I Am Continually Bemused...

....by the bits of technology that work perfectly well and then stop. The counter on this site for instance. Happily ticking away to itself counting things and then ptoof! gone!!! I didn't tell it to go or throw it away, it just went and I can't figure out how to make it appear again. I don't care...

The dogs are settling down nicely (on the sofas for preference) and they are beginning to learn the trick that all my previous greyhounds did. Which is the nose under the wrist at the moment when I have a cup of coffee in my hand. Thus causing a mess. I let Whizzy off the lead in the wood today. She walked at my heel for most of the time, and then was distracted by some bit of grass and had to gallop to catch up. It is one of the most wonderful sights to watch a greyhound run free, but you have to be fairly sure that they will stop and return to you...

The album continues to grow and expand and change and become more lovely. It is now having bits added to it by musical friends in different parts of the world and will be all the more lovely for it.

I was saddened by the recent deaths of Rick Wright and Brian Morrison, both were connected to my early musical life and were kind to me.

And it seems that I shall become a grandmother early next year! That'll be wonderful, I'd better start practising...... hooray!

That London Again and Dog Hair (lots of it)

Dear me. I keep forgetting to write this. Here we go.

London again. (How cosmopolitan can I get?) This time to Bush Hall, Shepherds Bush to see the extraordinarily fine No-man concert, their first for 15 years. Tim Bowness is one half and Steven Wilson the other, the music was wonderful, the hall was absolutely packed out and very very hot and I wish I'd found the little upstairs bit earlier, where I could actually see over the heads of all the dedicated fans. I am going to get taller one day. Alistair Murphy was there and it was nice to natter about various bits of songs

Jon the manager was supposed to have accompanied me, but a broken foot, plaster up to his knee and a lot of painkillers meant that he had to miss the gig. However I borrowed friend Fi's fiance, Nick, and whizzed to London and back with no problem. (Not very keen on trains and tubes on my own late at night!)

They did two more concerts in Holland and Germany and there are some youtubes of those, I believe.

And now for the other news. My new old greyhounds Whizzy (age10) and Flower (age 12) have now taken possession of the sofas and floor (and the spare bed if I were to let them ).. They are lovely and quite huge. End to end they measure about 8 ft long (if you added the tails it would be over 9ft (3m)) and they are beginning to show their temperaments. Flower is the me me me one that tries to lick everything, Whizzy is the more timid. She only has 4 teeth (the rest were rotten and had to be removed) and they are all at the front of her lower jaw, so her tongue falls out when she's asleep. But I think they are happy and content. They haven't seen much of the world so the fish in the pond in the wood opposite caused a major surprise and quite a lot of rusty barking from Flower. Whizzy wasn't bothered...
Photos when I get them.. In the meantime if you are interested in rehoming a greyhound (or two) here is one of the many excellent sites..

So there we are. More songs are being worked on, more lovely musicians are being roped in to play for me and plans are being laid for the album's future. I will believe it all when it happens..

That London....

Ah well. That wasn't so bad.. the internet and landline changeover was reasonably painless. In fact it was very painless, (there's asking for trouble...)

So I am still here in the world of the interknitted. Hooray! And only a week to go before the ladies come to live with me. Not exactly panicking, but it's quite a while since I've had two dogs at once and I can't remember how to do it!! It will be all right..

Anyway... feeling very cosmopolitan last week I trotted off to London late on Thursday afternoon on the train. I had been invited to the first birthday party of Dean St Studios where Tony Visconti recorded such people as the Moody Blues, Marc Bolan and David Bowie amongst many others, follow the link and read all about it... now managed by Jasmin Lee, it has become the place for people like Bullet For My Valentine, The Wombats and Sham 69 to record. If this sounds like an ad, well it is a bit... the sense of history is immense and tangible there..

Anyway it was great to see Jasmin and her mum Suzanne, longtime old friends, (my children used to play with Jasmin when they were small) but blimey! Soho is such a noisy crowded place!
Jon the Manager was with me and we were both battered by the racket and the sheer amount of people.. even in the pizza place we had a snack in, that was really noisy as well..

It was lovely to come home and getting off the train at my local station where it is quiet and peaceful.

Dear me, how very rural of me....

Now then what else....I was reading 'Leaving Home' by Garrison Keillor on the train. It was very hard not to chortle out loud. In fact I did a couple of times...

That'll do for now...Toodle pip!

Dogs (2)

Yes. Well. Exactly. And precisely.

Two dogs will be coming to live with me at the beginning of September. See? I told you I wouldn't last out a month. Well, I was getting lazy and not walking, haven't been in the little wood opposite for ages, don't need to, nothing needs to be walked twice a day.
So that's reason one.
Reason two is that I am just a sucker for a sob story. My daughter is a volunteer at at a greyhound sanctuary, (because she can't have a dog of her own and she needs her greyhound fix) and there, of course, are all these beautiful dogs waiting for homes.

