Harvest

Harvest time is finally here again. The great wheat field behind us throws up clouds of dust as the machines reap and bind.

This is the best time to be in Norfolk, in my view. Long lazy days of sun and intermittent showers; the occasional plunge into the North Sea, breakers and all; magical nights of moon shadows across the lawn.

After the exhilaration and relief of finishing the first movement of the Trio in April, I have been taking stock of my output, revising and editing old works, and writing short pieces for a CD of 'mood music' which a local composer and friend is publishing. I know I should finish the trio. I will.

With trepidation I listened again to 'For the Fallen'. I hate listening to old pieces in case I find I don't like them any longer. But I was left determined to do everything in my power to get this piece, of which I am still very proud, to a wider audience. I don't want to look back on my life at eighty and think, if only I had tried harder. Stuck out in Norfolk it is hard to network and make the connections so essential to raising one's profile in the world. Thank God for email and the internet. Long may it stay cheap and available to all.

New arrivals

The simplest and most touching signs of spring are the flowers that suddenly appear unexpectedly, like these small bright yellow daffodils all along the old field hedge at the end of the back lawn. Maybe they were over-shaded by the hawthorn, or perhaps they were under-nourished. Whatever the reason they came up blind year after year and have now all come into bloom.
Nature never gives up hope, not even with all the muck we heap on her.

My trio for bassoon, flute and piano is coming along slowly. It has got past the intensive care stage: out of the incubator. Most of the writing goes on in my head when I am walking around doing anything else but composing. When the ideas are at the stage that they are distracting me to the point that I have to write them down, I do so. I know it is not the way composers are meant to work. How many of us have that inspiration on tap constantly, waiting to be summoned for four hours every morning?