May 31st
Today I have driven to Worksop, and May is at an end. It’s been a brilliant month as predicted, with lots of performances and workshops and new music. So thanks so much to all of you who have made it so exhilarating. Here’s one of my favourite May songs and a picture of us from yesterday – a rare one for this year, I think.

May 30th
More Vivaldi today (Summer 1 analysis – a very singular ritornello), a bit of sorting of musical mess in the messy music office, cheery cricket on the radio, and an evening buffeting with ice cream down at Amble in the northerly. I love the sounds of the wind in the rigging at Amble Marina, but the recording device doesn’t much like the wind. We managed to find a slightly sheltered spot, but there were better sounds than this. The view is looking up the Coquet estuary towards Warkworth Castle from Amble Harbour.

May 29th
Lionheart Harmony went off to sing at Aln Valley Railway at lunchtime for their musical open day. I had plans of fading our singing in with the sound of their Richboro steam engine chugging along the line, but my machines (and also their operator and caretaker) almost without fail, failed. So instead you have the sound of us singing (it barely managed a minute before expiring due to sudden battery flatness) fading out with the sound of weeding from later in the afternoon – it’s very important to rip the leaves wholeheartedly from their roots and dispose of them in separate places – roots in the compost will lead to more weeds, you know! The camera also ran out of battery power after an attempt to video the engine for later sound-extraction, and once back with power I seem unable to even find the video on the memory card. Anyway, we did see and hear the engine, and also had a very cheery and informative chat with our friend Chris who is a volunteer at AVR and also sings in The Bridge Singers. I do love chatting with enthusiasts. Enthusiasm is such a brilliant and inspiring thing.

May 28th
Mostly weeding today: buttercups, dock, stinging nettles, goose grass, ground elder (a lot, lot, lot of this, bah!), hairy bittercress, and another unidentified one which is easy to pull up but seems to come back regardless. Also listened to England do well in the cricket, and sorted out my graphic score of the 1st Movement of Summer by Vivaldi. With me in the garden were Jamie, the jackdaws, a wood pigeon, a blackbird eager for unearthed worms and most loudly here, a chiffchaff, also the roar of the X15 bus ploughing its way towards Alnwick up the hill.

May 27th
Today I’ve been researching and planning for my workshops at The Tetley gallery in Leeds next week. I’ve been learning all this brewery jargon. I do like collecting new words. Elsewhere, the potatoes we grew last year make excellent chips and I’m loving watching all the TV broadcasts from the Chelsea Flower Show.

May 26th
Telephone Box Stories 4: Dad’s Dad didn’t empty telephone boxes in the war on account of unstable bicycles, but he did sleep in the post office in case of incendiary devices. This phone box is inside Durham Station. I was a bit more perky today, so off to Newcastle to purchase instruments for next week’s workshops, planning for same, then barbershop merriment in the evening. Rained all day so no weeding, alas!

May 25th
Tired. Weeding. Old song. Old photo. Sleep.

May 24th
Today I’ve been back to Wakefield for Geometric Soundscapes workshops at the Hepworth with the Year 1 and 2 classes from Monk Fryston School, and a delightful and creative time was had by one and all. The morning group focussed on the Hepworth Gift in Gallery 5 and composed “Crucifixion” and “Winged Figure” music (you can hear this in the background) and the afternoon group explored some geometric phenomena in the Kettle’s Yard exhibition in Gallery 3 and wrote new words to this song as well as making up music to match. My arms were in expressive mood, as you see. The recording machine ran out of puff during the afternoon so you’ll have to make do with me singing their song instead. Back home, after a train journey in which the woman beside me was so angry that I had my phone plugged into the socket next to my booked-beforehand window seat to recharge and use, that she huffed and blew and muttered under her breath all the way from Leeds to Newcastle, (I must admit that my phone was probably fully charged by the time we got to Darlington, but her unnecessarily bad aura and attitude and my need for some sort of revenge, forced me into leaving it there until Durham at which point I cheerily offered to plug it in for her, and also into opening my pongy cheese and onion sandwiches!), off we merrily went to Warkworth to sing in mellow style with Lionheart Harmony for a function at the Sun Inn.
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.

