kool drum on French Tv

Kool drums and us on French tv, FR3, last Saturday.

Not ill, but busy and very happy

It has been a long summer, and although the sun has not shone often, things are much brighter.
Mysweet has his driving licence.
My health is just great.
We are making lots of kool drums and lots of music.
Here is a recent concert in Brittany at the Briqueterie in St Brieuc.

Singing Steel - Concert à La Briqueterie de... par guyomdeSinope

Eeyore and Mrs Liverish

Things have not been great chez Porridge recently.

I have been suffering continuing symptoms after a bout of hepatitis caused by an antibiotic allergy. I won’t bore you with the complete catalogue, but fussy eating, exhaustion, a bit of confusion and a lot of grumpy bad temper, are right up at the top of the list. This is coupled with a real sense of bereavement in the knowledge that my relationship with a glass of wine is going to be distant and occasional from now on…

Mysweet is also a victim of circumstances. He did not notice that he had lost points on his driving licence as a result of a series of trivial speed camera fines and they added up to the magic 12. A registered letter arrived in November informing him that he could no longer drive for six months…from that moment.

We live in the country, far from bus services.

We subsequently found out that the authorities are legally obliged to send a registered letter when you still have a few points left to offer you a remedial training course, while you still have your licence.

But he thought he would endure the six months, and did not contest it.

But then he found out that he had to take an expensive medical.

And an expensive test of his reflexes, (pyschotechnique).

And a test on the highway code. And there is a waiting list of at least three months for this test. And the waiting list starts after the six months is up. It is now mid July and he still has not been given a date. It has not improved his mood to be imprisoned with Mrs Liverish.

Nor has the knowledge that a driver who is caught driving drunk (he wasn’t) is likely to be fined 100 euros or so and have their licence endorsed for three months, then get it back automatically if they still have points on their licence.

Let’s look on the bright side…

I have lost 10 kilos and the garden is looking very nice.

Beach Time means Bath Time

 I really enjoyed that run on the beach. Especially when I rolled in that smelly seaweed. I don't think that they noticed when I sneaked off.

 Oh dear, something is up. She doesn't usually tie me up here, and when she does...

it's not good news.

 I knew it. All that lovely perfume, going, going...

 gone... 

And you can stop sitting there looking so smug...

A song for the Chaos

Some places are just special. And it is hard to explain why. I have tried your patience for a while now,  keeping on about this particular place. I have tried to get it out of my system by writing a song about it and performing it on video, but I make no promises. I expect it will be cropping up again from time to time...

Les chaos du Gouët

We went down to the Chaos today to video a song of mine.
We got there early in the morning and everything was shrouded in mist.
And then the sun burnt it off and it became so hot that the hand pan went out of tune the moment a shaft of sunlight touched it. It was precarious at times on the narrow pathways and the slippery mossy rocks and I wondered whether we, the instruments and the equipment would all end up in the water. But we needn't have worried.
Porridge, (the assistant director),  jumped in to the river a couple of times to bring back sticks, but no one else fell in.... And then she slept in the sun while we did all the work.

Porridge time for Porridge

When is she going to feed me? I don't think she is ever going to finish her breakfast. 

And he is probably on Facebook again. 

I know, I'll do that thing with my ears on the armchairs again. 

They like that and they're bound to look at me and remember my BREAKFAST.

Anyway it feels quite nice...

No one seems to be looking at me though. It is hard to tell with my head at this angle.

I suppose I'll just have to...

BARK LOUDLY...

I don't think I am dead...

There was a time when Mysweet would say to children “That’s enough! You have been on Facebook for at least 24 hours…It’s time to eat/sleep/do homework…”

He did have a Facebook account, but rarely used it

But now, all is changed.

It is down to this photograph of him posted on my page by an old touring friend of his. This attracted the comment “A dam fine man! RIP!” by another of the ex touring sound engineer community. Feeling, with Mark Twain, that reports of his death had been exaggerated, he set to with a vengeance to remind everyone on the web that he is still drawing breath. I hear whirring noises from the office late into the night as he decides which photograph of the good old days he will be scanning and posting.

 And now they are all at it. Sound and lighting engineers, and touring personnel generally.

Facebook is bulging with photos of strange hairy men from the 70’s with Ted Nugent, Foreigner, and doubtless more to come, mainly featuring sound equipment (it’s their thing after all) at massive festivals in California and elsewhere. At meal times the conversation is along the lines of “What was the name of the guy on the Jackson tour in this photo?”

  

It seems that if you are not on Facebook these days people will think you are probably dead. The entertainment business is high risk, so I can see why…We both have friends who didn’t survive the pressure. But here we are! Still up and running!

I want to make the most of every minute. 

My favourite walk

I have lived in Brittany for over 20 years now.
In the winter, it can be difficult to cope with grey skies and rain and I long for the city...any city.
In the summer, it is quite stunningly beautiful. All that rain creates a lush green landscape and when the clouds clear it sparkles in the sunlight.
Even in the depths of winter there is one place that I go to, very close to where I live, which simply nourishes the soul. It is never crowded and always different. The sound of the water is a soothing background to even the most troubled thoughts. Time stands still. I walk the banks of the river and fall into a meditative trance...

And then Porridge barks and I have to throw sticks into the water. She likes it there too.


Les Chaos du Gouët par guyomdeSinope

A foreign country

It has been a mixed pleasure walking down memory lane this week, as I assembled the elements for my new personal website. I have been singing professionally for 35 years, so putting a biography together has been challenging. What to put in and what to leave out has mostly been determined by what I could find in dusty drawers. There are lots of videos on you tube showing me in places that I didnt know I had even been to, but touring can be like that sometimes. I thought it better not to include any that I didn't put up myself . They come and go with alarming speed as the copyright lawyers take them down and then they spring up again somewhere else like weeds. Which left me with a vast collection of photographs...
Who is this person in all the costumes? I have been looking hard but she seems like a series of dissociated personalities. A collection of strangers. What a great time we had though!

I can't believe I ever managed to squeeze into that one...

                                                              gillianodonovan.com

Restaurant Le JAVANAIS

When I lived in London, I was a great fan of Indonisian food. So it was with delight that we accepted an invitation from some friends to take a day off from our internet toiling and visit St Malo for lunch at a Javanese restauraunt. Our friends are French but unusually adventurous when it comes to spices...

At this time of year, the medieval town of St Malo is full of tourists from just about everywhere, and they were very entertaining in themselves, but perhaps would be less so if I lived there and had to fight my way through them on a daily basis!

The restaurant, which was hidden away in the narrow winding streets and off the beaten track, was completely empty. It is run as an addition to a small hotel by a married couple, a Frenchman married to a Javanese chef. We were told by our friends that the meal would be explained to us in minute detail, which could have been very tedious. But no! It was charming.

The whole culture of how javanese food is prepared and eaten was delightfully described by our maitre d while I attacked a large rum punch and agonised over menu choices. His wife hovered in the nearby kitchen and then the sound and smell of woks and friers got going.

I chose gado gado as my starter and he said that this meant a mixture and was a good description of their children. The sauces were delicately spiced and my chicken curry with 10 spices was subtle and delicious. Everything was authentically made and it was more like being invited to someone's house than a retaurant. Chili sauces were available to up the endorphins for those of us that way inclined. Here is some of the spread:

And these are the happy faces of the diners.

So I am tortured by indecision. Should I tell everyone about this wonderful place and then find it full up next time we go? Or share the secret with you? Don't tell anyone will you!!!

Off into the big bad world

Maybe I was just tired.

So emotions always get more intense, don't they?

Drummer boy is off into the world.

We drive to the airport, and I go through the long list of things that could go wrong in my mind.

We sing to his favourite tracks and hope that his small midi keyboard won't get crushed in the ryan air hold.

He is going to Aberdeen for a 10 week internship. We have tried to disguise a 6 ft 4 spindly rock star as an office worker, so his bag is full of sensible trousers and shirts.

He sits next to me in his usual extravagant garb and I wonder whether he will ever wear any of them.

He is brimming with youth and excitement and promise and all the wonder of a life ahead that could go anywhere, do anything...

There is something so touching about the unwritten page.

I drop him off at the airport.

I feel strangely happy and sad at the same time.

I turn the music up loud in the car and my favourite radiohead track comes on smart shuffle and I sob self indulgently for a little while...

how to keep cool

We have been working a bit too hard lately, so we decided to take a break on Sunday, and get Porridge to work instead. We showed her a stick and reminded her that a retriever's job is to... retrieve.

Her diet is working well, and it was a newly svelte shape that slid into the water.

She is a lot lighter on her feet. This doesn't change the danger of her running behind the backs of your knees though. Her momentum remains the same (less heavy but faster) so her skill of reproducing the effect of a bowling ball on skittles is just as devastating to the unwary.

On occasion she will go to the other bank with the stick and chew it ostentatiously because she knows that I can't get to her.


Today, she just seemed delighted to be able to run about with nothing hurting, and pleased to bring the stick back for more of the same.

Oh alright then. Again! How many times is it now?

Hurrah for a weekend in London

The sun is shining and my spirits are as high as can be.

I am escaping to London to spend some quality time with fairy godmother (to my kids) and best friend in all the world .

I have finished the intensive work of completely overhauling the kool drum website. I have to say that I am proud of it. Mysweet's paint work on the new drum type, the nova, is absolutely beautiful.

It should be, because he spent weeks experimenting until he came up with some stunning prototypes. It has been a worrying time because we have stopped using recycled gas bottles and have ordered the metal shells directly from the company who make them to sell to gas companies...

Would they sound as good...or better...or different?

We are pleased and relieved. The metal is less fatigued. When he cuts the notes they pop up like the petals of a flower. When they are coaxed back into position, the sound is much clearer. The sustain is not so long, so they are easier to play without lots of overlapping frequencies.

Porridge is recovering nicely from her operation and has what looks like a zip fastener along the mid line of her stomach. She is on a diet and her stomach is shrinking. She is not pleased.

Also, Billy boxer no longer comes to call. I suspect that her operation has reduced her "femme fatale" appeal. What with that and not being able to belly dance...

A nice comfy cushion please

This Tuesday night found me in the unusual situation of bending over a toilet seat with lowered trousers while the piano teacher from the room downstairs closely examined my inner thigh from the back brandishing a big spraycan.

Well it was like this; I arrived for work heavily burdened with music books, laptop etc, and saw a woman of a certain age (mine) pushing her broken down car outside the studios.

"Do you need help?" I asked, little knowing what was in store. "I'll just put my things away and be right back down" So I did and I was.

As we were shouldering the car together, a young man( dreadlocked and nose ringed) was walking past with three dogs on leads. "Why dont you attach your dogs and give us a hand?" I said.

He came over and set to, but kept the dogs with him, next to me. One was a golden retriever, another a boxer and a third indeteminate thingy. As we picked up speed I felt a sudden tearing pain and realised that one of them had sunk its teeth into the juicier part of my thigh...

As I ran into the studios he called, "It's alright, they have all had their rabies vaccinations!"

That's alright then...

Oh no! Not the lampshade!

Retrievers are rightly famous for their ability to eat just about anything.

I should have been suspicious yesterday afternoon when Porridge started desperately trying to snatch at grass in the garden. The dressing on her operation wound seemed to be loosening and some of the compresses were hanging out. So I snipped off the excess and hoped for the best. We are talking about an enormous dressing here… about 9 inches by 5 with lots of padding inside it.

When I woke up this morning, it had completely disappeared. She had eaten the lot.

She was panting and restless and desperate to eat grass, but she still managed to down her morning biscuits before I realised this. Her tummy was absolutely enormous.

So…off to the vet. And we came back with…yes …you have guessed…a lampshade.

Now a lampshade takes some getting used to. It is hard to get through doorways.It got caught on a kitchen chair and she just stood there until I showed her how to reverse out.

She was so depressed that we took her out round the block, in hopes that natural functions might relieve the terrible abdominal pressure. Would she explode like Mr Creosote after “one wafer-thin mint”?

It is hard to get at things in a lampshade.

But it seems to work as a smell amplifier. And things got very exciting around our favourite rabbit warren. Look at the tension on that lead. She wanted to race into those brambles and sniff them out.

But no….

So we were a bit depressed again when we got home…

Last Day of Freedom (of movement...)

On Sunday, we decided to go to the beach to enjoy Porridge's last walk before her operation. The wind whipped up white horses on the waves and we all ran about and did gymnastics...well some of us did. There was synchronised crab impersonation, a new sport which surely will feature in the olympic games some day.

The old favourite of throw a ball in the sea and get the dog wet was also popular.

Porridge was not quite so good at synchronised crab impersonation...

She is even less good at it now.

At least she has no lampshade on her head and is recovering well. The vet said she is a bit too fat, so it's diet time, just to add to her troubles. She had a tiny bit of medicinal steak this evening, which cheered her up a lot.

Scarf Envy

Lucy and Mol came round to escort the condemned dog (and owner) on a last good long walk before sterilisation (dog, not owner...).

Porridge was , if anything, even bouncier than usual. I do hope her personality will not be changed by the operation. Shy and retiring just would not suit her, and neither would fat and lazy...

I caught her eyeing up Mol's rather attractive scarf and wondering whether she would be able to steal it. It had a medical function as an ear cosy rather than a fashion accessory.

I am a bit worried about her operation on Monday, but when I see how well and quickly Emile has recovered, I have to admit that I am reassured.

She will probably have to have a large plastic funnel on her neck to stop her messing with the stitches.

I know, I'll tell her it's a scarf...

Emile on the mend

Emile is doing very nicely after her operation, but she is not happy being kept in the house. We have to keep the wound clean, so she has a special litter tray full of torn up magazines... no cat litter dust allowed. The trouble is, she doesnt know what the litter tray is for. We put her in there and she curls up and goes to sleep in it.

Mysweet has just taken her out for a supervised stroll on the grass and all is well once more.

Meanwhile the rest of us have been outside enjoying the crisp winter weather. Porridge has an unfortunate new habit of digging holes under every shrub in the garden, which is not making her popular with the gardener of the household.

Night Nadgers Unwarranted

I think it is better to be tired and doing something exciting than comfortable and bored.

It has been an exciting weekend!

The concert in someone's living room was a real pleasure. There were about 15 people, most of them from just one family, and most of them came to see us again on Sunday, gluttons for punishment. The only uncomfortable part was the fact that they had cleared an area to act as a stage just in front of an enormous log fire. I was delighted by the heat at first, but later on my trousers nearly caught fire...

In the concert hall, the atmosphere was very different. Essentially it was a festival of street theatre, but indoors (just as well for the time of year!) There were marionettes, acrobats and other musicians too. We performed 4 mini concerts in two days and although each concert was only 20 minutes long, there was a lot of hanging about, getting worked up to play and then hanging about again which is a killer and far more exhausting than "go there/ do it/ come home". One was sold out which was reassuring for both us and the programmer.

There is a video of the show on the kool drum blog for those who are interested.

Back to normal life for a bit.

Up early to take Emile to the vets to have her bits and pieces removed. Even as we speak she is under the knife. As you have doubtless gathered ,I am more of a doggy person than a cat lover, but I have to confess to a secret fondness for her. She is the friendliest cat I have ever met, and will approach anyone (or dog), give them a headbut and ask for a cuddle...