12... Cherokee at... the pub at... airport... hotel... back to classes (yup) its a life. She is the noisiest person in the house, life is going to be quiet without her - but she and we move on. We like this song, which I learned to play on mandolin this year, especially the little riffs after the verses (which are fun to play) - I will change the words to a Brighton Girl:

Icarus @ 59 # 243

This time is the Australian version of the perigee moon, just because we can do this at the click of a mouse. Isn't it great, this new technology. Actually this looks more like the light at the end of the tunnel to me. Wouldn't that be great, imagine all the suffering in the world could be eradicated if we just walked towards the light - the age of re-enlightenment, less of a religious experience and more of a realisation that shit doesn't need to happen. Last night I was reading Pablo Neruda's 'Night in Isla Negra' and all these moonlight pictures have resonated:

Ancient night and the unruly salt
beat at the walls of my house.
The shadow is all one, the sky
throbs now along with the ocean,
and sky and shadow erupt
in the crash of their vast conflict.
All night long they struggle;
nobody knows the name
of the harsh light that keeps slowly opening
like a languid fruit.
So on the coast comes to light,
out of seething shadow, the harsh dawn,
gnawed at by the moving salt,
swept clean by the mass of night,
bloodstained in its sea-washed crater. 

Last night I was also in the mood for a wee bit of a strum and I have finally had time to get my studio into shape for recording, all the things are in place and I have already set up some recording sheets. And then as the night drifted on the tail end of the perigee moon (still shining) I had a hankering for Richard Thompson: 'Just let me dream on, oh just let me sway, while the sweet violins and the saxophones play':

Icarus @ 59 # 242

It was only a perigee moon but I just had to see it. Brighter than the artificial lights down on the promenade, holding its own against the interference of city overspill that lights up the Brighton sky. In my old Brighton house I had a great view over the sea and the perigee moon I saw there was the best I have ever seen. It was so bright it woke me up and when I looked out I could almost touch it. Its only the moon but a constant fascination. And that fascination exists all over the world, a friend sent me a picture from Australia, just to remind us that we all have the same moon and I remember as a boy, when a man named Armstrong walked upon it - so does Nancy Griffiths:

Icarus @ 59 # 241

Six in the morning, earl grey tea at the back door and a new working week unfolding like the wings of this butterfly - which I snapped at the weekend in the garden. I don't know if it survived the storm that blew through yesterday but for such fragile creatures they can be very resilient. A bit like our children, really. And now we are counting down the days when out children too are beginning to think about flying. Abbi goes back to Uni in the USA on Thursday and Dan leaves us in early September, goodness but the house will be quiet without them. We only ever get our children on loan for a few weeks before they are free to spread their wings but I hope there has been enough  love and joy to encourage them to return. But still the working week unfolds and the list of things to do is already written, in pencil, in an old fashioned notebook, where each item will be ticked off as the task is accomplished, while new things will be added, for there is always something new to be done. Some bright morning, when this life is over, I'll fly away.... Icarus-like:

Icarus @ 59 # 240

I like Piers, this is Malibu Pier and a picture I took a few months ago but it feels like years. That's just the way of these things, I lead an immensely busy life - or so it seems - and travel is a huge part of it. But I also like this picture because its a metaphor for travelling through life. I once wrote a book called, Walking to the End of the Pier (and changed the title later - I wish I hadn't) and I might revisit that title again, although I have used it in a song I wrote, here is the chorus:
And I will be waiting,
waiting down here,
waiting to walk
to the end of the pier... 
But how I am feeling at the moment is my metaphorical pier is long and long may it stay so. I want to be a long way from getting to the end of it, there is still so much to do. And today, well I have been to the gym already, braved a thunderstorm and came home to find I had left the attic window open so its pretty wet up there, beside the new studio that Dan and I just made (complete with pool table) - no worries it'll dry and later this afternoon I will do some planning and recording - and if it could sound just like this it would be just fine, I love this song - 'I wanna do right, but not right now' - oh yay!

Icarus @ 59 # 239

And just as soon as it culminates in this, the football season kicks off again. Today we have a pre-season friendly before the main event gets underway. If I am honest, I spend so much time on my own, working at home, that this comes as a release. I give something back while getting loads from it - and so bring it on boys. These are all working lads, welders and builders and fixers, shifters and school jannies, but on a Saturday they are a football team, happy to take on anyone in the land. C'mon lads, the Germans and the Brazilians, bring them on... football is all about timing and rhythm and movement, like a finely tuned samba:

Icarus @ 59 # 238

Why is St Sebastian such a strong gay icon? I post him here for Pride week (and having snapped this yesterday - don't you just love the colour). Surely it can't be the (almost) camp posture, I mean camp wasn't invented in the fourteenth century, was it?  And to be honest, the history of the character the martyrdom and picture are based on has little to do with homosexuality - and just for the record, these arrows didn't kill him. Susan Sontag once pointed out that his face never registers the agonies of his body, that his beauty and his pain are eternally divorced from each other. Despite my search though, I can't really find a definitive answer, it just happens to be one of those things, he was adopted as an icon and that adoption evolved over the centuries until even Oscar Wilde decided to become Sebastian Melmoth, when in exile in Paris, for the love that dare not speak its name. You can car dance to this gay singer:

Icarus @ 59 # 237

It has been a day of art, the National Gallery, Tate Britain and the Clore with Abbi, phew, did some walking - from all the way from the Renaissance through to the Postmodern, via the Hungerford Bridge, which I had never walked over before. In the Clore I came across this internal architecture which caught my eye. I am taking the picture from a balcony and the arch opposite is a viewing window, while the natural light from the v-shaped glass roof and yellow walls gives it all a kind of symmetry. Not sure the picture is a great representation, since the space is about fifteen to twenty feet high, but I like it as a space and I guess that's enough to say. But its great to have a day out in London, I love it all, from getting on the train to walking back from Preston Park station all puggled out. Must do it again some time - never saw any of these but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough - ah hooooooo:

Icarus @ 59 # 236

When this guy pulled up alongside us when I was  rescuing  Diane from work yesterday I thought, well, who has he/she come for? Then I wondered, if he/she is really going to come for either of us will he be riding a... trike, not even a real bike... well who knows, the book thief has many guises but I guess if you were cycling along, getting ready to go home after a long day, would this be something/one you would like to see? It has been gay pride weekend so it takes all sorts, I guess - maybe he   or she thought it being a masquerade allowed him or her some anonymity. Then again, I thought pride was about being unmasked which frankly no one ever cares about in Brighton, so maybe the mask is, indeed, something radical - hmmm... perhaps there is a story in this somewhere. Now for something better, I found myself listening to this yesterday while tidying up my study, I have been doing a lot of tidying up this week, its amazing how much paper and general rubbish you can accumulate - I seem to be incapable of chucking out cardboard boxes and padded envelopes - my new thought is to clear up daily, though I might be standing in mid air:

Icarus @ 59 # 235

Well the loft is cleared (thanks Dan) the space is cleared and the studio is all but sorted, just have to get more guitars up there and all will be set - yay! What I am doing now is getting a list of songs together, working on lyrics and generally tidying up stuff to be recorded. I am looking foreword to it, it will be fun getting into it all again. The plan is to lay down a basic track and then when I have time I can layer up the other instruments and mix it down. I will be playing all of them myself too, which will be fun. The new bass, the old Fender, the trusty acoustics, mandolin, banjo and harmonica, with assorted percussion - which is all part of the fun. Now I just have to organise the time. But the new 30 hour day promises to be useful. This guy shows how easily it can be done - and I can even get some babe singers sorted if I need... But for now I am off to shift some guitars upstairs.

Icarus @ 59 # 234

I never knew my Grandfather Andrew Melrose. I was named after him but he was only ever a framed, black and white picture of a handsome man in a uniform that hung on my Granny's wall. He had been gassed in the first world war, never fully recovered and died in his early fifties when my own father, also an Andrew, was only a boy. My father is not a nostalgic man and never talks about him much (at least not to me) but goodness how the world has moved on in those hundred years since that war. Growing up, I was always aware of both wars. Every village in Scotland has a memorial, commemorating the names of those who never came back and they were always more than just names because everyone had a story. Scotland lost a bigger percentage of its population than anywhere else in the UK, more than twenty percent of those who went to war and it was rare for any family to be excluded from the stories. Startling figures, what is it about the human race, though? Yes there are the good and heroic, in the majority too, so why do we let the minority lead all of us into these situations. Look at Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Libya now, in fact skirmishes all over the world, we are an odd species of animal.Today will draw to a close with a "Lights Out" tribute, with people in homes, offices and public buildings urged to take part by turning out all lights between 10pm and 11pm, leaving on just one light or a candle to mark the exact moment the UK entered the first world war... sigh...

Icarus @ 59 # 233

Sunday and the working space is no closer to being established, I just ran out of time. But then again what more do you need if you have a pencil and a notebook. Its a good start and I did manage to jot down some ideas - and I wrote the first eight lines of a song, complete with tune which I started on mandolin and it transfers to guitar well too. So once the recording space is cleared I will have stuff to do. But here's a curious thing. I always buy spiral notebooks like this because I can tuck a pencil down the spine but when I write down notes and things, even finished pieces these days, I start at the back of the book. I think its because the finished piece is supposed to be transferred to the front when it is finished, but I mostly do that on computer. Odd, don't you think? Maybe I am originally from China, or at least the far east and there is a residual back-to-frontedness about my writing pattern. Though some might say the same about my thinking. Happy Sunday, the sun is shining, the early grey is hot in the Lady Chatterly's Lover cup, the back door is open, the cats are trying to catch flies, birds and butterflies and soon I will hit the gym for twenty minutes on the rowing machine and fifteen working the weights - of course my notebook will come with me, you never know when that scrap of inspiration will nibble your ear - like a bit of Bach:

Icarus @ 59 # 232

Its a head in the clouds kind of day today. Gay Pride hits Brighton and the town will be packed and topsy turvy; I have jobs to do, one of which is clearing an attic so I can organise my studio (which I am very excited about); and I am pleased to have examined a PhD just as July ended because August and September have to be planned, lest they drift away - tidying up my desk and organising writing space is immensely cathartic in that process. So its the kind of day where abstruser musings (to paraphrase Coleridge) will sidle alongside practical things to be done. I wonder if the Romantic poets ever had to dust and hoover (well perhaps not hoover, that would be an anachronism, but you know what I mean)? So I guess I need to get going - but wherever I will be there will music, there always is in my house. Maybe some of this - one day like this:

Icarus @ 59 # 231

Random art, this mosaic piece is under a fairly unremarkable window, on a fairly unremarkable house close to London Bridge Station, which is just round the corner from me - though it does have a certain Antipodean charm or influence. I don't know anything about who created it, why its there or anything. I just suddenly saw it one day - and if you look close enough the ghost of the photographer is lurking as a reflection in the window. I would love to have something like this at the bottom of my garden and in fact I am now going to be looking out for random garden pieces (if possible). Although with that and creating (not building) a music studio space in my attic (which is floored etc) it looks like I could be busy. But its all part of the post summer plan - plans that get formed as we relax on Mallorcan beaches and etched out in notebooks that I carry everywhere, now all I have to organise is thirty hour days (sigh) - I could hide, beneath the wings, of the bluebird as she sings...