May Day 2

My band is spread widely over Norfolk and Cambridgeshire so I try to arrange it that I arrive first with the p.a.  Then my drummer generally arrives, since he has the next most onerous set-up.  Finally, with about an hour to go before the dancing starts, the guitarist, keyboard player, bass player and violinist arrive with instruments, backline and effects pedals.  This works out quite nicely and we usually manage to avoid tripping over each other or jamming each other in doorways.  On Saturday I arrived to the sounds of my keyboard player playing in duo with the amazing sax man.  The amazing sax man is a legend in our local music community.  He repairs wind and brass instruments, teaches, has a big band, any number of small bands and a fearsome reputation for firing players who don't come up to scratch.  As the duo finish one of the standards that form their popular and jazz repertoire I look round to say my hellos.  They have been hidden in an alcove (in this long, narrow, converted barn the alcove is really more akin to a transept in a church) where they are invisible to most of the guests - not that the guests seem to be listening, normal for weddings.  As usual on these occasions there is no applause after each number.  The keyboard player points out the current state of play with the meal.  Main course, desserts and speeches to go.  I have arrived with two hours to set up.  I estimate I have arrived two hours too early.  I leave the hall to bring my van to the porch which is quite close to the stage where I unload and wait and decide to try out the Blogger app on my phone.  So I write:

"It is now Saturday night my own band is playing a ceilidh for a wedding reception in a big, posh function room. As is often the case with weddings things are running late. The room where the dancing will take place is presently rammed with tables and the tables are packed with wedding guests.  I like to have two hours to set up. With just over an hour before the dancing is due to start the guests are just starting their main course. They will not be dancing at 7.30. I've unloaded my equipment as close to the stage as I can get. I'm sitting next to it in an drafty porch."

Drummer in waiting

That is as far as I got using the blogging app before the drummer turned up.  I'm quite pleased that the app seems to work and it saves the draft so that I can pick it up later on the computer.  I was in two minds about whether to add it to the diminishing space on my phone after reading a lot of disgruntled reviews from users.  Miserable bunch!

The drummer and I haul his kit into the porch and it is beginning to look quite cosy.  The curtain over the big window from the hall flicks open, just a crack, and a little face peers out.  I wave.  He waves.  An adult closes the curtain with what appears to be a determined swish.  This game is played out a lot over the next two hours.  What are the adults seeing that I'm not seeing?  From where I stand it seems quite rude.  From where they sit - in the warm, with their food - maybe they just don't like being near people they don't know?  Disco man arrives.

Bass player in waiting

Disco man is another local legend.  I have been in this part of the world for thirty years and he has always been here.  I have never really been sure if the name of his entertainments agency is his real name.  He has a very unlikely name.  He also has a team of disco men on the books and they all go out under his name.  Even the keyboard player isn't sure and he knows everyone on the local music scene.  I have spoken to Disco man on the phone and he told me he was doing this booking himself.  I know where he lives and ask him how the house sale is progressing.  The house is on the vegetable roundabout and has been on the market for eighteen months.  In that time he has had only seven enquiries.  Maybe it is time to look for another estate agent?  Maybe he doesn't really want to move.  Disco man set up on the stage in the morning and before the wedding.  He slips through the door and disappears into the curtained hall. He has final preparations to make and mutters something about "background".  I don't really catch what he says so the drummer and I continue our lonely vigil and deep discussion about musical heroes.  I love being with my drummer.  He has an extensive musical knowledge and is of my generation.  We talk like enthusiastic teenagers, not bad for two sexagenarians (well, in my case I have two weeks to go).

Guitarist in waiting

We agreed that Disco man would have the stage in our telephone discussion.  He, however, saw the state of play with the number of guests and the arrangement of tables and has kindly only taken up half the stage.  There is no room for the band to set up on the floor, as discussed, while the tables are still in place.  However, using only half the stage does now mean that the drummer can have a drum riser and he becomes quite animated at the idea.  We don't have a riser for the drummer very often.  It means he will be seen by anyone with a mind to look and he will no doubt be looking out into the crowd. Drummers have a reputation to manage.  Gradually other members of the band arrive and we form a plan to get in without getting in each other's way.  Disco man re-emerges and after some further waiting he mentions the background music he has thoughtfully provided.  "What about the live music?" I enquire knowing that my keyboard player and the amazing sax man will feel a degree of professional slighting at the sudden introduction of yet more "background".  Disco man claps his hand to his mouth (yes, people really do that!) and says, "Oops, I didn't realise!" (yes people say, "Oops!" too).  He scurries back into the becurtained hall and kills the "background".  Immediately a plaintive rendition of something poppy or jazzy strikes up from a transept far away.  I amuse myself taking photographs of the band members on my mobile phone.

