Rain, rain, rain. Hooray. All day.
Nice mass with the monks at Ligugé with John Gaskin - the abbey is the oldest in France, founded by St Martin of Tours (him with the cloak and the beggar) around 600AD. Lovely singing. Some very pretty and very devout French girls came and sat round us, all kneeling on the hard stone floor (they don't do hassocks or kneelers here - people mostly stand, if they're not sitting). The cantor looks as if he's just stepped out of an el Greco painting - tall and thin as a skillet, with enormous hands which he waves beautifully.
Bit of a boo boo - I'd parked the car in the middle of what turned out to be some sort of post-church parade by the French equivalent of the British Legion, with a very smart uniformed officer in pale blue kepi, looking just like de Gaulle, and the Maire and others in attendance. So we pretended the car wasn't ours and lurked until it was all over. We still can't quite work out what the day signified, unless it's something very local
We're off to a concert tonight at Saint Savin, a famous Spanish pianist playing Spanish music from the last 200 years, so I guess we'll have some Rodriguez in there somewhere, otherwise I'm a bit vague on Spanish composers.
We're having lovely rain, so all our veggies are getting a good drink - we planted up about two acres this week of spuds, onions, broccoli and various other things.
I'm off to Naxos in two weeks (!) which has rather caught me by surprise. Only going for a week, but it will be nice to see old friends and check out the two parcels of land I've been offered. I had a long discussion with Laurence about my future plans, so this is a bit of a decision point. We shall see.
Email to Pol - I may have over edited her The Tobacconist's poem, I hope she doesn't take offence. Very worried about her eye, which is not improving as she'd hoped. She says Iona was not funny - unable to judge distances skipping from rock to rock (and she was never great at that at the best of times).
Concert at St Savin - Spanish composers I'd never heard of. No Rodriguez (bit middle of the road I suspect). Very good. St Savin Abbey stunning - a Unesco World Heritage site. Worth another visit. Very French, concert in the refectory (wonderful vaulted Romanesque ceiling) on ground floor. Loos up two stories and long flights of stairs - no lift, or disabled access. Pianist looked like Brian Mooney, Teresa Catalan's piece (2013) sounded like steam hammers and giant bells knocking lumps out of each other. I didn't know pianos could make that noise, and so much of it.
Sober Podcast 158 - rocking the shit out of Option B (Option A being no longer available). Trouble is, at times I want both (I know that can't happen).
I got fed up breaking promises I'd made to people I love. Which is why I needed to do it this way - to do it, and just tell Belle, and the world, anonymously. Not to be dragged down by my ego and my pride (they are truly useless) - just do it, don't talk about it.
Nervous about Naxos (a bit plan A-ey, potentially).
Stuart's got his money - we both have Paypal accounts - how could we have been so dumb? We could have done this last time. Eat shit, Western Union and MoneyGram. Be nice if I could send my Curtis Banks money to Paypal, or turn it all into bitcoin. Now accepted in 80,000 shops in Europe. I'm more or less back to break even, since my first punt in October.
I was struck today by how impressively old I am - one of the older living things on the planet - and how much has happened in my lifetime, to the world and to me. It's a kind of miracle, something to be almost proud about. And that there are only 31 of my lifetimes between now and 0AD. It's not very many.
John wanted to borrow a book to read, so I offered him a selection to look at. He's gone off with Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, and Metanoia, and Do No Harm. I warned him the last six chapters of Metanoia are still on my Chrome. Be funny if he reads it - even funnier if he likes it.
Nice mass with the monks at Ligugé with John Gaskin - the abbey is the oldest in France, founded by St Martin of Tours (him with the cloak and the beggar) around 600AD. Lovely singing. Some very pretty and very devout French girls came and sat round us, all kneeling on the hard stone floor (they don't do hassocks or kneelers here - people mostly stand, if they're not sitting). The cantor looks as if he's just stepped out of an el Greco painting - tall and thin as a skillet, with enormous hands which he waves beautifully.
Bit of a boo boo - I'd parked the car in the middle of what turned out to be some sort of post-church parade by the French equivalent of the British Legion, with a very smart uniformed officer in pale blue kepi, looking just like de Gaulle, and the Maire and others in attendance. So we pretended the car wasn't ours and lurked until it was all over. We still can't quite work out what the day signified, unless it's something very local
We're off to a concert tonight at Saint Savin, a famous Spanish pianist playing Spanish music from the last 200 years, so I guess we'll have some Rodriguez in there somewhere, otherwise I'm a bit vague on Spanish composers.
We're having lovely rain, so all our veggies are getting a good drink - we planted up about two acres this week of spuds, onions, broccoli and various other things.
I'm off to Naxos in two weeks (!) which has rather caught me by surprise. Only going for a week, but it will be nice to see old friends and check out the two parcels of land I've been offered. I had a long discussion with Laurence about my future plans, so this is a bit of a decision point. We shall see.
Email to Pol - I may have over edited her The Tobacconist's poem, I hope she doesn't take offence. Very worried about her eye, which is not improving as she'd hoped. She says Iona was not funny - unable to judge distances skipping from rock to rock (and she was never great at that at the best of times).
Concert at St Savin - Spanish composers I'd never heard of. No Rodriguez (bit middle of the road I suspect). Very good. St Savin Abbey stunning - a Unesco World Heritage site. Worth another visit. Very French, concert in the refectory (wonderful vaulted Romanesque ceiling) on ground floor. Loos up two stories and long flights of stairs - no lift, or disabled access. Pianist looked like Brian Mooney, Teresa Catalan's piece (2013) sounded like steam hammers and giant bells knocking lumps out of each other. I didn't know pianos could make that noise, and so much of it.
Sober Podcast 158 - rocking the shit out of Option B (Option A being no longer available). Trouble is, at times I want both (I know that can't happen).
I got fed up breaking promises I'd made to people I love. Which is why I needed to do it this way - to do it, and just tell Belle, and the world, anonymously. Not to be dragged down by my ego and my pride (they are truly useless) - just do it, don't talk about it.
Nervous about Naxos (a bit plan A-ey, potentially).
Stuart's got his money - we both have Paypal accounts - how could we have been so dumb? We could have done this last time. Eat shit, Western Union and MoneyGram. Be nice if I could send my Curtis Banks money to Paypal, or turn it all into bitcoin. Now accepted in 80,000 shops in Europe. I'm more or less back to break even, since my first punt in October.
I was struck today by how impressively old I am - one of the older living things on the planet - and how much has happened in my lifetime, to the world and to me. It's a kind of miracle, something to be almost proud about. And that there are only 31 of my lifetimes between now and 0AD. It's not very many.
John wanted to borrow a book to read, so I offered him a selection to look at. He's gone off with Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, and Metanoia, and Do No Harm. I warned him the last six chapters of Metanoia are still on my Chrome. Be funny if he reads it - even funnier if he likes it.
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