Lofty Thoughts

I'd meant to write up The Perseverance gig yesterday but instead spent almost the whole day moving stuff down from the loft (including bucketloads of dust) and shifting heavy pots about the garden with my nephew, who I employed for the day for his young strength and willingness of spirit.
I found a pile of letters that included a map drawn by John Peel to show me how to get to the place where they broadcast the World Service from; and a set of poems written by my friend Saffie Ashtiany who now spends a lot of time in Iran, finishing her father's animation films. She'd given me the poems to illustrate and I still have some if the drawings somewhere. There was a series of letters from a very funny girl called Pippa who used to write every week when I was in the Chefs, telling me all about her school days (her headmistress banned Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because the Oompa-Loompas were racist). I can't throw them all away just yet.

The plumber's been this morning; he arrived on his motorbike at dawn, fixed the heating and roared off half an hour later. Heaven will be populated by such people, I know.

So... Saturday afternoon was spent copying Desperado Housewives CDs for Wednesday, in between little houseworklets.
I realised that it wouldn't be a good thing to chop onions for tea, an activity that would have neatly fitted in to the burning-time of a CD, because that particular CD would smell strongly of onions.
Maybe that would have been a good idea- a unique selling point that would add at least a quid in value to the CD.
Anyway, I digress...

Voices of the Fall was brilliant: small but perfectly formed.
Alec Dunnachie rustled about in the corridor, buckling himself into a huge and beautiful turkey costume that he could not see out of and bumping into tables on the way to the stage. He had a turkey-head hand puppet, and did a piece about two headed turkeys baking potatoes, which was fascinating when you could hear it properly (I don't think there was speak-hole in the turkey head).
Dix points for costume and effort Alec!
There was a fantastic African singer (her Myspace name is 'silence' as she sings acapella) called Henrietta Alele, who was utterly charming as well as having a beautiful strong and powerful voice; Sarah Verrinder made us all laugh with her intelligent irony and poet-punchlines; Kath Tait was sweetly brilliant as always and Ingrid held the whole lot together with her rambling band of musicians (which included Eve, who sang one of her songs solo too).
I sang two newish songs, Waltzing Away from Winter which the audience did backing vocals to, and Daisies which everyone seemed to like, as well as Two Little Girls and Me and Autumn Love for an encore (which I fumbled over in an unprepared and unprofessional way!).
Sandie was there, Foolish Girl to those who don't know her, and she handed me DVDs of the Borderline gig which I haven't managed to watch yet as my computer's overloaded but I will make sure I watch them tomorrow and will ask her if I can put them on Youtube or something.

And then, just like this morning's plumber, Sandie roared off on her motorbike.