Ropes and angles, archy, archy!
Make triangles, oh so archy!
Floating high, hanging on the wall…What can it be?

Like a spiral, snaily, snaily!
Growing larger, oh so snaily!
Almost spheres, sleeping in a box….What can it be?

Four cylinders, lonely, lonely!
Odd one out, oh so lonely!
Round, so round, sitting on a stand….What can it be?

May 23rd
Weeding. Weeding. A bit of workshop prep. Weeding. Weeding. Weeding. An exceedingly excellent Bridge Singers rehearsal in all ways – merriment, musicality, learning new stuff, merriment. A moment to admire the hanging baskets. Greeny blue of the most intense kind in the late, not quite dark sky. A bit of Anerio from our concert which was described to me as the most gorgeous opening to a concert the lady had ever heard.

May 22nd
Sleepy. Radio. Skyping to Australia. Rain. Sun. Distant thunder. Weeding. Slugs. Red tulip drips. Song thrush concerto with jackdaws. Train tickets. Workshop thoughts. M stories. Musical rain.

May 21st
We’ve spent a merry day at The Sage Gateshead with lots and lots of singing friends from in and around Alnwick rehearsing, chatting, laughing, performing. Excellent day with a very happy spirit amongst us all. Rock Festival Choir had a spot singing Tippett’s awesome and most excellently put-together Five Spirituals from A Child Of Our Time – two highlights of this for me: Jamie’s solo in “Steal Away”, and standing beside the awesome voice that resides within Veronica for “Deep River”. This photo was taken by (and subsequently stolen from) Colin, before the concert began. We’re all in it – front row, legs crossed, green scarf for me, with Jamie front row far left. Before we left for our day out I stood at our back door and recorded this gorgeousness with soft stabs of drizzle lightly dusting the machine.

May 20th
A day of reconnaissance visits to the Tetley in Leeds, The Hepworth Wakefield and Wakefield Cathedral to look at art works, to listen to art works, to make decisions about the Chapter House – all in preparation for upcoming workshops. I saw these reconstituted blue phone boxes in Leeds including this one near the Tetley, which as you can imagine made my heart leap. What you’re hearing is a brief tour around the Tetley’s current exhibition “No Quiet Place”. It’s brilliant, and I shall be doing family composing workshops there at the beginning of June, so come along and join in! A busy day with ideas a-flowing, and a cheery one as ever.

May 19th
The Green Suitcase In The Attic Part 3. Early morning at Morpeth Station. Jamie off to Blackburn. Cheese bargains in Cramlington. Vivaldi all morning. Cake for Lionheart Harmony. Vivaldi all afternoon. Tulips in the rain. Cake and singing at Lionheart Harmony. More lovely rain. (There’s been so little). Vivaldi after Lionheart Harmony. Dad takes his case on a proper trip.

May 18th
The Green Suitcase in the Attic Part 2….in which there is much detail of bus routes to Southwell in 1951. Today I have been continuing my Vivaldi project from April (Texture Talk – this is an example of thick texture and melody and accompaniment, if you’re interested!), researching percussion instruments for Leeds, practising Tippett for Saturday’s Rock Festival Choir slot and sorting times for performances of The Bridge Singers at Feltonbury 2016 – our next public outing in June.

May 17th
The Green Suitcase in the Attic, Part 1.
During the recent throwing out of cardboard boxes from the parental attic, we came across an old green suitcase which Dad bought in 1951. He told me about it. Meanwhile yesterday I spent the entire morning from 5.30 until 2pm grappling with my computer which was forcibly “up”graded. I was tapping away and suddenly at 5.45 it stopped and a message came up to say it was restarting and configuring Windows 10. No warnings….although the months of irksome messages telling me that it’s what the rest of the world was doing and I should do it too were perhaps its definition of a warning. Two hours later, it allowed me back on and I then started the process of learning what it had done. In the afternoon I went out a-gardening in the blue bed, and spotted up the hill in the pink bed this doughty tulip. When we first moved in here a mere 12-13 years ago we planted ten of these. Only two remain. Beautiful.

