February 28th
Blackbird of the day: the one that sings in the dead of night, every night in February. (The other sound you hear is the river rushing by.) Crocus of the day: the first one in our garden for 2017, that secretly blooms in the undergrowth of weeds in the darkest corner where no fork has yet ventured. I might add that it was a very sunny day today and still the soil was so cold that my fingers became numb within two minutes of the commencement of the daily weeding, so I donned my gloves and switched to pruning. It was on one of my climbs to the compost heap with the helianthemum off-cuts that I spotted this brave wee flower.

February 27th
Walls of the day: Morpeth walls with red things.

1.Protest wall with poster

2.Station wall with Victorian post box

3.Memorial wall with poppies

4.Mossy wall with litter

5.Wall of former and potential windows with chimneys

6.Weir wall with reflections

7.Cannon with red wall

8.Flood defence wall with lifebuoy

9.Raised-eyebrow wall with post box

February 26th
Poem of the day: If My Train Will Come by Katrina Porteous. I saw it on the wall of Barter Books in Alnwick last Thursday, and today I found it and read it some more. It’s rather lovely. Also today I have weeded, forked, composed, watched rugby, arranged, pruned and thought about cake. Hear the poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZZbxw_sqSE

February 25th
Unexpected bounty of the day: a handful of potatoes. I forked and weeded in the howling wind and in amongst all the careful filtering of weeds-that-will-grow-back-from-a-miniscule-bit-of-itself from weeds-and-other-garden-detritus-that-will-die-a-happy-death-if-put-in-the-compost, I unearthed a mystical cache of small potatoes that had evaded two years of digging and broad bean growing to still be perfectly crunchy and ungrubbed. They are sitting on the draining board, and I think I shall incorporate them into a magical meal that will transform us both into enchanting creatures of optimism and wonder.

February 24th
Song by Cheryl of the day: Slow Down! Red Squirrels! I was chatting to someone I don’t know today about some possible workshops coming up and he told me that he’d contacted me because he’d heard this song. Red squirrels were in the news today too.

February 23rd
Doris bravers of the day: these two workmen, who over the last month or so I have nicknamed the cement mixers, because initially when the workings on the bridge commenced these two would turn up with said apparatus on the back of their white ute and make cement for the other teams of workmen on the job. They are also the two who put up, take down and rearrange the cones and fencing and “pedestrians” signs to prevent unsuspecting us of wandering into an un-filled-in hole-in-the-ground or into a discarded pile of sand. Today they arrived at the height of storm Doris to take away the last of the paraphernalia and a buffeting and a drenching is what they got, but the freshly pointed bridge is now works-free and ready for spring.

February 22nd
Camera function discovery of the day: macro. I tried it amongst the snowdrops in the garden while I was resting from the forking and weed removal. I haven’t yet discovered how to combine the use of the close-up setting with one that allows in less light, but just like the weeds in the garden I’m taking things one small step at a time. I was also today continuing with my arranging of the frogs – they’re hoppy little blighters.

February 21st
Frogs Of The Day: the ones in Israel In Egypt by Handel. I’ve spent the day pondering this aria as I arrange it for The Bridge Singers. This performance is so brilliantly hoppy-yet-smooth. I love the happy reactions of the viola player behind frog virtuoso Reginald L. Mobley.

February 20th
Choir of the day: The Bridge Singers. I am just home from one of the most excellent rehearsals we have ever had. New things tackled, old things remembered, semi-new things sung through with musical finesse, blend and understanding of the rest of the choir’s contribution added, and the thing I asked them to memorise? Memorised, and sung with such a warmth of tone that it almost made me weep with delight. There was also a lot of laughter, banter and all-round merriment, which always makes for splendid rehearsing, I find. One thing that made me exceedingly happy is that we sang through this Factum Est Silentium by Felice Anerio, having not sung it since we made this recording last July and it was stunning – some were even singing it from memory and looking up for entries, which I’m happy to say I remembered to give.

February 19th
Tiki Tour of the Day: around the north-east in nine hours with Richard, Jamie and Cheryl.

1.Beam

2.Whiskers

3.Ripply Coquet

4.Peeling Red

5.Ironwork

6.Art Box

7.Calves Of The North

8.Under The Boardwalk

9.Lamp Post

10.Green Bridge Window

11.Bannister

12.Lookout

13.Bessie’s High Level

14.Fruit Garland Cherub Window

15.Straight and curvy

16.Skyline
February 18th
Richard of the Day: Richard Knowles. One of my first and very best friends from my early days and years in New Zealand. Today I went to Edinburgh to meet him at the station then we headed home on the train and car via Dunstanburgh Castle, through lots of reminiscing, laughter, tomfoolery and chat. He’s going to live and work in New Zealand again in a few weeks and is currently undergoing a series of farewell tours each weekend.
It’s an honour and a joy to be a part of these tours and tomorrow I shall enjoy greatly more of the above treats as Jamie and I show him some of the highlights of the North-East, including sunrise at Warkworth Beach first thing (his choice, but one I’m very happy to accommodate!). This is us at the Lilburn Tower at Dunstanburgh. Lilburn is the name of New Zealand’s foremost composer. This, and driving through Howick (the one in Auckland is the one Richard hails from), and talk of Warkworth (there’s one north of Auckland) caused some of the merriment.