Amongst them were some very elderly dogs. I always adopt old dogs because they are the ones that find it hardest to rehome, and there they were. Whizzy and Flower. Aged 10 and 12. Needing to be rehomed together. Well how could I resist? So I didn't...
I'll post pictures when they arrive...

Fairport's Cropredy Convention was, as usual, a wonderful thing... Accompanied by one of my sisters and two Cropredy (probably Festival) newbies, we had a great time giggling and nattering and listening to good music. The two newbies were Alistair and Tim, so we took advantage of them being here to record more vocals and some autoharpings for the album.
There was a lot of giggling, especially when I was trying to record a very sad bit of singing... I made them shut up after a bit, but only for a few minutes..

We did an interview with Sophie Parkes for Spiral Earth, it's not on the site yet, perhaps we were giggling too much.

This is tremendously lovely. A version of 'If I had a Ribbon Bow', with plasticene figures and 'Ken' dolls. Beautifully badly animated. I think it should win an award .'Treasure of the Year', something like that.

Right then. I'm about to change internet and landline providers. I expect it will all end in tears...

Dogs

Never again. I am not going to do it. They weave their way into your home and your heart. You trip over them, they steal the cake off the table and dribble in terror on your knees when it thunders. They take irrational dislikes to shiny floors and they cost an absolute fortune at the vets.

So I am going to lead a dog free life. I shall get into my car and drive off to exotic places like Norfolk and Sussex without having to make elaborate arrangements for the care of the ancient hound. I don't need to walk in the rain and snow and howling gales and blazing hot sun twice a day.

I don't need to hear the patter of claws on the tiled floor of the kitchen. I don't need to have the damp nose of a long furry muzzle thrust under my hand that's holding a cup of coffee, just because the owner of the nose wants to be stroked. I don't need to have the warmth of a dog leaning on me and making room on the couch just so that I can sit next to it and become a pillow for it's head.

I certainly don't need to have those big eyes watching as I eat the last few crumbs of a piece of toast, or indeed just watching me in case I look as though a walk might be in the offing. And I don't need to be always looking out for the paws that are just in the right place to trip me up.

Most of all I really don't think I need the silent companionship that is just there when I am sad and need comforting.

So I will stop looking at elderly greyhounds that need a home and trying to decide which of them might be my next beloved companion to join the ghosts of all my previous beloved companions.

Who do I think I am kidding? This is all lies. I expect I will last a month at the outside and then another one will be lying on the floor at my feet ready for me to fall over it...

Elderly Astral Folk Goddesses

Yup. That's me apparently. Top left. According to these extraordinary trading cards given away with Galactic Zoo Dossier last year.

So there I was on Wednesday, having a whale of a time trying to find a parking place outside the rheumatoid arthritis day clinic so that I could be infused with the bi-monthly dose of the fearsome drug that enables me to function like a (fairly) human being.

Another half an armful of blood taken to be tested to make sure I haven't fallen to bits in the last month and then sit in a chair and do all the crosswords in the paper while the infusion goes into my other hand, while trying not to spill the cup of coffee that the lovely nurses supply me with...

2 hours later and I am home again with a hole in my bruised wrist, but with joints that don't ache as much. So that's me set for another couple of months...

Now. Why have I written all this? Because as I understand it, it is being recommended that people with RA are only allowed to have one try at these fearsome anti-tnf drugs. And if they don't work then that's it. Goodbye.

It has taken 4 years of trying drug after drug to try to suppress this rotten disease that I have and three different anti-tnf drugs until I found one that actually let me be human again. So I think it is blimmin' unfair.

Right what else has this elderly cult goddess been up to this week? Cleaning out the shed. That's what. Full of stuff that needed to go to the tip. With the aid of someone else though. Half the stuff I couldn't lift or move. Feeble thing..There's lots of room in the shed now and I found a lot of things that I'd forgotten were there.

That'll do for now. I'm going to Womad with theNeff tomorrow and I shall hopefully be able to meet up with my lovely publisher Rob and have a natter..

Toodle-pip....

Articles and Interviews

I have put some articles and interviews up on my myspace site. In the photos bit...

www.myspace.com/judydyble

They are scans so I hope they will be readable..

They are from Rock'n'Reel, Shindig! and fRoots. and there is a new interview at www.madeloud.com

I expect I have said the same thing over and over again, but there you go :-)

I haven't done much this week bit of gardening, bit of dusting, bit of visiting Fairport's new offices (very cool indeed) and a bit of falling asleep a lot...

Ho hum. It was summer for a few minutes every now and again, but I can see that my socks will be coming out of hibernation if it doesn't cheer up a bit more..

I just heard that you can't order whitebait any more as a meal. You have to call it Blanchbait apparently...
That's really daft that is...