We are finally set up and ready to go two hours after we were due to start.  

Violinist in waiting

Disco man strikes up the music.  He is playing the bride and groom's choice for the "first dance".  Clearly something very meaningful, which I don't recognise.  Disco man is going to play five songs and then he will hand over to us.  The floor clears as we take the, er, floor (drummer excepted).


We normally take a whole evening ourselves, but sharing with anyone else, particularly a disco, always changes the dynamic and the shape of an evening.  As usual, the disco is much louder than we shall be.  I have to put in my earplugs while we await our turn.  This will play havoc with the tinnitus.  My bass player gets into the party mood and gets on down with the boogying guests.  The flow and spin of his moves is a little hypnotic.

Eventually we play.  The alcohol has been flowing.  It is going to be a tough night.

May Day 1

I am very lucky to be in a position to take work that I usually really enjoy.  I nearly wrote "have a job that I really enjoy", but I don't actually have a job.  I am self-employed and people give me money to make music.  It's not a fortune, and I have had to trim the outgoings substantially, but currently it covers what I need.  This is just how I like it.  I can honestly say I don't live to work, but simply work to live.  Most weeks I can survive on a day and a half of paid work and this may well have to tide me over weeks when there is no paid work at all.  The paid gigs are more erratic, but take on more importance during these fallow periods.  This weekend has been one of those slightly frantic working periods.  Unlike most people my May Bank Holiday has been work, work and more work.  Come Sunday night I was ready to treat myself to some leisure, of which more later.

Have I mentioned I am involved with nine fairly regular live performance projects?  Five of these are ceilidh related and with two of these I undertake to carry out the admin, which includes liaising with potential clients and trying to convert these into actual bookings, occasional site visits if I don't know the venue, sorting contracts, fixing the band for the gig, composing and arranging the music,  providing and setting up the p.a., calling the dances, and playing whatever instruments are required in that particular configuration.  One of these, the six-piece I think of as my band.  The other is a duo (a very unusual one, if I may be so bold), over which I do not claim ownership, but still do all the above.   All the bands have somehow spun away from the six-piece I first put together in 1991.  The present line-up has been pretty steady for more than a decade now.  On Friday night I called the dances for one of the spin-off ceilidh projects.  That band is my bass player's band.  On this occasion he didn't organise the booking or fix the band.  This was done by the vicar.  The vicar is the wife of my violinist.  She has been a professional musician most of her life and met her husband when they were both at the Royal Academy.  For many years she played viola in his string quartet.  A few years ago she felt herself being drawn to the ministry.  She downed strings and trained to be a vicar.  Now she presides over some seven parishes.  On Friday she played second fiddle in a fiddle, fiddle, keys and bass combo.

The ceilidh was a church fund-raiser.  We were in an old and very open barn on a working farm in Molesworth. It was cold. The last time I came to Molesworth was during the eighties when I travelled on a coach with my local CND group to rally and tie ribbons on fences.  My main memory of that demo is of the police practising some of the tactics they'd been trying out on miners during the strike.  They made the demonstrators walk several miles the wrong way around the perimeter of "R.A.F" Molesworth  and funnelled them into an enclosed rallying point where they practised wedge formation dancing into crowds of people who had been given no space to disperse.  I saw people scattered like skittles, not just healthy young radicals, but families with pushchairs, children and elderly people, all of whom were simply exercising a democratic right to disagree with the siting of foreign nuclear missiles on U.K. soil.  If ever there was an example of inappropriate policing, of committing acts most likely to cause lasting resentment and suspicion, this was it.  After this and many other encounters I am very wary of the forces of law and order.  As the police acquire more weapons they seem to be less worried about policing by consent.  Dissenters and the concerned public appear to have become an enemy and everyone seems to be a potential terrorist.  Fortunately, on Friday there were no wedge dances, although I ought to give some thought to choreographing one in commemoration.   The barn showed how resourceful people can be.  The floor was a dangerously uneven mixed media installation on at least two levels with a linking slope, hardly safe for polkaing and galoping about, but there were not many injuries ... certainly none requiring a halt to the dancing.  The food, provided by the parishioners who had also bought tickets (special price for families) was plentiful and delicious.  I think it was the drop in temperature that encouraged participation, so there was not much of a gap between dances.  Lots of smiling faces and among many treasures the memory of a four-year-old confidently making her way round the circle in a grand chain.  After we'd packed up it was back to the Rectory for supper and convivial chat.  In bed by two-thirty am.  How lovely not to have to drive home after the gig.

The bass player and the keyboard player (married to each other in a beautiful ceremony in a woodland clearing more than a decade ago) have been busy composing and have come up with a number of new tunes for dances, some of which we tried on Friday.  I love this move towards more original music.  There is a place for tradition, but musicians should be making new music.  A pianist's approach to composition is very different from my own.  Vive la difference!  Weirdly, she had come up with a chromatic tune which, with its repetitions up and down the scales, sounded very close to something I composed a few years ago, when I decided my tunes were getting into a one-dimensional rut.  I had set myself a challenge and found the approach I had taken was a cul-de-sac.  I couldn't make it work and my very chromatic tune joined the stack of others in a bin of compositions requiring "further attention".  It is a huge and deep bin.

I must remember to take photographs.  Where is P when I need him?  He would have taken hundreds.

Of Educational Successes And Resounding Failures

I've been involved with education most of my life - as a pupil, student, teacher, teacher of teachers and since 1998 a freelance music workshop leader.  Running workshops in schools is now only a small part of my portfolio of activities.  Recently I met someone working in a shop who addressed me by name.  He had recognised me from when I took some djembes into his so-called "failing school" for a project more than ten years ago.  Although I was surprised when he remembered my name I was even more surprised and very moved when he credited me with having sparked his interest in music, an interest that now sees him playing in several bands, playing a variety of music at a high level and offers of places at two of London's more prestigious conservatoires.  I have heard second or third hand anecdotes that a few former pupils and workshop participants remembered something we did together;  adults I've supported in sharing music with children have also occasionally been very complimentary, but this is the first time I have come face to face with someone who claims my intervention may have played a significant part in defining his future.  I shall be sixty next month.  I feel pleased that a career may not have been wasted after all.

That was last week.  This week I have experienced some awful failures.  I know that my workshops have every potential to be interesting and, of course, fun.  I love to see the raw beginnings of chaotic ideas coalesce into music and the biggest reward is always to see the look on the face of a pupil who knows they have achieved something significant.  Such a glow is infectious.  I am running regular workshops in one school at the moment.  I know I am there to cover something called PPA time two afternoons a week, but after a couple of years of doing the work I still don't know what PPA means.  I gather it is something to do with planning, preparation and marking and I have a vague memory of it being a sop to teachers having their contracts unilaterally changed during the Thatcher years, when among other things, the working year was extended by five days - the so-called "Baker Days".  Incidentally, I wonder how many people knew that Kenneth Baker was also responsible for music being in the National Curriculum at all?  The story I heard is that when the notion of discrete subjects was being argued about the milk-snatching premiere crossed music off the list of subjects deemed important enough to be worthy of inclusion.  Baker, then the education secretary who always made me think of the Cheshire Cat, announced at a conference (was it one of the annual N.U.T. Easter bashes?)  the glad tidings that music would be included in the National Curriculum.  I'd love to have seen the ensuing memos and have been a fly on the wall at the next cabinet meeting.

