Stumpy Tree

The people over the back have pollarded the tree where the birds used to sit and tweetle in the mornings.
Not only do the birds feel this loss (puzzled bluetits are hopping from branch to branch on a neighbouring sapling wondering what's going on) but I too feel it: I feel it as pain. Don't guffaw with derision! When the local soundscape is drills, cars, lorries, hammers and people in the street swearing into their mobile phones, the robins, bluetits, goldfinches and blackbirds who start carolling at dawn create a priceless start to the day. I love them.

In the back yard, I've planted a white-barked birch (there's a tongue twister in there somewhere) partly in the hope that it will stop people peering into the kitchen from their illegal loft conversion, but also in the knowledge that ants love birch trees, and birds love ants.
Grow quickly, tree!

Today I am looking for a stash of manuscript paper to write out cello parts. It's a very long time since I did this, and thankfully I've got some old parts to use as reference. Music theory is an absolute mystery to me still, but  I should be able to work out some of it from the sound waves on the computer. I am as excited as a child at a party about this recording, and desperately impatient to carry on with it. It's got to the point where I need to sit and make a plan rather than bouncing from one session to the next like a mad puppy, so that's what I'm going to do later on.

Tout a l'heure!