It can be hard . . .

. . . to think of something new to say each day. Hmm . . . well, it's been Sunday, and a fairly sunny Sunday, at that, though some would say it was a bit chilly. (Oh dear, I've sunk to the level of talking about the weather.)

Above - the Shadow People
Took dogs down to Rose Ghyll, which I usually do on a Sunday lunchtime. Bit muddy down there, but not as muddy as last week. Must get new walking boots: either my old ones have shrunk or my feet are still growing. Whatever the reason, they are now too tight and my feet hurt in them. Unfortunately they are my only waterproof pair.

Above: Rose Gill (left) and Cowfield Burn (right) its tributary.
Our local river, the Ellen, flows through the field down there. Nice, minor river - I like it. It enters the sea at Maryport, and never gets particularly big, though it's big enough at its mouth. Down at Roseghyll, though, it's overhung with trees, and in summer a great place for dogs to swim. At this time of year I worry about them getting washed away in the torrent, though, so I direct them to its smaller tributary, the Rose Gill. Until recently I thought this little burn was unnamed, and tended to refer to it as the Cowfield Burn for obvious reasons. However, I have now recycled this name to refer to the even smaller tributary of the Rose Gill, which doesn't even seem to be marked on the large scale map.

Watching the printer . . .

. . . is mindnumbing. I'm printing out 2 copies of each of the 5 parts of Limelight, plus 2 copies of the score, which I've promised to the rest of the gang, even though we haven't actually settled on the date of our next practice. You sit and watch it going chugga chugga chugga, page after page, and start wishing you had one of those mythical printers that never goes wrong, so that you can go away and make a cup of tea while it's working. That, of course, as we know, is a recipe for disaster.

This time I'm using a nice gold coloured foolscap, from Sharon's stash that she left me before decamping for Kiwi-land. PH are used to it by now, but I love the puzzled look that appears on people's faces the first time I hand them something printed on foolscap.

Now, talk of the devil, as they say (well, talk of the minister's wife, actually . . .) just as I was typing her name, Sharon appeared on Skype, so I'm typing this and having a conversation with her at the same time, hearing about her hot and sunny NZ Christmas. Funny old world.

WORKINGTON DOCKS

Having been chatting with my mate Russell on UKLC about Workington's industrial heritage, I decided to take a quicky shufty round the docks area this afternoon before venturing to Tesco. Lovely wild and stormy day to be in an area like this - wish I'd worn the same gear I had on my photographic tour of the Maryport coastline last week.

I get the feeling that a lot more went on in the old days. Everything looks delapidated and rusted. This curious little building in the photo is a tide-watcher's building where, as Russell tells me, " . . . he would, ahem, raise or lower his balls to warn mariners of the state of the tides." All the doors and windows are bricked up, presumably to prevent unspeakable things from happening inside.

The next thing is to investigate the mill stream, which was cut from the Yearl or weir further up the Derwent, and crosses the Mill Field where it used to power a water wheel at the mill (now converted to a dwelling house). This artificial watercourse flows in a deep channel in front of Tesco's, and I've always just referred to it as The Stank, not knowing what it was. It re-enters the Derwent just before the river flows into the sea, at the point where I photographed the moored boats the other day - at that point it's wide and tidal, but the rest of it's narrow.

Depending on your interests, gentle reader, this is either fascinating or deeply boring.

Working

Not much else to do on grey days like this, apart from work. Finished the bamboo chair with its Danish cord seat. Normally I'd have taken it outside to photograph it, but I don't think the owner would thank me for taking it outside into the rain/sleet/hail that was going on at the time, so it remains, for now, unphotographed.

Spent some time attempting to get the bookkeeping up to date. Every year I have a failed new year resolution which goes something like this: This year I shall keep my bookkeeping up to date. Never works. Depressing, isn't it?

Decided to start practising the alto sax in preparation for Roz' Sax Day in about 10 days' time. The funny thing is, when I'm playing my C-melody, all I play is folk music, but the minute I get an alto in my hands I want to play jazz. NB - I want to play jazz. I don't think I really can play jazz, but at least the desire to try it is there.

