# 2

It has been a strange Christmas. I was hit by a bad virus on Christmas Eve Eve, with a temperature that had me climbing the walls (and tall mountains - and did you know I can fly, well...) and three nights in a row I have been in bed before nine - I know University people say this happens to us at this time of year but I have only had one sick day in twenty years and this is this first time this has ever hit me - I sigh. But it was a huge team effort on the food (I am the only cook in the house) and we managed to drink one bottle of champagne out of the fifteen we have (its been a big year for birthdays in our house) and I saw Dr Who before I turned in with I Will Be Frank With You, a novel I am looking forward to reading - last night I failed. This morning, Diane, Abbi and Daniel are going off to the annual Preston Park Run (I am not even on the subs bench) and if I am honest I have no idea how the day will pan out. But before this degenerates into a Christmas Letter (the dreaded). I started writing a Twelve Days of Christmas story when I was bed-bound and wondered if I should share - now trust me this is as hard as it gets, writing it and putting it straight out there daily, without edits and really knowing where each of the 12 sections is going. But there is a tradition in oral storytelling that this comes from, which I will try to replicate - and remember, contrary to popular belief, the twelve days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day - where this story starts. But here goes, its just an idea going around in my head and I have committed to it and I will try to write it for around twenty minutes every morning - so this post is just a warning that will be going on - you should get out while you can. As a young man I was always taken by the sentiment of this song, Happy Christmas, war is over - I wish:

# 1

Ok, I wrote 365 blogs in 365 days for my sixtieth year but I have so much more to write elsewhere and need to concentrate on that. But now that I am into my seventh decade I can go back to being a casual blogger - blue moon posts and casual observations as they occur, basically just taking in the view, hence the new title. And here is the first view. I took this picture from the steps of the National Gallery in London, after seeing the Rembrandt Exhibition, which is well worth a visit. The exhibition got a little crowded and the audio listeners have little regard for the rest of us, nevertheless, a day in London is always a treat. But back to the picture, the blue cock on the plinth, in front of Nelson's column, the London Eye in the distance and the  jet contrail lines in the blue sky offered quite a composition, which was hard to resist snapping. But back to the National Gallery, I also really liked the Maggi Hamblin, Walls of Water exhibition, huge white canvasses full of energy and they provided a very good counter to the dark Rembrandts. It has been a good birthday week all round, the new Martin guitar (picture to be posted later) is just about the best all round guitar I have ever played and this week I will be recording with it in the attic studio. And this film clip is the guy who introduced me to Martin guitars. Mine is a much simpler model than his (which is a D45 and way to fancy for my taste). Mine is a D16, much simpler, solid spruce and mahogany and a great sound without all of the fancy trimming. I've never been a guitarist who craved sparkly bits on guitars - and this year I might vlog some of the tunes I record, we'll see how the time goes. And so this is Blog # 1 of my seventh decade - I hope it finds you well - long may you run:

Icarus @ 60 # 365

And so it has arrived, the three hundred and sixty fifth day - and at this time too, wide awake around 4.30  a.m. (which is the time I was born). Why Icarus you might ask? Well its easy really, he was just an ordinary lad who had extraordinary events happen in his life; and I feel like that too. These posts have just been snippets of a life in a year leading up to this point; little snapshots, fragments in a kaleidoscope, the brick-a-brac curios, knick-knacks and wordy-rapping-hood moments that started and ended in my kitchen in Brighton, over a cup of early grey tea. In-between time I have traveled wide, lived lots, loved loads, heard my song being sung in the Cathedral and even flown a kite again for the first time in ages... but I would have to trawl through the three hundred and sixty five posts to revisit all the memorable moments and indeed people that go to make up a life and a year. Of course there is also a huge amount I haven't mentioned, but for ten minutes a day, at least, I have typed straight from the thinking process with very little editing - and now we are at the end, which is just a new beginning. I did post once that every year my mother would put up the tree and let me switch on the Christmas lights on the morning of my birthday. I miss her and I am thinking about her and my dad right now, but I have kept up the tradition and I am sure she will be watching out for it - so the tree is bought, the lights untangled, the baubles polished and the angel dressed, all ready to be put in place: 

Happy Christmas 2014, may 2015 bring you much joy!

