Illustrations of wonder

How lovely is this?

Koldo Barroso is creating wonderful illustrations to go with the lyrics for the new album. If you look at his blog on his website, you can follow what he is doing for me.

And if you look at his portfolio you can see more of his wondrous creations... some of them are kind of whimsical but with a slightly sinister edge..... but his little animals are so sweet they ought to be cuddled.

Cold here and going to get colder, but the witchhazel is flowering and snowdrops have appeared so there is always something to say 'ah!' to.

The dogs are watching me, each with one eye open...obviously in case I rush off to the kitchen to find them something edible... they have been here for 5 months now and I am at last getting the hang of them,

Whizzy is a bit of a nervy thing, doesn't like to be left behind and would like to attach herself to me permanently so that I can't go anywhere without her...
Flower is like a lollopy colt, the muscles in her back legs are not strong so she does a sort of flailing run if she gets left behind. She is so long that she can't turn round quickly and I keep treading on her toes by accident - yelp! yelp! I am so cruel..... She hasn't put on any weight, her bones are still very prominent and I guess she is just one of those dogs that gets very thin when they get old... Whizzy however is getting to be quite plump. Well -plump for a greyhound anyway. but they both seem happy enough...

Right then. More later :-)

Hooray hooray!!

The album is just about finished and ready for mastering. It will be called 'Talking With Strangers' which is something that I seem to do quite a bit..

If you look here , you can see who has been kind enough to play for me. I am just so delighted with the end result. It makes me grin every time I hear it..

Next step is to let it out into the world and hope that others enjoy it. Gulp! Always the difficult bit. But no use writing all this stuff and making all this music and then hiding it away in a cupboard is there? Tempting though the thought is....

I may have to sing live somewhere. If I do and you see me, I will be clutching some screwed up bits of paper containing the words. Absolutely terrified of forgetting them and going blank... I think I will worry about that later...

What else? Pensionerhood and Grannydom are beckoning in the first part of this year. That's going to make life even more interesting. I shall claim my bus pass and go out for discounted meals. Yippee! It's funny how each new decade seems to bring a new change to my life. I expect it happens to everyone though..

I did a bit of a garden clear up yesterday, just tidying up the japanese anenomes, which seem to have become bullies here.,taking over every bit of spare garden.. Very pretty though in the autumn. And the little witchhazel tree has begun to flower. It is usually out fully by my birthday and has a wonderful smell.

Oh yes and I had the roof fixed. There was a little leak where the previous repair to a flat roof hadn't been properly joined to the main roof. It only leaked when the wind was in a certain direction and it was pouring with rain, but as it was above a doorway and the door was beginning to warp, I really had to do something. So I did. The trouble with having stuff done to a roof is that it doesn't look any different when it's mended. Ho hum..
But the roofmen managed to knock a few of the crystals off the crystal tree so I had to thread them all again and rehang them.

Dear me! This is turning out to be a boring old blog isn't it. I'll try and do better next time..

Jude xxxx

Finished..but not finished

Well that, I think, is the last of the vocal recordings. That is unless someone finds a really crummy bit of singing that needs redoing... The next step, and a crucial one, is the mixing which will take place in Norfolk by the sea so I just have to wait patiently for songs to come flying down the internettery for me to hear.

It seems very strange and I felt sort of flat when Tim and Alistair left yesterday. But there is bound to be something interesting and different that will turn up..

For instance, I have just sung a song for Sand Snowman (I hope he likes it!) and I will be singing something for the Lunar Dunes in January which will be different again.

And there will be stuff in between I expect..

Flower and Whizzy are asleep. They have just moved an ear each.

Hair,Headphones and a Dog

Picture the scene: a not-very-big-but-big-enough room, containing, amongst other things, a sofa, an armchair and a few other sittables.Plus desk,tables, bookcases, shelves and a piano.

The laptop is on a trolley, Alistair is in charge of the recordings. There is one large dog (Whizzy) who has crept onto the sofa and is surrounding Alistair with legs and paws. Tim is sitting in the armchair, headphones on and listening. There are headphone wires all over the floor and the other large dog (Flower)has chosen to lay at Tim's feet, on top of all the wires which are busily tangling themselves round her paws. I am standing the other side of Flower behind a microphone stand whose legs are also busily being entangled by more bits of wire. All is well and I am re-recording some bits for the album.

I am wearing a pair of headphones that are working perfectly, but are slightly the worse for wear and keep slipping off my head, so I am shoving them back on my head again, not realising that my hair is gradually getting caught in the adjustable side of the headphone. It is becoming more and more tangled as I am trying to untangle it. At the same time Flower decides to get up and move taking the headphone wire with her. I am, by now, giggling insanely, crawling around the floor trying to untangle Flower's paws from the wires while trying not to have my hair pulled out as I am dragged further and further around the room.
Eventually someone took pity on me and untangled my hair, while I hung on to Flower's collar, stopping her from going anywhere while I untangled her feet. Little by little, calm returned to the Pink Room. And we continued with the recordings.

Well it was quite funny while it was happening. And then we had a cup of tea...

Photos and Fireworks

One of the things I find really difficult is having my photo taken. The lovely Nick Jones has been here twice now to take some pictures for all the things I am apparently going to need pictures for.

The first time he came we went to the baby wood and took lots of pictures amongst the trees, with the dogs, and in the garden. He even let me nonchalantly lean all over his Harley Davidson motor bike thing. Very shiny it was. And everything looked fantastic. Except me. Nobody's fault. Just that I was not comfortable..

So today he came here again and took more photos, with my harp and apples and things. These may possibly turn out to be better. It was quite a giggle anyway. And Nick said it was good practice....


It's raining and there are fireworks tonight. The village was having it's annual bonfire and fireworks display. I was wondering how Whizzy and Flower would behave, but apart from a couple of twitches they stayed asleep. Good! Tiggy used to dribble on me in stark fear and it was very distressing that I couldn't calm her.

What else? More contributions for the album are arriving and the demos are getting better and better and in a short while Tim and Alistair will come here to do the final vocal re-records and will record Simon Nicol, Jacqui McShee and Sanchia Pattinson. And then....and then... it'll be nearly finished. Coo.

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..