Thursday 20 November 2008

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...

Saturday 1 November 2008

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.