Of Wondering Who I Am

Who am I?  What do I do?  These questions seem to come up when I am required to "write a little" about myself, provide a bio for a promoter or, in the past when I engaged with such things, prepare a CV.  I always struggle with these questions, but I take the responsibility seriously so as not to deceive or to misrepresent.  At the foot of this blog is the self-description I wrote to put these essays in some kind of context.  I think it covers most useful information about me without going into the too boring or the sordid.

Being introduced to someone new by a third party is interesting and sometimes revealing.  Of course, if introduced by one's children, "this is my dad" is acceptable because everyone knows a father is more than a sperm donor.  I was brought up short last week though by one of my closest friends who introduced me to someone with, "this is Derek, he calls for ceilidhs".  That surprised me.  We were at a gig.  One of his bands were playing.  Yes I do call for ceilidhs not just with my own band, but also with several other smaller bands led by various members of the parent ensemble.  Everyone else around the table knew that already.  Three-quarters of tonight's band also play in my ceilidh band.  Calling for ceilidhs, though, accounts, most years for about eighteen hours.  So who am I for the remaining 8,742 hours?  

We are often defined, outside of our families, by the job we do.  For years that was easy.  I used to be a lorry driver and labourer.  Then for three years I was a student.  Then I became a teacher.  This became more difficult to describe when I moved away from the classroom and into advisory work.  Everyone has experienced teachers, but who knows what advisory teachers do?  When I was made redundant after fifteen years of this kind of work and became self-employed I didn't know how to describe myself.  I was doing far more than working as a peripatetic class music teacher and, as the years went on I did less of the teaching.  Presently one morning a week is the extent of my work in schools.  I took my cue around the turn of the millennium from the director of a music charity for whom I ran a series of workshops and some interesting projects for a few years.  "You're a musician now, mate," he said and I liked that.  I didn't feel like a bona fide musician though.  I hadn't been through a conservatoire education, I wasn't in a touring or full-time gigging band.  My income was acquired through doing lots of bits of different musical activities.  Most of what I did musically did not earn me money.  There are days when I don't spend a couple of hours practising.  I don't specialise in one musical discipline.  I am not a "guitarist", or a "percussionist", a "singer", a "composer", or a "songwriter" or even a "dancer" and yet I do all of these and more as part of my professional life.  I don't spend much time playing the instrument for which I have gained my "letters" so I cannot call myself a recorder player with any degree of authenticity.

I don't really know why it shook me to hear myself introduced as a ceilidh caller.  I'm trying to work out if there could be some kind of snobbery involved; perhaps a hierarchy of activities.  I guess I may even officially now be a musician.  When I renewed my van insurance recently they decided to change my occupation from "music teacher" to "musician".  I'm happy with that ... Specially since it actually brought up a quote that came out to cost less.  I was not expecting that.  I'm happy with it too because it fits more comfortably and means I don't have to try and rationalise that I am not being dishonest at such times.  Music teachers may not be the people who drive round the country at 3am with a van full of p.a. equipment and instruments.  They are, however, the people who manage to sustain, week after week, a dedication to improving the confidence and standards of their pupils.  I could not do that.  I've tried it and I'm not really good enough to know how to address problems that pupils encounter when playing instruments.  Unless we are talking about playing the recorder I can only take them so far, barely beyond the beginner stage.  As for ceilidh caller, there is no implication that I have to be musical at all.  I would be proud to be introduced as a composer. After all I do have more than a hundred compositions registered under my name with the PRS and playing them adds a small annual sum to my income.  Perhaps had I been introduced as an activist campaigner I would have questioned the description less.  

Today, though I am a traveller. Greetings to you all whatever you celebrate at this time of the year.

Of More Deliveries And Yet More Laundry

Dear Currys,

I am expecting the delivery of my new washing machine on Saturday.  I have been trying to find a way of giving you information so that your delivery driver does not end up in a shed, in a field, several miles away, on the wrong side of a river, which is where his satnav will probably try to lead him if he doesn’t know this address.  

When I placed the order I am afraid I did not see any option to give you a message with helpful instructions, but I was pleased to see a little chat box open and I was able to have a discussion with someone at a keyboard in your office which, unfortunately, proved in the end not to be so very edifying.  The typist in your online chat facility gave me a telephone number to ring.  I rang and ended up in a telephone-tree forest, punching in numbers and stars, before being referred back, eventually, to the website whereupon the automatic voice dismissed me with a rather overly familiar, “Goodbye”.  I looked (again) at your website and tried the order tracking information function, but neither of the two (two?) order numbers that appear on my confirmation e-mail seemed to be recognised … Yes, I tried both after typing in all the information again.  The system’s helpful message was,

"YOUR ITEM IS PROVING A LITTLE TRICKY TO FIND, BUT DON'T WORRY WE HAVE A FEW OTHER OPTIONS UP OUR SLEEVE YET.”

Some of the options up your corporate singular sleeve include more telephone numbers for which the customer pays a rate over and above that on his or her telephone plan.  I’m not quite sure I feel sufficiently motivated to pay you more money simply to be helpful and save your driver time and frustration.  I’m not feeling the love yet, hence this slightly bemused and ever-so-slightly-aggrieved e-mail.  Trying to contact you with helpful information should not be so difficult or time-consuming.  One is inclined to lose confidence.  Given my professional hourly rate I have now, regrettably, more than used up last weekend’s trumpeted special discount on my washing machine.

I live on a boat moored on the river adjacent to the farm at the delivery address.  I’m afraid I shall need to request a more accurate time of delivery than the twelve-hour window I have been given, since my boat engine is being repaired and I shall need to disconnect my mains electric hookup and haul my fifty-foot steel narrowboat singlehandedly, into a position to make the delivery and installation easier, probably inconveniencing the owner of the neighbouring mooring.  I hope it isn’t too windy on Saturday, or your delivery driver may need a raft if I lose the mooring rope (just joking … I hope).  I shall make sure the boat is firmly staked and tied before the delivery arrives, if you could just tell me when that is likely to be.  I can probably drag the boat back into position while the machine is being installed, so I can plug the electricity back in for when the machine will be ready to be tested.  I suggest that for maximum safety the delivery arrives well within the 7am to 7pm margins in order to take best advantage of available daylight.  I screwed all the steps leading down the riverbank to the jetty firmly back into place last week, so they are now safe, but the descent is still best done in the light.

The information your driver will need is my telephone number ************* and he will need to use his satnav only to find the road, “****** ****”.  Simply entering the postcode, **** *** will probably lead him astray as described above - I have no idea why, it just does.  The ghosts of lost delivery drivers haunt the Fens.  Once on ******* ******, he needs to keep the river on his left all the way down and into the farmyard.  Forget following any other roads, just keep the river on the left and phone me as he approaches so I can meet him in the farmyard.  It really is the end of the road.  Please could you make sure the delivery company passes this information on to the driver.  It is quite inconvenient for all when delivery drivers become lost in the Fens, or worse still, give up and try to find their way home.

I assume that, once my washing machine has been loaded on to your vehicle, there will be a way of tracking my order and the driver’s progress?  Twelve hours is a long time to be waiting in ignorance and I am sure that a company that specialises in selling high-tech equipment, as Currys does, has an efficient way of working this out.  Perhaps you could advise if there are any special secret codes I need in order to be able to do this from the order tracking information page on your website so that I don’t get the website's rather irritating “tricky to find” message again.

I hope this provides you with helpful information and I am very much looking forward to the delivery of my new washing machine.  I spent many hours at a laundrette in a nearby town last weekend, because I had almost run out of clean clothes.  I’m not altogether clear how the “next-day-delivery” banner on your website order page became seven days, but the discrepancy did mar my planned laundry schedule.  I’m sure you appreciate that storage for clothes is at a premium in a restricted living space.  I did, however, meet some very interesting people at the laundrette and there was plenty of time to chat given the long queue for the machines.

My very best wishes to you and your fellow workers at Currys and, as the French would say, “I await my new washing machine with impatience”, which I feel has more of an emotional commitment than the English understatement I employed in the previous paragraph.

With kind regards,

etc etc

Of Having A Whole Evening

So the gig that was threatened with the post-cold laryngitis has been and gone. It was a good experience and there is a masochistic part of me that suggests I should simply do more of these to get used to playing in such situations.

It is not often I have a whole evening to myself. I don’t mean that in the sense of being alone and of having nothing else to do, but a solo gig with no support.  I played in the bar of a local theatre where, each month, a friend - the keyboard player - organises performances, mostly by local performers or performers with local connections.  The standard is always high for something so in danger of feeling parochial - which it never does.  Consequently, it was a privilege to be accepted for a booking.  This was one of those gigs I chased.  I asked if I could play.  The keyboard player seemed unsure but after he had heard me he was more at ease with the idea.

Beret with singer and guitar.

I don’t know if I am a natural performer or not.  I suspect not.  I know my children think I am a show-off and love to be in the glare of the spotlight, but little could be further from the truth.  Despite often finding myself the front man in a ceilidh, an event with large numbers of children, the organiser of a folk night or, in recent years, a solo songwriter and aspiring singer of songs, I don’t like being in the limelight.  I do what has to be done, but always heave a huge sigh of relief when the gig is over.  In the time leading up to a booking I wonder why I put myself through such torture.  I have many times arrived at the point where I may have practised a song more than two hundred times and am still making mistakes. As Marshlander, my performances are like a carefully lined up set of dominoes.  Should my brain decide to take a holiday in the middle of a song the whole lot is in danger of falling over.  I used to tremble with nerves before a performance, but that doesn’t happen so much these days.  Maybe it’s time to take out the recorder again and do some serious work on that Bach flute sonata I come back to every few years.  Trembling nerves for a recorder player are very unrewarding.  Trembling affects breath control and fingers.  The slightest nuance of breathing changes the sound dramatically and the cross-fingerings can be quite tricky in allegro passages.  At the beginning of a gig these days, rather than trembling, it more often feels that my hands, my feet or my voice do not belong to me.  I try to find chords with someone else’s clumsier fingers.  I know the fingers belong to someone else because they don’t feel like my fingers.  My voice forgets all the useful things I have tried to get it to do through practice and to me sounds thin and feels strained.  The breathing goes and, frequently, my larynx feels tighter and will not allow me to sing in the lower keys in which I have practised.  During the middle of a song one foot or the other pings my brain with some unaccustomed nerve responses and I fall over the rhythm - even when I am certain I know what I am doing and should be able to do it on auto-pilot.  This is all very frustrating and can deliver embarrassing consequences.  The old adage that an amateur practises until he gets it right while a professional practises until he can’t get it wrong comes to mind every time.  the demons of doubt kick in - amateur, amateur, amateur, who do you think you are pretending to be a singer, a player, a songwriter?

There must be a reason why I put myself through this.  I’m not sure what it is, but firstly, I suspect the vanity I reference in “For Pete’s Sake" is involved.  Secondly, there is an element of challenging myself to see if I can do it - this time.  Thirdly, although I don’t want to feel like a man on a mission, I don’t know of any other people who tackle in song some of the subjects I try to explore.  There is a message that needs to be shared and if no one else will do it I suppose it has to be me - vanity again.  Conscience won't allow me just to let it go.  It intrigues me, but nearly every time I sing, for example, “Circumcision” at least one man will reveal his status to me.  I can think of few, if any other situations that might cause this subject to be raised.  Still fewer are the times a man might begin to explore how he feels about having been circumcised.  These can be people I have known for years or complete strangers.  If something I sing unlocks an idea for someone isn’t that what I set out to do?

Singer, guitar and foot drum kit.

I arrived at the venue, the charming Angles Theatre in Wisbech, in good time to unload my p.a. and go and park the van.  The Angles is not blessed with good get-in-ability.  There is an area in front of the building, which I am sure I recall once allowed sensible and safe access, which has now been blocked by concrete planters.  One is forced to park on a narrow road, which at night can be risky.  P. had cam he o’er frae France the day before to see the gig and to offer moral support so it was helpful to have someone to keep an eye on things at street level while I humped my heavy load into the building.  John the barman was as friendly and helpful as ever and indulged me in allowing P. and me to move the furniture around so I could set up the p.a along a wall where I wouldn’t have to peer round a structurally significant supporting pillar.

The “Angles Whatever” evenings, of which this was one, are interesting.  As mentioned, the performances are generally excellent quality fare which, for almost inexplicable reasons fail to attract audiences in any significant numbers.  Even for someone with as much of a cult following as Dan Donovan, last month’s event did not fill the bar. I have played there in the past with a five-piece band and we have outnumbered the audience by more than two to one.  It is not just the Whatever evenings that have audiences smaller than they should be, but for many years a local farmer (himself a serious rock music fan) has put on a weekly performance in Elme Hall Hotel at his Sunday Rock and Blues events.  Once again he somehow finds acts of excellent quality, often a band will be on their way back from a Saturday night gig somewhere in the area and a Sunday afternoon fits the itinerary perfectly.  The acoustics and ambience in the Elme Hall ballroom may not be your typical sweaty rock dungeon (I’m thinking of Stamford’s excellent Voodoo Lounge or any number of places in London), but really one might have hoped for greater audience interest.  As the Facebook page might have it - Wisbech, oh dear!  I was really hoping I would not outnumber the audience.  I was off to a good start, though - the presence of my boyfriend made the numbers start out even and if I counted John the barman ...

The keyboard player - the criminally underestimated Ivan Garford - arrived.  While he may organise the evenings, he usually has a gig of his own somewhere else and hasn’t been able to attend a Whatever for months.  Tonight he had sacrificed a school concert featuring his son - a sacrifice indeed.  Other friends began to drift in too including Neil Cousin - singer/songwriter, Dan Donovan - singer/songwriter/cult status musician/photographer/film-maker/renaissance man; three members of The John Preston Tribute Band (including John himself - songwriter/singer/visionary/activist; Mark Fawcett - singer/songwriter/guitarist of great talent/sound engineer; Les Chappell - songwriter/ lifelong musician having a cult following of his own and sound engineer); percussionist Martin Bright …  I knew everyone in the audience and have made music with them all except one.  I don’t know what it means that there was no one else there.  All men, no women - it was another boys' night out.  I suppose many people find it tougher to play to other musicians, but these were also people I count among my dearest friends and I was moved almost to tears to see them there.  It was very intimate and I just had to hope that I could deliver the goods.  Had P. arrived a few days earlier he would have supervised my rehearsal schedule and made sure I was ready.  Instead of P. I only had laryngitis for company.

So, the performance?  The biggest problem (apart from rehearsing efficiently) was in deciding which songs to leave out.  It may not sound much of an achievement, but I am pleased that in the five years I have been writing again I have composed a repertoire that is more than enough for a two-hour performance.  The audience was wonderful.  They clapped and vocalised with enthusiastic support and everyone listened intently.  I couldn't have asked for better.  It all felt very intimate.  Afterwards comments were positive and Les in particular with his decades of musical experience of performing on stages and televisions all over the world made some kind and helpful observations.  It is good to know I can manage a two-hour show on my own and now I know I want to get better at doing this performing thing.  This would be more possible if the opportunities were there more often.  I don't feel enthusiastic about organising them though, so I suppose I will have to rely on more open-mic events and bothering people for some playing time.  The intimacy of this gig reminded me of when, a few years ago, several of us got together to do a living-room tour to promote a cd we had recorded to raise funds for, and awareness of, a local environmental campaign.  Since then I have been of the opinion that living room gigs are my favourite milieu.  In order to make them anything like viable I think I need a cd to sell.  I guess I shall have to get round to recording something.  Recording is a subject for a whole different blog post.  I always put it off because I find the enormity of the task so daunting.  I think I recorded percussion parts for Neil Cousin's latest cd a couple of years ago and his cd is still not finished.  He has been recording that at the wonderful Grange Farm Studio with the assistance of talented and watchful engineer, Isi Clarke.  I know I could use the studio myself, but I think I would probably want to record on my boat - just to see if I can.  That means a lot of reorganisation.  Plenty of excuses for procrastination.  I have bought a new studio microphone though.  Maybe the cogs are grinding.

For the sake of completeness the set list for the Whatever gig was:

Feeling Disordered

Be Home Soon

For Pete’s Sake

The Ballad of Thomas Lewis

Mina

In Soho

Say I’m Sexy

Downham Market Monday Morning Blues

Pansy Potter

Grey

Blame It On Me

Cruiser

Fighting For Me

Never Say Never

Circumcision

Flying

Dear Mr Carter

In Your Place

Obstacle Race

Of Pride Before A Fall

I have started a few posts since the last entry, but haven't got round to finishing anything.  I have been too busy being virtuous (see the previous post).  I have managed mostly to keep up with my personal rehearsal schedule.  My eight minute spot at Dan Donovan's cd pre-launch last month allowed me seven minutes and twenty seconds for "Circumcision" (the song, not the surgical procedure) and forty seconds for talking.  I think I overdid the talking.  Nonetheless, I was reasonably happy with my performance (given that there are always going to be opportunities for improvement) and going on first allowed me to enjoy the rest of the evening, which turned out to be excellent.  Sharing music with such a bunch of clever people is a real buzz and a privilege.  Dan, I am finding out, really is a cult figure and quite a legend. Let's face it, if he is still going strong with twelve CDs under his belt, he must have something going on.  If you are not familiar with his work as either a solo artist or with King Kool you might enjoy exploring his You Tube channel.  If you are interested in photography or the video arts Dan's work is also worth tracking down.  The latest rumour is that he is looking into some kind of reunion with his band from twenty-five years ago, Tribe of Dan.

My come-uppance, after obviously misplaced pride in being able to meet my self-defined rehearsal programme was to catch a cold.  I'm fairly robust.  At my age, I've probably encountered most of the cold viruses anyway, so a cold is pretty rare for me.  I also do my very best to avoid them where I can. For the past few years I have rarely had more than one bout of illness over each two-year period.  Even so, I have rarely had to cancel any work and I don't think I have ever had to pull out of a performance due to an illness (well, not an illness of mine anyway).  The cold was last week.  I thought it had disappeared after a couple of days.  It came back as a minor chest infection.  Neither of those prevented me practising.  Nor did they prevent me calling an evening of dances at a ceilidh club in Norwich. The reappearance of the cold's temperature during the evening was a little distracting and I attempted to call a dance (in hindsight, not such a brilliant move) that really wasn't "there".  As a consequence I, along with sixty or more dancers, came unstuck. Oh pride! Now, just as the chest infection seemed to have run its course a couple of days ago, I have been hit with laryngitis.  This has always been the aspect of a cold that worries me the most.  It doesn't always go this route, but this time it did.  Next week I have for the first time been booked to play solo for a whole evening with no safety net, no other performers and now, possibly, no voice.  I have been rehearsing my two fifty-minute sets and building up the stamina required for doing the gig.  My fingers and feet are working and the memory glitches that plague me are becoming fewer.  I was so going to be on top of this gig.  Laryngitis, though, is a nasty house guest.  For a start, one can never predict how long it will stay.  Try to ignore it and it will get worse.  Staying hydrated and keeping up with medicating the self with honey, lemon, ginger, thyme or whatever traditional remedies seem appropriate for whatever phase the illness seems to be in does nothing to get away from the fact that talking or singing makes things worse and prolongs the problem. This affects the personal practice regime and coming back into singing after an ailment that affects the voice means that any gains made until that point may have been lost.  It is definitely a case of "Return to "Go" and, whilst collecting £200 was never going to be on the cards, collecting anything at all for an under-rehearsed performance feels like an act of fraud.

I have to assume that I shall have a voice in seven days' time, but what sort of voice will it be?  I realise that a "sore throat" is not the same as the multiple heart attacks experienced by a fellow local performer.  He actually died on the operating table during his bypass operation, but was revived and is now singing and performing more confidently than I have seen him do for years. However, laryngitis is debilitating in that it interrupts the preparation, undermines the physical competence and leaves a stain on the confidence, something that, for many performers, is fragile enough at the best of times.

I was looking forward to spending the weekend at the Rainbow Film Festival in Shrewsbury, but I have cancelled all work and social engagements for the next few days and am keeping up with the medication.  My fingers ache with each lemon I squeeze and are scented with the ginger root I have peeled as I make yet another flask of the healing elixir. I'm off to make a tissane of thyme.

Of Practising And The Fear Principle

I'm feeling virtuous.  After about three and a half hours of practice today my fingers are sore, but everything else feels grand.  It is so easy to get out of the habit of regular practising and personal rehearsal.  All it takes is a change to whatever passes for routine, but today I had decided there was to be no excuse.  Even my broken e-mail didn't deter me.  I try to do at least an hour a day and I have achieved that for several days - necessary if I am going to be able to do any kind of extended practice.  An hour a day keeps me ticking over.  If I miss one day though, there appears, as if from nowhere, a list of tasks the following day to allow me no time at all.  Also a number of ideas for new songs or other compositions will strike and need to be committed to some format or other to be picked up when I have the time to work on them.  Before I know it a week has gone by and even, on occasion, two weeks.  This is very unprofessional.  Picking up the rehearsal and practice routine after a hiatus is really difficult and takes determination.  For a start, it takes no time at all for my sixty year-old joints to protest over the lack of use.  They need the exercise daily in order to function.  My fingers start to soften and this doesn't only have the effect of making my fingers stiff and sore once I start to play again, but it actually changes the sound of the guitar strings.  I need the use of large and small muscles in my legs to play my footdrums too.  Again a lay-off means picking it up again is tiring.  My feet won't do what they are supposed to do.  We all know that the voice also needs regular work.

I'm playing on Thursday, that's two days from now.  My set is going to be eight minutes long.  I have been invited to play a spot in Dan Donovan's pre-album-launch gig at The Angles Theatre bar in Wisbech.  I feel honoured and somewhat under pressure.  Dan is an excellent performer and his new acoustic arrangements for this, his twelfth, cd are rather good.  He has also invited some other local musicians to play too.  They are all accomplished singers/songwriters/performers.  I don't want to let Dan down.  So, I am really looking forward to playing in Dan's show alongside Tommy Loose, Neil Cousin and Road Hog (who has just returned from several days' gigging in Belgium and Germany - so he'll be ready for sure).

Next month I get to play the same venue ... but next time it will be my evening.  What a privilege to be asked to play for 90-120 minutes.  That will be my longest ever solo gig.  I am seriously looking forward to it.  I don't think I shall be singing either "Grey" or "Flying" this week, but maybe next month they will both be ready.

I'm told that amateurs practise until they get it right while professionals practise until they can't get it wrong.  It would be very cool to be able to get through a performance without experiencing a single blip in my memory.  Tomorrow I am running five workshops in schools during the day and have a drum workshop in the evening.  Not much time for practice tomorrow, but today I feel virtuous.

Of Living In Two Places

I've just got back from France.  To do that I had to get a bus into Switzerland.  Then a train from the city centre to l'Aéroport de Genève.  Then an aeroplane back to the UK, a bus to the rail station nearest the airport, a train a couple of stops along the line and then the walk to where I left my van so I could drive back to the boat.  The journey usually takes about ten hours.  Once or twice I have done it door-to-door in seven, but not often.  France is where P lives and works.  He was born there, works there and has always lived there apart from a few months in the USA when he was a child.  I have done this return journey at least once a month since about 2003.  That's how long we have been together.  This is not just a long-term relationship, but also a long-distance one of many hundreds of miles.

P 'n' Me in Geneva - August 2015

I have heard people say that LDRs don't last.  Ours has lasted until now and I don't see that changing any time soon.  There are challenges to overcome, but these are not life-threatening or frightening.  Any problems I perceive are of course merely relative to the general good fortune I experience in my life.  They do, however, take on more significance in the context of an ongoing relationship. For example, I have had to come to terms with often being in the wrong country at the wrong time.   When in France I have often missed events happening in England.  When in England I have missed things going on in France or Switzerland.  When P has a bad day at work I can't just give him a hug until he feels able to face the world again.  When I need a hug I often have to make do with internet relay chat or the occasional telephone call.  I noticed a couple of days ago that his new laptop computer has Skype.  I am waiting until he manages to sort out an account and we'll be able to speak and "see" each other more often.  That is still not a hug though, or being there to help when his back is playing up and making walking (or sitting or lying down) impossible.  We have to hope that our bodies are in good order when we plan to be together.  We don't have the luxury that regular couples have to be able to ride out times of illness or injury.  Two weeks ago when I was with him, so was my cold sore.  This week it was his back problem that has plagued him recently.  The only way he has been able to sleep has been to sit up with legs outstretched on the sofa.  As the week went by he got to a stage where he managed to share the bed for an hour or two.  Then he was forced to get up (very slowly and still painfully) to try to get comfortable on the sofa so he could get some sleep.  I missed reaching out to hold his hand or listen to his breathing in the night.  I can see why many long-distance relationships don't make it.  I don't know if ours is special, but P is special.  That's good enough for me.  He makes it all worthwhile.  As I said, small stuff.  We are at least free to pursue a relationship.

Why don't we just move in together?  It is a question I think about a lot.  If I chose to do that, he would be delighted and would have me move in tomorrow.  Sometimes I wonder if I am averse to commitment. Perhaps I am, but I think my relationship record suggests otherwise.  I still struggle with the French language.  I know I would have to cope if I lived there all the time though I daresay it would only take me a few months to be able to hold conversations with people at a normal pace.  It probably doesn't help that clever P is so bilingual that friends and family in England who have met him only know he is French because that is what I have told them.  He is even cleverer than that.  When we invite friends for a meal he naturally falls into conversing with them in their native language as long as it happens to be French, English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Russian or Mandarin.  I suspect he would also make a reasonable go of speaking in Norwegian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Greek or Turkish.  Strangely he doesn't speak Breton or even our local dialect, Savoyard.  To be honest it is too easy for me to get by when he is around.  When I am there we talk in English and when he is out at work I don't go out.  I stay in and work on my writing, my compositions or, this week, updating my websites.

Les Cerises

I have been making the journey to what is in practical terms a French suburb of Geneva for so long that I have seen many changes.  Mostly it is the demolition of lovely old houses and green spaces to make way for more blocks of flats.  I don't know what they'll look like in ten, twenty, thirty years' time, but I suspect  they will not look any better than they do know, or specially how they looked before.  For the first few years I went there the area in this photograph was an orchard of cherry trees.  There was a public footpath through it that became extremely muddy when it rained.  It was our route through to the supermarket or to the station.  Walking through the orchard at night it was a place to stop under the trees to kiss and to confess our love to each other.  These days it is not a place for doing that at any time of day.  Despite changes in the law it is still too risky.  Our cherry orchard has become a street filled with apartment blocks known as Les Cerises - an acknowledgement to its past.  They've even put a bus route through it.  Ah, progress!  There is also a plan to extend and re-route the railway so that it runs from Thonon (the town next to Evian, from whence cometh the water - point of order, Thonon has its own brand of mineral water that tastes the same, coming from the same source, but is cheaper) through to Geneva Airport and provide a continuous shuttle service.  That will make the journey even easier than it has already become.  Work has been going on for a while on that infrastructure project and it will probably be up and running within the next five years.

Despite a perception of the UK becoming a more challenging and polarised place in which to live there is still much to like about it.  I love living on a narrowboat.  I love where I am presently moored.  I enjoy the work I do and the members of my various bands are in the area.  I also love being able to see family members.  I am lucky to have amazing friends.  I love being able to offer a refuge to P when he comes to England.  He also loves visiting and staying on the boat.  I love that he thinks it is cool.

Seriously, compare the views out of our respective kitchen windows.  Which would you rather have? Here?  Or there?

Of Making New Friends

Last week I went to find a field in the Peak District National Park.  Although I have passed through parts of the area many times in the past I had never actually gone specifically to the Peaks before and I had never met any of the people with whom I was anticipating spending a couple of days.  I suppose I take a similar chance when I go to a festival, concert, show, film, play, dance, meeting, conference or whatever on my own, but meeting people by chance at a specifically organised event is different from a very much smaller and more informal gathering.  At an event there are many distractions.  There is always a focus for being there.  For me a festival is mostly about the music, of course.  However a gathering with no organised entertainment or distraction is different.  What if I said something that caused me to be ostracised from the group?  What if I found someone in the group difficult to be with?  What if I had misread completely, what the group is about?

This gathering was a very twenty-first century phenomenon.  We were all subscribers to a particular website and that was pretty much all we had in common.  Many of the members live nomadically.  Some were even in the Beanfield in 1985.  I found the website when I was facing homelessness after my father died and when I was desperately looking for options.  One option was was to buy a van big enough to convert to be able to live in.  That was why I bought a Mercedes Sprinter.  Unfortunately this is the same vehicle I wrote off two years later.  By then, of course, I was very happily living on my boat.

Having just returned from visiting P in The Alps I hadn't had much time to do what needed to be done before I disappeared away from the boat again.  Naturally, the web-based tasks and sorting out e-mails for coming work projects took longer than I hoped.  Consequently I was much later leaving than I planned.  I had already decided that, following my recent camping experience when the boat was being re-blacked, I didn't want to find myself having to cook in the rain again, or even to be sitting without at least an option of shelter.  The option of being confined to my three-person tent or the van was a bit constricting so, since my favourite camping equipment warehouse was vaguely on the way I thought I would call in to see what my options might be.  I just hoped they were still open when I got there.  They were and I found what they seemed to call an "event shelter" (but which most people these days would call a "gazebo"), which seemed to be just the thing.  It was big enough to sit in, cook in and should I ever need to do it, hold a small workshop or outdoor performance in.  It also fitted into quite a small bag and its long side ran pretty much the length of my van.

Of course, by the time I made it to the far side of Ashbourne evening was drawing in.  This was the view that met me as I approached the field.

A view looking out from our gathering site

All is well, there is a river.

I pulled into the field and headed for the fire set in an old satellite dish suspended by heavy chains from an iron tripod.  There were fewer than a dozen vehicles set up around the edges of the camping field.  The field was bordered on one side by the road and on another by the river marking part of the  county boundary between Derbyshire and Staffordshire.  I was greeted very warmly by everyone.  We identified ourselves using our nicknames from the forum, which made life a little easier to begin with.    We shared real names soon afterwards.

After I had ambled round the field meeting everyone else I found a spot to park the van and set about putting up my new shelter.  I thought it would fit nicely next to one of the side doors allowing me to tumble out of the van in the morning into a dry spot whatever the weather was doing. Of course, having ignored the fundamental rule about never arriving at a campsite with a tent one has never before personally erected I became the entertainment until a couple of kind souls took pity on me and came over to help.  I hope, though, that the next time I erect my new shelter I shall do it in daylight and be able to manage by myself.  We'll see.

Our tribal gathering in August 2015 with my new shelter on the left

Even during the time I was there people came and people went.  We were all travellers passing in and out of each other's lives.  What also became increasingly interesting was a reaction of other people who drove by the site.  The road that passed the site wasn't busy, but nearly all passing vehicles slowed down as the occupants wanted to stare at the motley gathering of vehicles and people in our group.  To honest I think everyone was impressed by this lovely vehicle belonging to "MrsP".  It was as lovely on the inside as on the outside.  I didn't take this photograph (it comes from her own blog, to which I have linked on the right-hand column), nor even was this shot taken at our gathering, but this Mercedes van is a lovely piece of work.

Over the next couple of days I got to know a bit about people who until then had simply been nicknames on a web forum focussed on alternative ways of living - Wandering Gypsy, Firetree, Enigma Rising and Alice's Wonderland were some of the delightful people I met.  I have stumbled into a new group of friends that feels like a family.  Round the campfire I shared a few songs with them.  Strangely, "Circumcision" seems to be the song that people are remembering the most at the moment.  I didn't conceive it to be like that and it shows that we may not always be the best judges of our own work.  I was somewhat in awe also with the practical knowledge many of my new friends seem to have.  Many are able and experienced engineers, carpenters, plumbers - tradespeople possessing all sorts of useful practical skills.  Many had bought and completely fitted out their vehicles and adapted them for full-time living.  The group had booked the site for about ten days.  I was able to be there for three days only and when the time came that I had to leave I put off my departure by finding people with whom to have one last mardle.

Everyone was so friendly, so caring, had so much life experience and many had very sad tales of personal challenge to relate.  I am really looking forward to meeting them again and I am sure I shall see some of them before we get round, once more, to booking a field in the middle of nowhere.