When Roz holds a Sax Day, she ropes in Steve to be the Sax Doctor, doing running repairs and tweaks for her students who come along, en masse, to play together for a day. And if Steve's there, so am I, as I am his loyal chauffeuse, and if I am there, I might as well join in the fun, even though I am not, as yet, one of Roz' students. Well, it was fun last time.

Playing my C-melody for Belfagan in Keswick a few years back.

A few resolutions for 2008:
1) Practise the sax.
2) Get bookkeeping up to date.
3) Get more exercise.
4) Don't leave sarcastic comments on poor fragile son's blog.

January is Tax Return Month - but where's the snow?

grrr..... b)(*&£(*$^) f")*£%£&%)(%@>!!!!

Right, that's got that out of my system then.

It seems to be snowing. Well, it's been snowing in Canada (well, of course) and Edinburgh, and north east England, and up in the Pennines, and even Rex in Rutland is watching ominous clouds approaching, but here in NW Cumbria by the coast all we've had is a few tantalizingly lovely flakes, drifting down, lying on the picnic table, and waiting in vain for enough more of the same to turn things white.

I know I could get all the snow I wanted if I was daft enough to drive to Edinburgh - I'd probably get stuck half way again, like last winter, and I'd have ample time to take as many photos as I wanted while I awaited the snow ploughs.

Look - this is what I mean:
Above - the Pentlands under snow, January 2003.

Here's a photo of the Pentlands taken when I was travelling to - or perhaps from - Edinburgh, 4 years ago. You always get loads of the stuff between there and here, and even quite a bit there, but never here. Well, we have had a little over the years, but only just enough to make me gasp for more . . .

I know. I know. I should be careful what I wish for. I'll probably get stuck in a blizzard on my way to hand in my Tax Return at Whitehaven and end up getting fined for handing it in late . . .

Back to work

Fed up with all this gratuitous holidaying, I decided it was time to get back to work. It's all very well for people with jobs, who get paid leave at this time of year, but if you're self-employed you only get paid if you work, so unless there's something more important to take up your time (like morris dancing, for instance) you might as well be earning a living.

I'm in the middle of repairing at least 3 woven seats at the moment. There's the big ongoing project of course - The World's Biggest And Slowest Double-Panelled Cane Sofa - and I keep trying to do bits on this so that eventually it will be finished. This one is taking somewhat longer than I suggested to my long-suffering client when I took on the job, and I'm feeling suitably guilty about it. So I'm now trying to clear the decks and get all the smaller ones out of the way, so that I can concentrate on the big one.

Nearly finished the bamboo rocking chair, which, after giving me several weeks of wondering what on earth I was going to do with it is now turning out to be rather fun. It had originally been covered - seat and back - with ready-woven rattan webbing of a type I can't get, and although the owner was quite happy for me to use a different type I realised that removing the framework in order to install the new stuff would involve taking out rusty nails and trying to put back new nails in the very dry bamboo, which I didn't really want to get into, as this sort of thing is a recipe for disaster. So, having had a chat with the customer, and his blessing to do anything I liked with it so long as it ended up usable, I'm doing it in a completely different way, and it's turning out really well. I'm using Danish cord. It looks great. Just a little more to do tomorrow, and lots of loose ends to tuck in and tidy up, and maybe a few bits of lapping cane to replace over the joints, and it'll be done.

I'd have finished it if I hadn't had to go to Workington with my leaky tyre. The nice man at KwikFit discovered it was punctured in the tyre wall, which is, apparently, unrepairable, so I had to have a new tyre. Bugger. Oh well, at least it's safe again.

Above - boats in Workington harbour. A tripod would have made this photo sharper, but I love the colours. It's my mission to try to improve the image of places normally thought of as ugly and industrial.

Took a detour via the harbour on the way home and took a couple of photos of the boats as the sun went down. I really must start leaving a tripod in the boot, just in case, for occasions like this. Anyone would think I don't take photography seriously.

Hello 2008

Well, here we go - another year and still alive.

