June 30th
Today the poppies are out enjoying the sunshine, attracting the bees (as the song says):
Take my pollen gently,
Bring some other quickly,
Feel the seed within me.
I am a flowering plant.
Pollen from my stamen flies away aboard the bee,
In return he brings some other pollen back to me.
Pollen meets egg in the stigma secretly,
Deep inside the seed begins to grow.
I am a, I am a, I am a flowering plant.

June 29th
Mostly today I have been considering Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 109. Here is the beginning of the 2nd movement, and also a gravestone we spied on Saturday in Escomb Churchyard, County Durham. It’s dated 1720.

June 28th
All these rainbows today set me a-reminiscing about my rainbow song….because of course I have one of those! It’s got eight verses, each one telling about how special each colour is in the grand scheme of things, and the last is about the rainbow itself. Here’s that last verse with a photo of a rainbow I took on Fraser Island, Queensland in 2012, while out in the early morning on a bird-watching jaunt with my in-laws!

June 27th
Bishop Auckland, Escomb, Witton-le-Wear.
Wrens, chickens, no kingfishers.
Saxon sundial, Low Barns lookouts, Roman scratchings.
Leaping viaducts, nestling bridges, weed-rusty railway lines.
Cheesy scones, watery slaker, Clem’s vinegary chips.
Another wonderful Weardale Way away day.

June 26th
Today I have been sorting stuff out from yesterday’s gallery workshop and chit-chatting with choiry friends. Here’s a photo from the gallery yesterday, and a fragment of a recording that came into my possession this week of All The King’s Men from King’s College singing my Hodie Christus Natus Est.

June 25th
Today I have been creating Geometric Soundscapes with Year 1 children from Grove Lea Primary School in Hemsworth at The Hepworth Wakefield​. They made up three verses to our song, and created “instrumental” music inspired by each of their three geometric art works. What you’re hearing is their Genesis III verse followed by some sandpaper splashes and then the arrival of the balloony red circle. One little fellow sitting close to the machine sang so wholeheartedly that he caused a smidgeon of distortion at the beginning! The lyrics are:
Big white room, what’s inside? Open up your eyes so wide.
Shapes and colours, large and small, on the floor and on the walls.
Bright red circle, splashy, splashy.
And a grey one, oh so splashy.
Black and white, hanging on the wall.
What can it be?

June 24th
Blackbird chat in Worksop with my beautiful sister’s beautiful hanging baskets nearby. That’s Frances Camm, folks.

June 23rd
Today there have been administrative tasks in the form of marketing and filling in forms and collecting tickets and purchasing bananas. Two bananas in fact. Here’s a little round I composed about bananas.

June 22nd
Composing is a slow process at times, but today – a breakthrough with a veritable glut of new ideas and concepts to inspire. Hopefully there’ll be more news on that front another day, but this evening I was reminded by a correspondent, of this song from a couple of hears ago (a commission from Northumberland Sport no less) all about how marvellous Northumberland is. This is the chorus. The picture is from Saturday’s walk to Alnmouth, and the words are:
Stand up, shout out aall ye canny lads and lasses,
Sing out loud and give yourselves a hand!
Stand muckle proud! Woah! You’ve been extraordinary!
Hear the cheers from our friendly land:
It’s in the roar of the North Sea,
The bleat of the hillsides,
The howkin’ in wor memories.
In the echoes of sandstone,
The skreelin’ of pipers,
The liltin’ of wor claver.
Stand up, shout out, and celebrate wor champion gedderin’.
Chant a song of your own Northumberland!

June 21st
A day off. No recordings. No composing. However, a walk in the drizzle, wind and sunshine exploring Newcastle-upon-Tyne – Leazes Park, Exhibition Park (with this bandstand), Hancock Museum, Tyneside Cinema (stopped off for “London Road” – brilliant, theatrical, musical, clever). Here’s a bit of Pergolesi from Rock Festival Choir​. I should mention that I heard on Radio 3 last week that they now don’t think Pergolesi wrote this.