May 16th
Much twittering today, news of performances coming up in Christchurch, hanging basket rescue/maintenance/replenishment, workshop planning for Leeds in June, musical paraphernalia putting-away, and wonderfully The Bridge Singers to round off the day. This is us from our concert the other day – the world premiere of “Alison’s K6 Telephone Box” – it was Alison from the choir who asked me for a song about the village’s telephone box which now houses tourist information. This is the 3rd verse and final chorus.

Some are used to exchange books, sell flowers, veg or fruit.
I heard in one in Edinburgh, a man will shine your boots
Some are turned to cafes and house a percolator
Some are there to save a life with a defibrillator.

Nowadays they’re such a curiosity
And each discovery
Is such a rarity
There was a time (and only recently)
That they were quintessentially
ubiquitous.
Beside the bus stop or perhaps the village green,
In rows be-side the post office in cities they were seen!
Lucky us to have restored in currant red
And not neglected, beside The Running Fox
Alison’s K6 telephone box.

May 15th
Been to the Hepworth Wakefield for the first time in three months today where we did two Laughing Trombonists, one Winged Figure and one general be-musically-inspired-by-the-art workshops. I met one family for the second time, and was serenaded with a yummy bit of Purcell by Euan (aged 11), chatted happily with Halima for the first time in ages, received cheers and joyous applause from Hilary amongst others, and discovered that Henry Moore has made a reappearance in Gallery 1. Here he is keeping an eye on my car for me next to the Calder. This is a mash-up of the two trombonists. I discover from my editing that both groups sang the song at exactly the same speed! This will be the last appearance of the trombonist as Martin Parr’s exhibition will be gone by the time I myself reappear there. (Have a look at February 16th and 21st to see the pic and words for this song!). Lovely, lovely day.

May 14th
This morning we went to Wallington. The forests and gardens there are so very beautiful. There was a very vibrant display of tulips in the walled garden, and lots of birds. We stood to watch a big old robin feeding a big young robin some yummy grubs on a rock, and also a family of moorhens scoot across one of the lakes – the baby moorhens were the tiniest things ever seen swimming on a lake, I believe! We stood for a while by the gate of the walled garden to take in the view and the sounds. People came through big old gate with its clattery latch and singing hinges. This afternoon and evening I have created a video blog about yesterday’s music-making in Halifax.

May 13th
Today I went to Halifax to deliver workshops for fairandfunky at their Fairtrade Conference For Schools in the Minster. I had four workshops during the day of about 16 children with assorted adults and each discovered some facts about a Fairtrade product, learnt the freshly-composed song you’re hearing and composed some music inspired by their Fairtrade product. At the end of day we performed the song altogether. A brilliant day working with brilliant people . Halifax Minster is 900 years old, I discovered, and is a beautiful church indeed. This picture is the reflection of one of its stained glass windows in the window of a cupboard containing organ pipes. I had a nice chat with a man from the West of Ireland on the train coming back – he’s from the wettest town in Europe. He lives in Newcastle, works in Teesside, has a girlfriend in Glasgow, and his brother supports Sunderland. I was able to tell my “playing the piano to Mick McCarthy” story from my happy days of working in Sunderland, and get a very delighted reaction. Chatting to Irishmen makes the journey speed by.