One class in my PPA school contains a number of spiky characters.  I find the most difficult classes are often ones where pupils don't seem to like themselves very much.  One can only imagine the kinds of lives that lead young people to these awful conclusions about themselves.  I could go into the class, point to the percussion trolley and say, "Go."  Actually, I'm pretty sure that some good stuff would happen without any intervention whatsoever from me, but at some point, someone is going to want some justification from me about what I am doing; my aims and objectives need to be articulated;  progression needs to be demonstrable; my tactics for differentiation need to be cogent.  The OfSTED monster needs its incessant thirst for Evidence slaked.  I can play that game.  I may now be long-lapsed, but years ago I trained to inspect, was sent on three school inspections in places as far afield as Lancashire and Surrey and hated every second of the experience.  My ability to justify myself, as well as being able to help young people consolidate and improve their musical ideas is what I am being paid for.

Of course, if I have to have a plan, I am obliged at some point to share that with the participants of the workshop.  They need to know what to do and what the criteria might include for them to refine and improve their ideas and their music.  I believe passionately that one of the fundamental skills in musical activity is listening - I assume I have been engaged because my own pedagogical approaches and beliefs have a long-established reputation for producing results.  We listen to ourselves, to each other, to instructions and suggestions for improvement from instructors, directors and our peers.  We learn to listen with increasing attention to subtle details in our music.  Are we playing what we thought we agreed?  Are we in time and in tune?  Are we holding the tempo and are we blending with the ensemble appropriately?  Listening is vital and I insist on it.  The plan begins to unravel when the adults in the school don't seem to get it.  For example, staff passing through the hall stop and and chat, even when I am addressing the pupils.  I often wait for them to stop so that I can carry on.  When that hasn't worked I have gone over to them and quietly requested them to talk somewhere else.  It still happens.  In one class the teaching assistants who accompany the reception pupils to my sessions have decided it is a good time to listen to children read.  Whatever I am doing or saying always has to happen over the noise, sometimes quite obtrusive noise, of at least two other voices.  I guess by this method we reinforce the skills of children to be able to multi-task doing homework in front of the television.  I am not convinced that either activity ends up being carried out with appropriate mindfulness.  Is there any connection between this lack of respect for ourselves and the work of others and the behaviour of the eight and nine year-olds who pass comment on everything I say, who always want to have a final word in any exchange, who appear to be under the impression that participation in a set task is optional, who answer back when spoken to, who shout and scream,  flail and flounce if they don't get their own way?  Not all the children in that class behave this way, but among the ones who want to get on with the job are the impatient ones who are just as disruptive when they add to the disturbance by remonstrating with their fellows for their poor behaviour or simply  shout for everyone else to "Shut up!".  No matter how many times I point out that this kind of "help" is ultimately unproductive they continue.  This requires us to stop altogether while I sit everyone down and we have to wait for silence so I can address the behaviour.  I refuse to shout over the top of their noise to get their attention.  Waiting for the cessation of arguments that have broken out on opposite sides of the room about who made bunny ears behind whom or who pulled a face at whom slows the pace of the lesson to a dead stop.  I am embarrassed when the head comes into my lesson and somehow makes the children stop talking among themselves and become quiet.  She doesn't shout either, but she has their attention in a way that I lack.  I see the pupils for forty-five minutes a week.  I am not their teacher, nor their head-teacher.  Other people see them every day.  I don't understand what is going wrong and what I can do about it, but I have to wonder if there is no unity of approach about how to respect others whether there is actually much within my power to address.  Maybe I'm just getting too old for this game.

Many congratulations to the young shop assistant.  Whether I had a significant part to play in his life or not is really not that important.  Something sparked his interest and his achievements are the results of his own hard graft.  A part of me can't help being a bit proud of being included in the story though.  Rewards in teaching come rarely.  This once in a lifetime encounter sticks a finger in the dyke that sees me losing confidence by the day.

Of Nocturnal Negotiation Nightmares

I sold my van.  I didn't intend to do it; I mean I didn't go out with the intention of doing it.  I knew there was no other action I could perform, short of sinking my narrowboat, that could cause me so much inconvenience.  Somehow I happened to be in a place with my registration document in my hand and I sold my van.  By the side of a Fenland road a small market had popped up.  There was a craft stall owned by someone who specialised in recycling industrial materials into clothes.  I met a couple of friends who had bought matching boots from the stall.  The boots were mid-calf high and primarily made from stove pipe while the uppers were made from carpet wool that had been woven in square patches of pink, lime green and yellow.  I'd never seen anything remotely like them and they looked so cool.  Both friends were wearing leggings made from a metal the colour of tarnished copper into which had been woven a black line image of a rodeo cowboy's head, cowboy hat, neck scarf and all.   I didn't take in the rest of their outfits, but I really wanted those boots and leggings.  I was worried I would not be able to find the stall holder again, so I needed to strike now.  I asked my friends if they minded if I copied their look and they told me they would be flattered.  Unfortunately when I turned to look at the clothes on the stall I realised I didn't have the cash on me.  Disappointed I moved on, but amazingly there was also a booth where vehicles were being bought for cash.  I had no idea how much I would get for my van, but it would surely cover the cost of the boots, the leggings and leave me plenty to live on until I could source another vehicle.

There were forms to be filled in, papers to sign.  Before I added my final signature I felt the first pangs of doubt.  Being without my van was going to be a nuisance.  For a start, how would I get home?  We were, after all, in the middle of nowhere and whilst I also live in the middle of nowhere, it is a different nowhere.  Other concerns began to nag me.  How would I get to my lockup to collect instruments and p.a. for tonight's gig?  How would I manage any of my work?  There was still time to say that I had changed my mind, but there was an obstinate internal voice that insisted I had started this process and it would be dishonourable to pull out of the transaction now.  There was another voice that said, "Do it.  See what happens."  All thoughts of the clothes had gone.  I felt that I didn't want to be seen to renege on a deal, however much I risked losing.  I saw my registration document stapled to the forms I had just filled out.  The man behind the desk at the booth slid a receipt and my cash under the window that separated us.  I didn't even know how much cash I was being given.  It looked to be around a thousand pounds, less than half of what I had paid for the van.  I couldn't bring myself to count the money in public, so I looked for the nearest gents.  I sat on the seat in a cubicle and started to count, but counting it seemed pointless now, so I never found out how much the trade had been worth.  I felt very sick.  I could probably still go back and change my mind.  There was surely some cooling-off period allowed for in the small print?  At the same time I knew that it was equally likely that there was no backtracking possible.  The men on the vehicle stall looked as though they were more than capable of persuading me that my transaction was final.  I had an overwhelming impression that, despite the receipt in my hand, they would deny any knowledge that we had just had any dealings with each other.  This is how I sold my van.

Of Boat Engines And Engineers

The engineer is coming today.  He's been helping me fix the boat's engine.  I've been here for nearly three and a half years and for most of that time I've been pinned to the bank - right here.  I was hoping to get about a bit more when I bought the boat.  Costing much of my late father's bequest and a matching contribution from P, who had just come into a little money from his late mother, it was expensive enough to have expected, quite reasonably I think, to have been able to pack up and taken off.  I've discovered that things don't quite work like that when a boat is involved.  The boat was made in 2002, or so embossed numbers under the front and rear decks claim.  By whom the boat was made I have no clue.  Boat makers seem to be a modest breed quite unlike car manufacturers who emblazon company logos, badges, brands, models, engine sizes and subtle sexism for all to see.  The majority of boats I've seen, admittedly I've not looked under the bonnets of many, don't even show which company built them.  Someone suggested to me that it must be "one of those Polish boats".  That may be so, but how would I know?  If I buy a new piece of music kit I know what I'm getting if I buy Lexicon, Neumann or Midas.  The chevrons fell off the front of my van a few weeks ago, but I still know what make it is.  Well into an age of corporate branding and with a selfie backlash in full swing even a discreet label might sometimes prove handy.  To whom do I go if I want answers to questions I can't even articulate?

That's where people like the engineer come in.  The engineer lives in a caravan on a farm in the next village.  I have lived in Norfolk and The Fens since the mid-eighties, but it is only since being here that I have discovered a surprising number of people who live in caravans on farms.  Even the farmer and his girlfriend live in a caravan.  The engineer has worked all over the world.  He has worked on two of the world's three largest supertankers.  He has also run a huge vehicle hire operation in South Africa and a pub in the village.  He recently bought a house in Bulgaria for £1,500.  The engineer's personal needs are modest, much like the farmer.  From what I can work out the engineer doesn't actually earn any kind of wage on the farm, but every so often his farmer will give him a cheque to tide him over for a year or two.  He fixes things; big farm machinery, little farm machinery, but mostly the personal vehicles of members of his farmer's extended family.  Every now and again he needs to get off the farm and away from the demands, so he comes here.  He likes to talk and his stories are always interesting and he knows what to do with the spanners and wrenches I have acquired since living on this boat.  I have also learned a lot about my BMC 1.5 engine from the engineer.  He likes older engines.  He can get at the bits and does not need to use outrageously expensive diagnostic devices where computers talk to computers and only let outsiders in on their discoveries on a need to know basis.

My BMC 1.5 Litre Diesel Engine

The problems I've experienced with my boat mostly involve the release of fluids into the engine bay.  Before I met the engineer I had fixed a lot of clamps, clips and new hoses to replace the perished and rusted ones already in place.  I found early on that fixing anything on a boat requires the skills of a contortionist and a willingness to work with one's head and arms below the rest of the body.  I discovered parts of the boat I didn't know were there until I'd pumped and mopped out the water, coolant, oil or diesel - often a mixture of everything.  I found out early on that attempting to take the boat on the shortest of trips involved emergency stops as the engine overheated and threatened to blow a gasket.  In fact, at some point it had blown a gasket.  We took bits (lots of bits as it happened) off the engine to get to the cylinder head gasket and replaced that after we saw small cracks in the old one.  We had already replaced the thermostat in an attempt to keep the temperature in the coolant down.  At least the thermostat operation was reasonably straightforward.  The engineer bought a sheet of "gasket paper" and made a gasket to fit, which I found enterprising and impressive.  "I haven't had to do that for a few years," he chortled with the satisfaction that only comes from proving that old knowledge is still in there somewhere.  There seem to be a lot of things he hasn't had to do for years when it comes to my engine.  After we'd sorted out the cooling system to a point where it was no longer the primary culprit for the accumulation of liquids in the bilges we found the fuel system needed looking at.  I had never heard of copper washers before, but I think I went through dozens of them as a I tightened loose nuts on every junction in the external system.  I had never heard of a spill rail before I had to order a replacement for the one on the engine with its tiny cracks in the joints.  Fuel was still leaking and it has been a job and a half finding the sources.  I seem to have developed a skill for tracing leaks, but I lack the confidence to know how to deal with them.  I started at the top of the engine with the bits that are most visible and have gradually worked my way down and further into the uncharted depths of inaccessible places.  One time I suspected that fuel was leaking from the fuel injection pump and the engineer confirmed that I was probably right.  Naturally it was in an inaccessible place.  For months we tried on and off to get hold of a timing gauge tool, because that was apparently what would be needed to put the fuel injection pump back on to with all the bits in the right position (see how technical knowledge now flows through me?).  I heard a rumour that Calcutts had one that they hired out, but they never answered my e-mails on the subject, although I have to give them credit for the speed with which they sent me a replacement spill rail.  The only spill rail available was for a 1.8 engine, but they enclosed the optional conversion kit to enable it to be fitted to my 1.5.  As it happened it didn't really matter since we ended up taking a tiny pipe cutter to it and chopping bits off.

One day the engineer phoned and said we are going to take off the fuel injection pump and have a look at it.  "But what about a timing gauge tool?" I asked.
"Don't worry, I have a plan; a cunning plan," he responded and in my imagination he was tapping the side of his nose.

Removal of the fuel injection pump was not straightforward, of course.  It required the removal of pipes and connectors, which themselves required the removal of other bits including the fuel filter and the rod that connects the cable from the throttle lever to the engine.  We hadn't got very far into the operation when the engineer confessed that repairing the fuel injection pump was no longer an option.  A spindle was wobbling where it shouldn't wobble and he diagnosed that it needed to be removed and taken to an holy place to be inspected, dissected, repaired, reassembled and extensively tested.  There was such an holy place about thirty miles away.  We went.  They greeted us with joy when we showed them our sacred artefact.  The engineer and another customer engaged in a conversation that made no sense to me at all.  I am pretty sure they were discussing my fuel injection pump, because another customer said, "I haven't see one of those for years," and I realised we were on familiar territory.  What followed though, was a discussion in an arcane language involving much swapping of numbers, brands, styles and processes and of which I understood not one word.