June 20th
Today I walked along the beach and dunes and cycle path from Warkworth to Alnmouth. Striding along, minding my own business, admiring the skylarks, the outgoing tide, the pink campion, I was buzzed by a buzzy thing.

June 19th
Today I have planted out the hanging baskets, chatted with my neighbour about the new local choirs, and discussed Beethoven with Tom. How splendid to chat musically with a musician about analysis and musicology and piano technique and harmony and structure. I also fetched Jamie from the station. He was on a train which disgorged loads and loads of people, many of whom were greeted by people they hadn’t seen for ages, and there was much happiness and hugging. I was too busy recording the brake-screeching, dog-yapping, door-opening, suitcase-handle-clicking sounds of it and taking the picture to welcome Jamie with happiness and hugs, but now my fade-in task is over, we can have a happy hug of our own.

18th June
Post-barbershop jollity garden inspection reveals a tuneful blackbird and lots of flowering, sweet-scented philadelphus.

June 17th
Today I had a phone call.

June 16th
I’ve been organising scores of SSAA choir pieces for friends in New Zealand, including this one: Magical Glass, and here’s a piece of magical art glass from Boulder, Colorado. Jamie brought it back from there when he was visiting Mamma Gaynor and Colin.

June 15th
Two of my songs at least were sung in The Big Sing Regionals last week in New Zealand, and I heard today that the two I know about have made it through to the finals in August with their excellent choirs. Whoop! The rest of my day has been mostly taken up with dock, nettles, cow parsley and other weeds of which I know not the names. Rampant, they are…rampant. So today’s music is Rock Festival Choir singing the Benedictus from Faure’s Messe Basse in 2009, and the picture is of the ever flourishing and uncurling cycad.

June 14th
Dawn chorus, soft Northumberland rain gently replenishing the water butt, aquilegia. Been out weeding with the birds and early morning spiders.

June 13th
Today we have walked along the northeast coast in the area of Budle Bay. We were particularly delighted by the wide variety of wildflowers currently in bloom, especially a massive field of pink campion near Bamburgh Castle. Also in evidence was a distant parcel of sea pie paddling in the incoming tide. They flew off as I closed in on them, but you get the idea, I’m sure.

June 12th
Today I have been a stand-in choir conductor again, this time for Anne and her Alnwick Silver Singers. Oh what delight there was – such lovely, cheery people. They were learning amongst other things, the WW2 song “Hey Little Hen” (introduced to me by Michael), and the partner song I composed to go with it called “Boo To My Ration Book”. Here they are singing the ending of it after a mere 30 minutes of learning it. The picture is of our Pseudopanax Ferox (knobbly lancewood) which has sprouted a new round of leaves in the last few days. The words you’re hearing are:
Mikey is my little brother. He is only four.
He has never tasted a banana cooked or raw.
Parsnip mashed with yellow flavoured sandwiches for school!
Mother dearest, don’t be daft! These parsnips never fool me!
Boo to my ration book!
How I long for a soft, sweet banana for my tea.
Boo to my ration book!
And a bowl full of chocolate ice-cream, just for me.
I am patriotic,
But I like exotic oranges, pineapples and especially bananas.
Oh boo to my ration book!
How I long for a soft, sweet banana for my tea.

June 11th
Today’s been a choiry one. The upshot of it all is that the Wooler Silver Singers had such fun (they started calling me Miranda), I am now the musical director of our brand new local choir, and Lionheart Harmony sang with great enthusiasm and skill for the latest batch of holidaymakers in Alnmouth. Also, both Gary and Jamie said I sang my “Yesterday” solo alrightly, and the man at the front table smiled when I sang “I’m not half the man I used to be.” After choir practice we felt the need for cheese on toast with mushrooms. You’re hearing bread slicing, mushroom and cheese chopping, toaster popping and cheese sizzling. Delish.