February 17th
Nostalgic cleaning of the day: the bathroom. I went into the bathroom to clean it. It usually gets “the onceover” level, but today the mood took me to the “going overboard” level. Indeed, I said to Jamie mid-clean, “I’m going overboard with the cleaning in the bathroom.” He replied, “That’s not like you.” “No,” I concurred, “I hate cleaning the bathroom.” He explained, “I meant, it’s not like you to go overboard with anything.” We tittered. It was the things in it that made me linger, I think. We don’t like the nitty gritty of the fabric of the bathroom – the fixtures, walls, floor, ceiling – none of which we chose, and indeed I gather that it was the people before the ones before us that fitted the ill-fitting bathroom. We’re intending getting a new one, although thus far it has served its purpose. However, we have stocked it with beautiful things that remind us of nice bits of our lives. These are the things I cleaned with relish and memories came a-flooding back.

February 16th
String Quartet of the Day: the one by Maurice Ravel. I was listening to Tuesday’s Composer Of the Week and this piece was featured. The whole thing is based on one theme, rather like the Debussy that we studied for A level music way back. Because I was a swottish music student, I also studied this one to a certain extent on my own so that I could be clever in my exams. Who knows whether it worked, but it meant that I got to know this splendidly clever and playful piece. It was listening to these two quartets when I was 17 that made me realise for the first time that the most rewarding music is often the sort you have to listen to several times and then you will start to appreciate, then understand, then love it. They confused and horrified me at first, but I love them both now, and did so within a few weeks.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNVVONYkivM

February 15th

Irritating weed of the day: Ground elder. Unlike yesterday’s weed which can on occasion be delightful and cheering, ground elder is never thus, and today my weeding endeavours have re-encountered it with gusto, insidiously skulking its way underneath the surface of every corner of every raised and unraised bed. Every teensy bit of its root will grow again if you don’t weedle it out. It also likes to wind its way through the roots of friendly plants too, so plenty of them have been uprooted and fossicked amongst in the hope that there is none of this pestilence left. Ah me. And the clouds came over after a cheerily sunny morning, before the sun actually reached me (we don’t get it in the mornings here until about mid-April), so to cheer me up here’s one of yesterday’s sunny pictures.

February 14th
Irritating weed of the day: buttercups. In a summer meadow or hedgerow or perhaps occasionally along the edge of the garden in amongst the hawthorn and fuchsia bushes, I like a buttercup or two, but the plague of them that has infested our flower and vegetable beds and need to be winkled out with their sinewy multiple roots – well they’ve been irritating me today. But I used the fork attached to this handle to help me and witnessed a rather lovely sunset, and the birds were tuneful. In other news the camera broke, but I fixed it singlehandedly using the “shake it hard and often” technique. This photo was post-repair, so all seems well with it thus far.

February 13th
Anthem of the Day: Factum Est Silentium by Richard Dering. We tackled the alleluias at the end with great enthusiasm and reasonable accuracy this evening at The Bridge Singers, and the general mood was that this is going to be a very exuberant and spectacular three minutes of our recital in June. There are a few recordings out there to help us, this being my current favourite. I note with interest that they are singing from memory. After the trauma that I seemed to cause with my declaration tonight that we will sing the 1st verse of the gentle folk song The Parting Glass from memory next week, I think we may not follow suit with our Dering.

February 12th
Exhibition of the day: The Hepworth Prize. I haven’t been there today, but I’ve been putting together work which has resulted from me working with it last weekend and before. It’s only open for a few more days so I recommend you head to Wakefield and have a look at it.

http://www.hepworthwakefield.org/prize/

February 11th
Cat of the day: Precarious Cat. I wrote a song in January inspired by Helen Marten’s exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield. The families in my Musical Sculptures workshops on January 10th and February 5th composed accompaniments and performed lots of world premieres of the various verses and chorus. Finally today, I have finished editing all those recordings and here it is for you and them to appreciate.

February 10th
Bird of the Day: Vermilion Flycatcher.
I went to see Shuna’s photos of their trip to Ecuador, Peru and the Galapagos Islands last December. Shuna takes lots of excellent photos just about every day, and her albums are things of beauty to be sure. I liked all the photos, but the two that stick in my head are trapezoid windows in the ancient structures and the vermilion flycatcher. What a stunner. On my way home I saw a grey wagtail on a roof. I was quite as excited about that, in fact, although I see them regularly here. Look at a vermilion flycatcher or 50 here!