When I first moved to Cumbria from Scotland I couldn't believe anyone would be mad enough - no, I really mean sober enough - to go out morris dancing on New Year's Day. I grew up in a world where sensible people didn't emerge from the safety of their duvets until late afternoon. In England, New Year's Day is a bank holiday, and most people go back to work on the 2nd. In Scotland both the 1st and the 2nd are holidays. Even if they were supposed to go back on the 2nd, very few people would, so there's no point.

Anyway. I'm used to it now. It's a tradition now. We go out on New Year's day, meet up at a pub somewhere (yes, there's still a little drink involved) at about noon, and perform a few dances in the street outside before wandering back to someone's house for a bit of a party.

This year it was the Bush in Cockermouth Main Street. It rained, but the landlord refused to let us dance inside on the nice wooden floor in case it upset the 2 customers who were sitting there. Fortunately the rain eased off a bit so we were able, in the end, to dance outside.

It could have been a lot worse. Two years ago we danced at the Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, on New Year's Day, and the rain practically washed us away (see photo, left).

So, everything seemed to be going nice and smoothly. We all sloped off to Susie's house for food and wine and good conversation. Two of Bridget's beautiful granddaughters (they have 5 - so far!) were there too, one aged 6 and the other 2½.

Phil got talking about his electric guitar, and before we knew it we'd all got our instruments out - my guitar emerged from the car, Bridget's accordion, Gin's concertinas (she's got a new one for Christmas too), Pete's bouzouki, and Chiara joined in with her shakers. There were probably more songs than usual along the lines of The Wheels of the Bus or The Bear went over the Mountain, but we managed some grown-up stuff too and everyone had fun.

It wasn't until I was on my way home, driving up the really wiggly, narrow, dark bit of the road between Dearham and Crosby, that I noticed the regular thumping noise from under the car somewhere. Not the best place in the world to stop, on a nearly-single-track road in the pitch dark where drivers are trying to negotiate several tricky bends, so I crept gingerly along until I got to the lights of Crosby and found a safe place to stop.

We'd just had a leaky tyre recently, so my first thought was that the spare, which Steve had put on the other day, was also leaky and had gone flat, but it looked OK. Couldn't see anything obviously wrong, but the thumping sounded serious and worrying, so I heaved both the sax and the guitar out of the back, strapped them on to my back, and trekked homewards on foot. (Not as bad as it sounds - something like a 10-minute walk.)

Having changed into old clothes at home I brought Steve back to look at it, and eventually we discovered that the spare wheel had started coming loose. Oops. Just as well I drove slowly on it! I shall go see the nice man at KwikFit tomorrow.

I was once, many years ago, in the passenger seat of a car whose nearside front wheel decided to make a break for independence, and funnily enough, it was also on New Year's Day, though it would have been the year when I was about 19 or 20, and before I had a car of my own. Hilary had a mini (a proper mini - the original sort) and like all her cars in those days it was old and battered and, had the MOT test been invented then, would almost certainly have failed.

We were driving along Bucchleuch Street when I pointed out to her that there was something - oh, yes, it looked like a wheel - rolling along the road in front of us. Casually we both wondered where it had come from, and then the car seemed to realise something was missing and went, THUMP! SCRAPE! and sort of collapsed at the front left hand corner. The wheel, released from the burden of being attached to a heavy car, went rolling merrily off down the road, and we had to run after it to retrieve it once we realised it was ours.

Well, that's enough excitement for one day. I'll be glad to get back to work.

Charles Chaplin

It's easy to forget Charles Chaplin was also a well-respected composer, although his arguably most famous piece, the theme from the film, Limelight, is a tune many people will recognise though perhaps fail to put a name to.

I discovered a copy of the piano music for this theme in a box of music I acquired through FreeCycle. Here's my first draft of it as a piece for recorder quintet (Tr Tr T B B). Still needs a bit of proofreading, and most of the dynamics are still missing, but I think it'll work OK, and by the time Piping Hot Recorders reassemble after the festive season I should have a working version of it for us to try.

Listen to Limelight

This is an mp3 file created from the wav file generated by Sibelius Kontact player, so it's a bit artificial-sounding, to say the least, but somewhat better than a midi file I suppose. Not sure about the supposed 'recorder' sound, though: sounds more like flutes to me. I guess we'd better do it for real.