June 10th
While waiting for Jamie at Alnmouth Station this evening, I was taken with the huge quantity of wood pigeons singing away to themselves on the tops of the street lights and other tall things. I was also taken, as ever, with the viaduct just to the north of the station, gleaming as it was in the sunshine. The irony of all this was that as we drove home, a wood pigeon propelled itself with great gusto into the front of our car and with a spectacular explosion of feathers, it expired.

June 9th
Today I have driven home via a somewhat circuitous route due to three of my chosen roads being closed, presumably for some upgrading that will no doubt make my journeys smoother in the future. Here’s the second of Dad’s two pranksome boyhood stories, and a school photo from the time, of him looking somewhat mischievous!

June 8th
Today I have been cavorting with Mum and Dad in and around Worksop. Taking advantage of a day with a car and driver, they’ve been to Tesco, had a haircut, purchased shaver foils, driven around some old haunts, and memories have been rekindled. Here’s one from Dad.

June 7th
It’s been a day of small Musical Sculptures family groups at the Hepworth, as most people were outside enjoying the Sunday sunshine, so a very quiet day all round in the gallery. However, every time I took my groups up to the art works there was music to break the silence! Here’s one of the groups performing their Genesis III (Hepworth) – inspired composition. You hear the boomwhacker and bells splashes, then the kokoriko grey circle, then the gong red circle. And we enjoyed ourselves too!

June 6th
When all else fails, make banana cakes topped with banana liqueur frosting.

June 5th
Today I have searched the clothing retailers in Newcastle in vain for a new black choir top. The frustration of this futile activity was dissipated by the purchase of a punnet of M&S British strawberries which were consumed on my 60 minute bus ride home. Then I ironed my choir scarf, stapled a lot of loose sheets of choir score together, donned my old choir top, then headed off into Alnwick for the Rock Festival Choir gig as backing choir for Blake at the Playhouse. After many ooooohs, a standing ovation, one Blue Moon, several hugs and much chortling later, we all repaired to The Plough for packets of crisps and a rum-and-coke. What you’re hearing is indeed the Rock Festival choir singing my Ave Maria last March, and what you’re seeing is our cycad, which this year is sprouting a record eight new leaves.

June 4th
The musical highlight of the day has been singing with Lionheart Harmony at Nether Grange in Alnmouth for a very enthusiastic and attentive group of holidaymakers. Afterwards we practised for our Aln Valley Railway gig on Sunday with Jamie gamely stepping up to tenor on account of me actually doing some paid work in Wakefield on that day. The Sunday ensemble as you see here will be Mick, Simon, Gwyn, Jamie and Gary, and the song is as we call it “Heart of my Heart”. Sid and I were being encouraging from the sidelines!

June 3rd
Today I have been having choiry meetings, about which I have become slightly over-excited, been reading Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Shadow, for my new Hepworth composition (a bit bleak, I must say – the story not my song) and we have just practised our Lionheart Harmony parts for tomorrow and Sunday’s concerts. This is us on the sofa about to sing Down By The Salley Gardens. I’m sure if you asked Gary nicely, he’d tell you when that poem was written!

June 2nd
Today is a windy day and I have been once again learning music for choir and dealing with administrative matters. I was thinking of windy songs and this one sprang to mind. I don’t have a recording of it, so I went outside into the wind and sang it to myself and a nearby chaffinch. I tried to take a windy picture too – harder than I thought. The song is “Ooh Ladyfinger” and is currently being rehearsed by Craighead Chorale in Timaru, New Zealand for some upcoming performances. They’ll do a much better job than this, I’m sure.

June 1st
There have been administrative tasks galore today and practising choir music, and I got up at 4am for to see in the dawn. Look! I managed it to get there in time and so did that trawler near Amble. One of my administrative tasks was to tinker with this arrangement of my “In The Bleak Midwinter” for someone in the USA who wants to do it with their college ensembles.