Three or four days later we returned to an holy place to retrieve the rejuvenated pump.  The engineer was worried that it might cost as much as £100, so I needed to be there with my credit card.  The engineer was wrong.  The full service and refurbishment cost £260 and, in a state of shock, we returned to the boat where the engineer could distract me from my silence once more with his amazing depth of knowledge and skill.  With no timing gauge tool (and I still have no comprehension of what one of these might look like or even do - I just knew we needed one) the engineer said that we were going to have to do this the old fashioned way.  In removing the pump he had left the rods in the rocker box in exact places with instructions to me not to touch anything until we got back with the pump.  Then consulting runic engravings we uncovered with the application of magic emery paper and muttering magic spells including the incantation, "22º before top dead centre," he manoeuvred and eased the crucial bits into place.  Once we'd refitted all the bits we'd had to remove it was time to crank the engine.  It turned, but wouldn't fire.  Damn!  It coughed into life on the second attempt.  We let the engine run for a while and then pulled the throttle back to tickover.  I know nothing about engines, but I am pretty sure I have never heard an engine run that slowly before and still manage to keep going.  It was a quasi-religious experience, a thing of beauty.  I had been blessed with a little insight into how some men get a bit excited about things like engines.

This seems an appropriate moment to take a pause.  This story is not over and I shall continue it because the engineer is coming any time now.

In other news, Jack was on his fourth vet by yesterday afternoon.  He may not have "concertina'd hisself" after all.  The latest suggestion seems to be
laminitis.

Of This Early Morning

By habit I am an early waker, but not always an early riser.  This is especially true after gig nights.  This wasn't a post-gig morning, but at six o'clock I tried not to open my eyes as the sun was preparing for a full attack through the cabin porthole I leave open for air.  It was a crisp one.  Checking the thermometer and shuddering a little at the indoor temperature of 9ºC I realised it must have been cold outside for Jack, who would normally have been led back to his stable for a night as cool as this one has been.  Sadly, of course, Jack was not planning on going anywhere and moving him was not a comfortable option either.  I hoped he'd got through the night.  Normally I would grab the laptop and dive back into bed to start the first of the day's battles in the war against spam e-mail, going on to respond to other messages as required and finishing with dispensing snippets of wit and wisdom across a web forum or social medium.  Under two duvets the temperature is bearable enough to stay there until the air warms up a little.  Of course, when I have reading or writing to be getting on with I can just as easily do it in bed, which is what I usually do.

Then I heard it.  That strange scraping, rasping noise I have been trying to identify.  A low, slow single scrape lasting for about a second at a time.  I rose much too quickly, went to the galley, raised the blind and slid open the window.  Of course, the sound stopped.  A solitary swan was sailing past with wings stretching like the solar panels on a satellite.  I abandoned the yawning duck theory and wondered if it could be the swan making some sort of drumming noise with his beak.  I didn't see anything moving.  I heard the noise again and it seemed to be coming from another direction.  The mystery sound remains unidentified.

Since I was up I decided I could hang out the washload I'd put in before I went to bed.  I have a line stretched the length of the mooring and I do like to take advantage of maximum airing opportunities.  I hauled myself quickly into joggers, jumper and topped off the ensemble with a fleece and hat.  I zipped the fleece to the neck because I didn't want to risk meeting anyone who might form an opinion about the boatman who keeps his pyjamas on under his clothes.  I could get dressed properly when it warms up a bit more.  "You have a very colourful washing line," Yappy-dog Woman once said to me before her eviction.  I like my tie-dyed and primary coloured clothes, but having someone observing my smalls felt creepy.

However, before hanging out the linen I wanted to have a word with Jack.  I was hoping he was still with us.  Despite the farmer's sister managing to wrap him in two horse coats it had been a cold night.  There was a light mist on the river and a light frost on the decking.  A heavier layer of ice had formed on the roof of the boat and it was not yet warm enough to begin melting.  As I climbed the steps up to the top of the bank I looked into the low sun to see if I could spot Jack where I'd seen him last night.  He wasn't there.  My heart did one of those momentary quickening things and then I saw him in silhouette.  He was standing, grazing at the far end of the field.  Hooray!  I had to go and have a word and let him know how pleased everyone would be that he had made it through the night.  As I drew closer he looked uncomfortable and seemed as though he wanted to move away, so I backed off and he relaxed.  I didn't want him to have to move about unnecessarily if it still hurt to move and certainly not on my account.  From a distance I told him that I was pleased to see him up, if not quite about, and I think he was listening.  He had stopped grazing anyway.