February 9th
Brother of The day: Michael. He’s just the very loveliest, kindest, most generous, funniest brother anyone could possibly have. Frances and I are very lucky. Today is his birthday and we all spent it together with Mum and Dad, and japes and laughter abounded. Here he is getting the tea and the subject of two photos simultaneously.

February 8th-9th
Cake of the day: Monkey Banana Cake. Two banana cakes fashioned into the head of P.G.Monkey and coated variously with cream cheese frosting, milk chocolate ganache, white chocolate and Caramac icing, Caramac buttons and foamy bananas. It was carried with great care from Northumberland to Worksop via several trains, arrived in the correct number of pieces and tucked into by all the Camms as part of Michael’s birthday jollifications.

February 7th
Ukulele comedy classic of the day: When I’m Cleaning Windows by George Formby. He was born in Wigan in Lancashire in 1904 and was an exceedingly popular entertainer, particularly in the 1940s. The Bridge Singers will be learning this song for our windows-inspired recitals, and I have spent the majority of the morning making it just right for them!

February 6th
Country in today’s thoughts and memories: New Zealand. February 6th is Waitangi Day. A day to commemorate the signing of the Waitangi Treaty in 1840, in which the Maori leaders in New Zealand and representatives of Queen Victoria agreed who owned what. A few elements of this treaty were confused in the translations at the time, and conflicts and disagreements have ensued to a certain extent, but in general, The Waitangi Treaty still provides a legal and moral basis for arguments about land ownership and usage in New Zealand. Anyway, New Zealand is a country I love, and I have composed and arranged much music whilst living there. Here’s a selection of that music:

February 5th
Unmade decision of the day: What was the best part of it? You see there were three cheery Camms at breakfast, sunshiney Yorkshire views, old gallery friends to chat to, new families to meet and compose with, top art to inspect and be inspired by, my Precarious Cats song being given more renditions with new world premieres of new verses, lovely friend Helen and her daughter back for a catch-up and a third go at a workshop, being the composer, hugs and chats with Leslie, Words and Music about swans on Radio 3 on the drive home, more Yorkshre scenery through the pinkish gloaming, not much traffic, home, Jamie. So hard to choose….so perhaps I won’t…

February 4th
Octagonal Spire Of The Day: St. Wilfrid’s Church, Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. Michael and I had an afternoon out in this historic village. Other highlights not recorded in this album include a distant view of Scrooby Manor, an exhilarating wind rush as a train whizzes closely and speedily by at a manual level crossing on the east coast main line, a wooden-beamed “Old Rectory with higgledy piggledy angles and brick work interspersed, and three more K6 telephone boxes on the drive home. And I can report that Scrooby is a very picturesque village indeed.

1.St. Wilfrid’s Church, Scrooby has an octagonal spire. The church clock chimes just before the hour.
2.A song thrush welcomes us to the Pilgrim Fathers’ Trail in Scrooby.
3.Green stained glass from the outside, with the sun shining gloriously.
4.We spotted a sign in the church porch that suggested we might get in if we visited the key holder. She gave us a monster, and a diddy one for the gate.
5.The porch gate lock and latch for the diddy key.
6.A green cobweb curtain adorns the kitchen window.
7.It’s a loved-up sort of church.
8.Green and clear stained glass with trees outside in the graveyard.
9.More green…
10.Only one window, behind the altar was not made of green stained glass. Biblical phrases in an excellent font…
11….with delicate, detailed images.
12.The organ is awaiting its sheet music.
13.Decorative organ pipes glow verdantly in the stained glass light.
14.The octagonal spire atop its church.
15.A cockerel at the pinnacle of the octagonal spire turns its back on the half moon.
16.Near the octagonal spire we found a K6 telephone box – no telephone, but that’s not the point, eh? It’s the boxes we love. Perfect ending to our outing in Scrooby.

February 3rd
Film of the day: Lion, according to Mummy Camm who went to it with me at The Savoy Cinema in Worksop. My favourite bits were the butterflies, David Wenham, the real life pictures and footage before the final credits, the railway lines, the brotherly laughter and smiling, the children in the orphanage singing, escaping from the creepy man in Calcutta. We also watched Waking Ned Devine on a video back at home and enjoyed it greatly, especially the green phone box being launched into the sea by the returning priest, but we both preferred Lion.

February 2nd
Station of the day: Morpeth. I started and ended the day here – too early and too late. In between there’s been arranging, singing, printprintprinting, washing, curry, music deliveries, food bargains, car parks, driving. Morpeth Station itself has a Victorian post box which is what I intended photographing because Victorian post boxes are to me just as thrilling as red telephone boxes, but other people, waiting for other travellers kept standing before it, so the moon, the sign and the Jamie-bearing train took my alternative attention. I was very excited at the arrival of the train, and found it impossible not to jump for joy.

February 1st
Window of the day: 1870 window, St. Michael’s Church, Felton. This will be the subject of my new song for The Bridge Singers.