Icarus @ 59 # 364

Performing arts students at the University are pictured here getting ready for the Christmas The Fire Garden performance. Their outfits are hard to see but they dress up in these paper masks which are lit up and its great to see them pour so much energy into what they do. The picture doesn't do the scene justice and you might have to click on it to enlarge it and see there are people wearing them. But is not far gone five in the morning and I am dashing again to Winchester for the last day of teaching this year; and now we are also coming to the end of this blog sequence, at the end of a roller-coaster year. I don't have a huge amount of time because I have to drive, its five in the morning and the weather out there is shocking, so I think I will leave this post with hope - from Emily Dickinson:

Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me. 

But let's not forget either, its the party season and this is just the job for the dancing, come on, up you get, this is my default, Desert Island Track for dancing days, kick off your shoes and... Tekere

Icarus @ 59 # 363

At the University there is a garden for peace and reconciliation which has a pond, and in that pond there is a sculpture and last night I caught it lit up. This picture doesn't really do it justice because there is no real sense of perspective; its about six feet high and it looks quite superb. But the peace and reconciliation idea is not one that will go away either. Yesterday a Palestinian politician died while being apprehended in a peaceful demonstration. They had planned to plant olive tree saplings on a patch of land near the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, which Palestinians believe has been earmarked for annexation by Israel. I know this situation and the politics therein are complex and have been for thousands of years  especially after the second world war resurrected the state of Israel, but seriously,  sledgehammers and nuts come into my thinking. What is it about the human race that we can't live and let live, that we can't get along and that conflict is commonplace in so many places around the world when peace and reconciliation would be so much better. But its just not there - do the USA think we are idiots by confirming Guantanamo is a metaphor for US torture - and indeed one the UK government was complicit in, and in our name too?  Did they think we didn't suspect? It's a source of great frustration, and of deep concern. Man's inhumanity to man is as old as Cain and Abel, a constantly repeating, disgraceful pattern for mankind and this year has had its fair share of that, boat people, border skirmishes, conflict, war... I sigh. But let's not colour the day with despair, instead let's try to resolve to keep making it better - its all we can do. I haven't done nearly enough and the year is coming to an end, but I have tried where I can and I already have a resolution for next year. I posted this song before but this is a live version, just one person, guitar and his voice - colour me in:

Icarus @ 59 # 362

Winchester on the drive to the University and the colours just  burst out of the sky. I snapped these three in quick succession on my phone as I was driving in, just as the dawn broke. It was like a kaleidoscope turning as I pointed it at the same view. 

A quite extraordinary moment and I am inclined to let the pictures do the talking while I listen to this Mozart:

Icarus @ 59 # 361

Its a kite flying day, a clear sky, crisp and cold but dry and inviting. I am in Winchester and at my desk already this morning, with a full day planned but that's ok, days like this remind me how much I enjoy working at a university. All of it, the students, the teaching, the research, the people... and I have to read books for a living, can you imagine. I mean some days I have to sit in a chair with a cup of early grey, some good music on in the background and a good book open - with a notepad and pencil nearby, of course. What a chore, sometimes the days just fly by and other days they float like bubbles in Central Park. Today is not a bubble floating day but there will be more to come after Friday - and lots of them. It was Rilke who wrote:

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic

Orders? And even if one were to suddenly

take me to its heart, I would vanish into its

stronger existence.

I know how he felt when writing this - I am a very lucky boy, cloudbusting:

Icarus @ 59 # 360

Brighton Station, originally built in 1840 to connect eastward to Shoreham and westward to Lewes but by 1846 it became the end of the London to Brighton line (the train terminates here, please take all your belongings with you). I love how it curves round to suit the terrain because its built on the side of a hill. The roof has been renovated but the Victorian interior is still authentic and true to itself. And I love this station because of the London trips that I also love to take, but also because I love travel and travelling and being on the move. The train trip to London is just as exciting as London itself for me, I settle into my seat with coffee, my music in my ears and a good book, while taking in the passing countryside, the South Downs and  then the promise of London itself as we crawl through Clapham Junction and on to Victoria, catching sight of the splendid bridges and ever changing skyline on the way. And trains have always done that for me; way back about over fifty years ago I travelled on a steam train from Gorebridge Station (round the corner from my then Scottish house) and travelled to Pitlochry in Fife to visit the new hydroelectric dam (it was a school trip). The train chugged through Midlothian into Edinburgh and then across the Forth Railway bridge into the Kingdom of Fife, and it was magical, but most of all it showed me how big the world was. I have lived in Brighton longer than any other place in my life and yet the adventure continues. Yesterday I was in Brighton, Kemptown and onto Rottingdean, Telscombe Cliffs and the Peavehaven, along the coast - and from the road I could see the waves crashing over the sea wall into the Marina. I have been here twenty-five years next year and this station is the start and end of the adventure. Abbi sent me this track all the way from Oklahoma because she is looking forward to coming home next Saturday. Isn't there something else happening that day, seems to ring a bell... nope I can't remember, her and Dan coming home for Christmas is enough - her bike is in Oklahoma, I wonder if I can hire her one for the three weeks... hmm I should check that one out:

Icarus @59 # 359

Walking along the prom in Portobello is a joy, especially when I was doing so with my dad  a couple of days ago. There is a kind of faded splendor about it, sitting as it does next door to Leith which is attached to Edinburgh. And it has these amazing gothic houses. This one is facing the sea in the Firth of Forth. I could see myself nestled in the study at the top of the central part of this house. Isn't it great? I could huddle, hap up in a blanket, sitting in candle light and listening to a reading of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - ooh its been a long time since I read that book. Or I could just get a telescope and watch the ships as they come and go up the Forth, imagining what they are carrying, Dominican bananas, exotic silks and spices from the east, Israeli apples and Palestinian oranges that will sit at peace in the same bowl, negotiating the benefits of being a mixed fruit salad made up of different cultures. And sometimes I would close the door, sit in the turret and play guitar and think about places and lives and lovers that have touched me on the journey; and friends would come drop in from all over the world to play along, or to write or talk in the salon de thé which would provide some sweet early grey and Echelfechin cake or Abernethy biscuits and later maybe an Oban malt as dusk settled on the sea; but oh its dark here, early on a Sunday morning, I have work to do, writing to read and a gym to get to (you can't exercise the mind alone). I love the quiet of the morning, the stillness and the space to just to think and write this oasis, its only a ten minute blog and the world will start turning again for real, but for now, happy Sunday, I hope you are in your own turret... now where is my guitar... this song came on as I was writing and its mellow enough to maintain the mood for sitting looking out of turret windows:

Icarus @ 59 # 358

Apologies about the shadow in the corner of this picture, which I don't have time to clip right now, but then it is a little appropriate because there is a shadow that hangs over the location. Newtongrange, once the location of not one but two collieries which are now the bedrock of The Scottish Coal Mining Museum. There is no industry anymore, at least not much to write about and as my old friend Alex Sharp told me, its now a dormitory town. And this is what has become of one of the pit wheels. For those who don't know, these things used to turn four times a day, after the pit hooter sounded. The day shift, men down the pit first thing in the morning, bringing back the night shift on the returning journey, and so on all day, back shift down day, shift up, night shift down, back shift up (although if the hooter sounded at the wrong time and there was an extra journey the whole village would know there was possibly an accident. Those were the worst days and the wives would stand around waiting to find out if it was their man (men). If anyone has read The Odour of Chrysanthemums by D. H. Lawrence, you might get some idea. But in those days, Newtongrange (Nitten as it was named locally) was buzzing with life, Newtongrange Star, the football club, the Miner's Welfare Club, The British Legion, Nitten Institute, The Bottom Shop and of course The Dean (the only village owned pub in Scotland), the Gala Day in Nitten Park. This isn't nostalgia, it was a different life and I don't really miss it, but it was the life I grew up with and made me as I am now, which is ever grateful. But we played music just like in this clip - Happy Saturday:

Icarus @ 59 # 357

The small man down in the bottom right hand corner of this picture is my Dad and I wish he had flown back to Gatwick with me for a few days - though I can't see that ever happening again. He is happy in his own space, in his own village (where he seems to know absolutely everyone) and even his own kitchen, but that's as it should be and I know how it feels, being back in my own space is good (and I have come back with many plans - even though I only had five hours in bed last night). We had a couple of good walks though and some laughs over the funny stories he has carried through the years. I thought I had heard them all but not so, though the dyslexic cat turned out to be an anorexic dog, and more precisely a miniature Rottweiler (you had to be there and it was funny all the same). The morning is dark and cold here, not even the birds are up and dawn feels a long way off, but that will change by the time I am showered and dressed. Happy Friday, I won't be getting much of a break this weekend but who needs one? I think I will let this music run through breakfast, just let it roll on, its been a short night and it will be a long day, but that's ok - and that could be a line in a song, surely:

Icarus @ 59 # 356

What time is it? This is the High Street in Edinburgh, a city that combines the old and the new with ease and today I am going to see the Lord Provost turn on Leith's Christmas Lights before I fly home - at least that's the plan. But yesterday I had plans that went awry, and due to an instruction to 'turn here' we ended up heading over the Forth Road Bridge and exiting in the Kingdom of Fife, ochone, hoots and help mah boab! But all came well, though not as successfully as we had hoped. We went to see the Kelpies in the dark, new pictures to follow, to see them lit up. We saw them but the lights were broken so after a slow walk along the canal tow path we headed back to the car. Oh well, another time, perhaps. But I did take a great picture of my Dad next to one of the Kelpies, just to give their size some perspective, so as soon as I get access to a computer I will load it up. But what a day, up at five, flying by eight, breakfast with Gordon, a good laugh with Debs and Robert about a 'dyslexic cat' and then a couple of hours with Alex Sharp and Davie Jack in the Justinlees, which is where we would meet forty years ago, just to round the day off. All good, this song takes me right back to those days in the seventies and it is also what I am doing, having a weekend away, oh yay...

Icarus @ 59 # 355

Its five in the morning, dark and cold, but the citron grey tea is slipping down a treat and soon, after a short drive, I will be hanging around Gatwick Airport until my flight to Edinburgh is called - can you see me smiling? I love airports and flying and arriving, all of it, and I am so looking forward to being in another city but with friends and family. I'm not a huge collector of friends and the ones I have in Scotland I have had for over forty years, which in real time is a long time. Though I have accumulated another couple along the way - and family too of course, I am an uncle many times over and a great uncle (oh sigh - yes my four sisters, who are all younger than me, are grannies).  But after landing I will be having breakfast with Rocky (Councillor Gordon Munro) before heading down to see my dad and that's a great thought for the day. This is a song about a Rochdale girl - I have never been to Rochdale but I like this song:

Icarus @ 59 # 354

This is what the Victorian train station at the bottom of my street looks like in the 21C. I love walking at night - and its like a new hobby for me. You see the world in a different way, the light is different, the sounds the whole feel of the city - and the wildlife, it always surprises me how many foxes I see (there isn't one in this picture - more's the pity) but they have really adapted to urban life in the same way as the seagulls (who rarely seem to venture down to the beach these days). But its a week for cities, Brighton, Lewes (not technically a city) Winchester then Edinburgh and I can't wait to travel there tomorrow. But I was thinking earlier how much I miss London and I am definitely going there over the Christmas break. Its not everyone's idea of a good trip but I love the buzz; the galleries and the theatres but also the river and the bridges, Putney, Chelsea, Battersea, Westminster... a stroll along the South Bank, the Tate Modern. But then its cities, I love them and New York best of all. I will definitely be going back there after this blog comes to a close - and here is a New York song.

Icarus @ 59 # 353

Brighton Pavilion at this time of the year is a magical confection of colour and ice. I took a walk down on Friday night just to catch a glimpse and its like Disney dropped in right out of context, just for the fun of it. Maybe one day, when Abbi isn't playing tennis anymore and can take the kind of risk that comes with ice-skating we could go down and put it through its paces. In fact I might go anyway. Of course we have ice skated before, when she was little - and if I am honest, I was ok, and I did enjoy it a great deal. Though I have a different plan for this coming Christmas day - Dan has given it over to Crisis at Christmas and we will be working but I have bought a collective Christmas present (yes already) which we can take down to the beach... have I got you intrigued? It will have to be better than the four ukeleles I bought last year (I thought they would have gone down better). But this is a great distance from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday idea of what this time of year has become. Me, I love it, the lights, the sparkle, the music, the build up. Its because it was my Mother's favourite time of the year. Sixty years ago she was in the last days of her pregnancy with me and all through my childhood we would dress the tree and switch the lights on, on my birthday - and what a special birthday treat it was. Even when I stopped living with her she would call me and sing happy birthday down the phone, then we would talk about the tree coming down from the attic and the lights going on. I have her singing one 'happy birthday' on my answer machine because that year I was in the USA. I still can't bring myself to erase it (or her mobile number on my phone - sigh) - pinch and a punch for the first of the month (no returns). There is only one ice skating song worth posting here: