A day in the life . . .

There's a Flickr group called A Day in the Life . . . which I rather like. Four times a year, on the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes, all the group members spend the day taking photos of their day-to-day lives. Five of these photos are posted to the group pool, and the rest in a folder on the member's own Flickr page. So four times a year we get a fascinating glimpse into the lives of ordinary people like ourselves, leading ordinary lives, but in different parts of the world.

Today is my 3rd DILO. My first was on December 22nd last year, and it happened to be the day I was driving down to Wasdale to pick up our free range turkey, so I had ample opportunity to take interesting photos. And being Christmas time, the sun came out from time to time. (Gone are the days when it snowed in December . . .)

My second was on 20th March 2008, on Chris' birthday. Not such nice weather, but I was in Cockermouth where lots of houses are painted in bright colours, and was also lucky enough to capture a bird flying over the Moon, which I thought was incredibly cool.

Today, being midsummer's day, it rained continuously. We're mostly quite pleased about this, as our veg garden has been parched and poor Steve has been marching up and down with buckets of water.

I took some midnight photos last night when the sky was still clear and starry and bright with the nautical twilight known in Shetland as the Simmer Dim - the one on the left was taken at nearly 1am.

Sadly, by the time I got up this morning conditions had deteriorated, and it all looked grey. We'd already decided on a trip to Keswick, as for once I didn't have to rush off anywhere playing music for morris dancing or helping people move furniture.

An unexpected phone call took us to Cockermouth first, though, as members of Steve's family were in town, so I took some photos of the little lad playing on his grandfather's electric chair (no, no, not that kind - this is the sort that raises and lowers the seat, making things easier for disabled people) and creating aged paper for the treasure map he was drawing. I was delighted when the neighbour's tiny black cat, Sammy, came wandering in, as I've been trying to capture her in a photo for a while. Today she posed beautifully for me, singing feline airs with gusto.

By the time we left, the rain was well and truly settled in, but who cares? It may be wet, but it's not particularly cold.

Keswick was fairly busy, as you'd expect, as it's full of tourists at this time of year, and there's not much else for them to do on a rainy Saturday but wander round the market stalls or sit in cafés drinking coffee.

The DILO's theme this time round is green, and for once I'd taken very few photos featuring anything green, unlike my usual pics full of hills, trees and fields. We left the main road on the way home and parked up by the Bouncy Bridge, from where I could take some photos of the clouds settling down on the fells and the River Derwent meandering through the farmland.

You can see all my photos from today's DILO here

The day's not over yet of course - it's only 25 past 9 - but it's still raining, so I don't think I'll be finishing off with my usual flourish of a YABS (Yet Another Bloody Sunset).

I am keenly awaiting Chris' contribution to the DILO group. He's in the Czech Republic at the moment with Rudsambee, and they apparently spent the day on a trip to the local spectacular mountains. I guess I'll have to wait until he returns to the UK, as he doesn't seem able to access the internet at the moment, or even use his phone, which for him is probably worse than the pain he suffers from his sinuses while flying. I only hope his batteries have lasted.

The sax doctor and other stuff

Today Steve wore his Sax Doctor hat, so we had to get up early (on a Sunday!) in order to get to the venue in Carlisle by the back of 10. Roz holds these Sax Days from time to time, mainly to give her own students (of whom there are many) a chance to play together in ensemble, and stretch themselves a bit, but it's also open to other sax players, and a good crowd usually turns up. There are various playing sessions throughout the day, and at lunchtime and tea break times The Sax Doctor is available for free consultations.

The majority of those who arrive at his surgery are, of course, people who are already customers of ours - most woodwind & brass players in this area gravitate to Marshall McGurk sooner or later (there's nowhere else to go if your instrument breaks down, and after all, we are very good). Big overhauls can't be done, but odd little leaks and bits of missing cork can be dealt with, advice can be asked for and given, and a nice chatty atmosphere fills the room.

I, of course, benefit from all this by being allowed to sit in on the playing sessions, simply by virtue of being The Sax Doctor's trusty chauffeuse, and let's face it, I could really do with some help in the sort of sax playing Roz specializes in. I've been sight-reading music almost as long as I've been reading words, and I'm also good at memorizing a tune, but the one thing I still haven't learned is the gentle art of improvisation.

Even after a lot of well-explained theory (Roz is an excellent teacher!) it's still very stressful having to do a solo, however simple, in front of a group of other, equally stressed, people. I don't think I was the worst in the room, so at least I didn't go home feeling embarrassed, but some of the others were very good indeed. I feel keen to keep working at this now, so watch this space.

We were also treated to one of Peter Gardner's fascinating talks on great sax players of the past: on this occasion his subject was Johnny Hodges (1907-1970), an alto saxophonist of whom I was only vaguely aware. He played with Duke Ellington's band for 38 years and had a beautifully clear tone. As someone who is a folkie first and a classicist second, I love listening to Peter's enthusiastic descriptions of people like this, superb musicians who played in a field quite different from my own. I come away full of new knowledge and understanding and a desire to find out more.

BLOODY FLICKR, though . . .
is still not working, despite messages on the Flickr blog to the contrary. At sometime after 7.30 PST (which stands for what? Er. . . Pacific Standard Time or something? How many hours behind us are they in San Francisco anyway?) they claimed to have fixed everything, but all I get is stupid messages about Flickr having a massage.

Phew!
At last . . . nearly 2230 GMT (no idea what that would be in PST terms) and Flickr's working again. I don't quite understand how one can become addicted to a photo-sharing website, but of course, as we Flickrites know, there's a lot more to it than that.

Flickr withdrawr

Argh . . . Flickr's offline. Here's what they say:
" We started on a database upgrade and a few alters to the database structure last night. Given our scale, tasks like this takes a long time, and makes a definite impact on site performance.

You may have noticed today that the site is having lots of hiccups and that behaviour is generally pretty erratic. So, we’ve decided to take the site offline until things settle down. We’re anticipating a couple of hours is all we need at this point.

Sorry about this! It will be one of those massages that ‘hurts so good’. We’ll post updates here as we have them."

How will I survive? I need my Flickr fix.