Wild flower meadow in Brighton's Preston Park

Every year, part of Preston Park, near where I live in Brighton, has a small area, actually the old bowling greens, set aside as a wild flower meadow and at this time of the year it is glorious. Dan gets to see it every day because he is a voluntary worker at Whoopsadaisy - which is a charity for children with cerebral palsy - yesterday he said they had a water fight just beside this spot. But while the pictures don't really do it justice I thought I might put them up so others can see them.

A tangled tower

Songwriting is a little like approaching Anish Kapoor's ArcelorMittal Orbit, which I had the pleasure of standing alongside at the weekend. Kapoor said, 'I wanted the sensation of instability, something that was continually in movement. Traditionally a tower is pyramidal in structure, but we have done quite the opposite, we have a flowing, coiling form that changes as you walk around it. … It is an object that cannot be perceived as having a singular image, from any one perspective. You need to journey round the object, and through it. Like a Tower of Babel, it requires real participation from the public.' With a song you get a lyrical feel, words that make sense and tied to the music. The songwriter thinks he or she is building a tower but that can only exist in your sense of the whole thing; its not until you release the songs, play them, put them out there, butterfly-like, so that others can see them, hear them, walk around them and through them and experience them, do they become real. And they never sit still because they are always open to interpretation and adaptation. I once wrote a song called 'Hold Me' which was a bit of a rake's progress song. Or at least I sung it that way - slightly embarrassed that a man my age should write a love song. However, my good friends Lorna Bird and Mairead O'Donnell put it on there first album as a love song and the effect is astonishing - so what do I know, what does the writer ever know (only that perhaps its time we sang together soon). This song isn't really about burgundy shoes. 

Icarus at pride

From Crete, to playing at the Railway Roots Club then Brighton Pride - with the Icarus boy dropping by (feet still firmly off the ground - is that an oxymoron, can feet be firmly off?) and today its BHAFC v Atletico Madrid, goodness its a busy few days but I guess I have to go back to work at some point. Have just written tomorrow's list - it'll take a week just to get through it. Ah well, once I am in the swing it'll be fine. Looking forward to this album coming out though - next week:

The end is the beginning again

And then it ended, closing the Crete chapter although only physically for the memories will linger. This really has been about re-charging, writing new tunes, even if the words are still a little allusive, and spending  quality time with the kids which is getting harder and harder to do, now that they are close to flying. But life moves on and we move with it, today we move back to the wet and wild UK (or so we have been told). But things to go back to, I am playing at the Railway Roots Night, its 'gay pride' in Brighton this weekend and that's just a couple of things for starters and a lot to look forward to. But I can light a candle (drowning in a sea of wax here) to the less fortunate, the homeless and the refugees while counting my blessings that its them and not me, though I wish it were no one at all (wonder if I could fit that line round a chorus? I will sing about this on Friday, I think, and one day I might even post it on this blog - since Dan has agreed to film me recording some songs which I can post - hmm, watch this space, it might be okay. In the meantime, when we drive to the beach we car dance and sing along to this:

The walk to the Hidden Chapel of the Black Madonna

Old Olive...

Church of St George mosaic 

The Chapel of the Black Madonna

This has to be one of my favourite paintings of all time - though the 'wee man' Jesus is a bit old for the role -  its thought that the first inhabitants of Vamos on Crete were Arab pirates. The fact that Crete straddles the Cretan Sea and the Libyan Sea and is a direct link to North Africa suggests this image is not as unusual as it might seem - though quite rare in its own right. I like the walk there and coming across it in a now rough terrain - and quite hidden, you can just stumble across it but its unlikely you would because the route is well of any beaten track. As it was we had to negotiate all sorts, even exploding poppies - and blimey they can be scary.

Thistle

Wild fennel - the woods round the Chapel are full of flowers, sage, fennel and the like.... and this song is by a friend of my mine about growing plants in the face of adversity - Mike Reinstein and The Gardener of Aleppo, great: 

Walking days

Today the weather is threatening to change and a rather alien looking cloud is sitting eerily on the horizon. Thus far it hasn't moved but it might. But that's okay because we are shortly going to vote on where we go for a walk. Here are some of the options from last year.