May 12th
Today I wrote a merry song. It’s called “Be An Agent For Change” which is the slogan for World Fairtrade Day on Saturday. I also bought two sprays of roses, a bunch of bananas, a colourful pointy hat and a singing bowl, and designed a workshop for tomorrow’s Fairtrade Schools Conference organised by my mates at fairandfunky. Whilst researching for this song and scribbling notes and lyrics, I was simultaneously making cakes for Lionheart Harmony and tracking Jonnys on the laptop, on his meandering-yet-focussed way towards my house with the hat and singing bowl. You join us at a thrilling moment when he finally crossed onto the eastern side of the A1. After calming down from all this, in the evening I went off to sing in Alnmouth, forgetting to take the cakes with me in the midst of my compositional high, then raced to collect Jamie from his London train in Morpeth purchasing the afore-mentioned bananas and roses on the way. Then packed up equipment ready for an early start tomorrow.

May 11th
Telephone Box Stories 3: 1971 Post Office Strike Perils. I went to Newcastle again yesterday with a list of things to purchase. Failed miserably, but on account of arriving there at 7.40am, I had plenty of time to roam about before the unhelpful shops opened, and took careful note of the phone boxes. As you will no doubt have noticed yourselves most of the Newcastle City Centre Phone Boxes are the KX100Plus type, introduced in 1996. But there are also quite of few of these as you see here on the beautiful curvaceousness of Grey Street. I can’t find this type of phone box in my usual sources of telephone box information, so it’s quite a thrilling mystery thus far. The day ended with a spot of singing with my old mates at Alnwick Choral Society and a pork pie for supper, which I think my pork-pie-loving Dad will approve of.

May 10th
Telephone Box Stories 2: Emptying ten at once. Tuesday-sleepy as ever after the thrills of Monday evenings, so writing an article for The Bridge Newsletter about our choiry exploits, an hour of nettly weeding (ouch) some research for Friday’s workshop in Halifax and listening to Dad’s stories. This is a spidery phone box in Hardwick Village – never studied them so closely when I was growing up and they were everywhere – I never used to like going in them as the doors were hard to open, and they tended to stink of cigarette smoke and urine…at least the ones outside the post office in Worksop did, and these were the closest to our un-telephoned house.

May 9th
Up and at ’em again today with two hours of gardening before breakfast (this is the beautifully delicate magnolia outside the kitchen window – its best year yet for flowers), Vivaldi blogs and activities again before lunch (We didn’t sing Vivaldi, but we did sing his contemporary Bach on Saturday, hence the music choice!), making a monster batch of banana cakes for The Bridge Singers (quote of the day at choir “Excuse me John, you’ll have to move. Never come between a soprano and her buns!”), a relaxed rehearsal of post-concert well-deserved self congratulation, merriment and compliment sharing, with song requests from the choir, re-acquaintance with old favourites as well as new repertoire introduced, then further post-rehearsal merriment in the other half of The Northumberland Arms. Here we are again from our recital towards the end of the first half seamlessly linking The Loyal Soldier, one of our 17th Century Civil War marches, to one of Bach’s Michaelmas chorales. Getting our notes from only one played or sung is a new skill we’re developing, here given its first in-public try-out. Success!

May 8th
A day off really after a busy week of concert prep and attic sorting! What I failed to mention yesterday is the concert last night had two world premieres: “The Felton Sycamores” setting a poem by Tony Williams, and “Alison’s K6 Telephone Box”, and also a new version of “Magical Glass” using words about Felton & Thirston rather than Sunderland. I also did arrangements of several of our concert items including this one, “The Fisher’s Invitation” which is a 19th century Coquetdale song from The Fisher’s Garland. It’s for the tenors and basses on their own.

May 7th
Concert day for The Bridge Singers…and such a brilliant concert too. Hard to pick out a highlight from the many glorious moments for this one minute purpose, so you may well find further extracts popping up during the rest of the month, but for today I have gone for the end of the last piece and the applause during which you hear a whoop of delight as we attempt a mass bow. I like a spot of clapping, me. Photo courtesy of our friend Anne who popped out during The Lambton Worm to get this panoramic shot through the glass wall in beautiful St. Michael’s Church in Felton which was pretty well full.