A light mist on the river

Jack

I have known Jack for a year or so.  I don't know how old he is, but like many of the characters on and around the farm he just appeared one day.  Whenever I come home to the boat Jack is usually here.  He doesn't wait for me, but he is often simply - well, here.  We stand and mardle a while.  He is a stunningly good-looking lad and I'm sure that somewhere, sometime, he has probably set some lady's heart a-pumping.  He is strong, broad in the shoulder and stands tall; tall, dark and very handsome.  Frequently, and when he thinks I'm not looking, he rushes about and he can certainly put on a turn of speed.  He runs so fast and so hard that, even from the boat moored below the narrow field that is his racetrack, I can hear his feet pounding.  He tries to break his own personal best getting from one end of the field to the other.  As he listens to an account of my day I think he would usually rather be somewhere else.  Often he'll just wander off when I'm in mid-sentence, but not too far.  He'll look over one of those broad shoulders to tell me he's still listening.  I know he doesn't want to though, so I peter out and bid him farewell.  Then he'll resume whatever it was he was doing before I interrupted him.

If I go up to the farm to collect my post Jack will often be standing on the bank that rises above the boat.  I always share a few greetings with him and sometimes he even approaches as though he wants to confide.  After a year, though, we still haven't got to the stage where he feels able to tell me something of any real importance.

A few weeks ago Jack was standing in his usual spot where he often likes to contemplate the Fen skyscape or gaze at the horizon and I realised I hadn't seen him for a while.  I felt terrible that I hadn't noticed he hadn't been there.  I could have asked after him, maybe even sent him a postcard to let him know I was thinking about him.  I don't suppose he missed me for one moment.

The farmer's sister, who brought Jack home again, told me once that he was very wary of men.  Apparently as a youngster he was abused - by men of course.  Why is it nearly always men?  Sometimes I am deeply ashamed of my sex and yet I cannot fathom it.  I have never felt the need to abuse another and the thought that I may have got close to losing my temper a few times, even under extreme provocation, fills me with shame and horror.  If I feel so powerfully that I should be above such behaviour what is it that is missing in men who can abuse?  Or what is it that is missing in me?

I realise now that everyone here loves Jack.  I think that even the farmer may have a bit of a soft spot for him, although I'd never suggest such a thing to his face.  The farmer's sister told me she wept for two days when Jack went away.  She was so pleased when he wanted to come back.

Two days ago I came home after a day of running workshops and something was not right.  Jack was standing in his favourite field with four women, but there was something about his bearing and demeanour that was definitely not right.  The farmer's sister was standing close to Jack while someone I didn't recognise was feeling her way along his back and applying pressure to an area around his hip.  Jack was looking very unhappy.  I stood a way off for a while and then slowly approached the other two women who were sitting on the grass behind Jack in an attitude that seemed almost as though they didn't want to distract or disturb him.  Something was definitely up.

"He's concertina'd hisself," said the horse lady who was sitting next to the farmer's girlfriend.  "He went into one of the bigger fields today and we think he was chasing round after the other horses."

***

When I left for the band rehearsal this morning, poor Jack was lying on his side in the field.  As I drove past he raised his head, but he was clearly in pain.  When I returned, some hours later, Jack was still in the field, lying on his side.  This time he did not raise his head.  I parked the van and walked back to where he was lying.  As I got closer I was relieved to see that he was breathing and when I spoke in greeting he managed to lift his head and twist his neck to look at me.  I thought I could see his distress, his pain and his confusion.  We communed in silence for a while.  Then I went to see if the farmer's sister or the horse lady who lives next door could tell me the latest.  Both were out with other horses at a show, but the farmer's girlfriend came out and said she could see I was worried about Jack.  He had managed to get up a few times during the day, but it was too painful to stand up for long so he got down on his side again.  She'd come out to sit with him for a while and the farmer was going to bring some water close enough for him to reach.  The vet will be here tomorrow.