May 6th
A day of printing programmes for tomorrow’s concert, printing, printing, printing, and my ancient printer has been a little ripper and excelled itself with its reliability and quality of finish…thus far. I ran out of paper before this evening’s final rehearsal so it’ll have to keep going for another couple of hours yet. The rehearsal itself was such a buzz with excellence all over the place, lots of laughter and hard work and promise of a wonderful event tomorrow night. So very thrilling. Being the MD of The Bridge Singers is such a terrific thing, one of the best musical things I’ve ever done, I think. Meanwhile, here is some more birdy goodness from Clumber Park on Wednesday including a couple of woodpeckers, some cooty clicks, a general distant honk of geese and swans and also the vocal flourish of an unknown and unseen bird. It was a windy day so I’ve had to edit our a few unpleasant windy raspberries which the machine found difficult to resist. This is Mum seated at the head of the dining table in “Imagined Mansion”, a rare photo which she herself instigated, amazingly.

May 5th
Today’s highlights: ancientish and unpleasant chest of drawers in the boot for firewood; three hour drive home in the sunshine while the screws holding the drawer handles work themselves loose one by one, become detached and clunk about in the drawers; dig up potatoes; eat potatoes along with Sunday’s half price turkey and other goodies; Bridge Singers’ prep for Saturday’s concert; jovial Lionheart Harmony gig in Alnmouth with smiling crowd of holidaymakers; voting for a Police and Crime Commissioner on the way home; election plop on the radio while I’m trying to sleep. It’s a serene Clumber swan from Wednesday and some un-serene Lionheart jollity.

May 4th
Telephone Box Stories 1. Grandad Camm painted them during the 2nd World War.
Also, today’s highlights – Sorting the attic with Dad. Attic stories. Walking round Clumber Lake with Mum. Woodpeckers, swans, other birds, sunshine, bulrushes, stuff springing into life. Telephone box with nearby green post box at Hardwick Village en route. (This is Mum pretending to make a call. I went in there first. It was full of spiders’ webs and their inhabitants – not a well-used kiosk!) Rooms set up in rope on the lawn in front of the stables to show what the house at Clumber was like before it burned down with information boards, furniture and sculptures (brilliantly done, so going to see it yourselves would be recommended by us). More cricket on the telly. Telephone box stories and laughter with Dad.

May 3rd
Highlights include……Post-choir lie-in (only until 7 mind-you – you know what I’m usually like). Drive to Worksop listening all the way (three hours) to joyous Leicester City reactions on the radio with a big smile on my face. Pie, potato and sprouts for lunch with Mum and Dad. Cricket on the telly, which only happens at Mum and Dad’s because of the Sky which we don’t have because of the tree growing through our TV signal. Starting to now sort out the attic – the empty box is the new rusty screw. The preponderance thereof is startling. Tuneful sunset birds and traffic along Water Meadows with more stained glass from St. Michael’s.

May 2nd
Vivaldi before breakfast. Vivaldi and Civil War Marches after breakfast. Duck with alcoholic cherry sauce for lunch. Catch-up with the desperate finale of “Undercover” (!) – all the bad guys won, right? Drum-carrying to St. Michael’s. The Bridge Singers’ first rehearsal in Saturday’s venue. Beautiful, beautiful stained glass windows like this detail of a lily pad floating near Moses. Laughter and song as ever. Last minute gribbles and alarums. Laughter, larynx chat and drinks post-rehearsal. Happy Early May Bank Holiday! (as I hear it’s now called).

May 1st
May Day morning at Belsay. Bird symphony in the windy quarry garden. Drizzly rhododendrons. Castle duet singing to ourselves. Mud in the woods. Botany and workshop-for-families chat with two Victorians there for a plant-hunters talk. Brass band in the library. Swirly fireplace decor. Half price lamb mince and turkey breasts from Morrisons on the way home. Vivaldi in the afternoon. Happy May everyone!