Shooting the Breeze

Yesterday afternoon we went up to the woods and took Margaux. I was very worried in case she got dirty, because really she is reserved for another future project. However, it was such a lovely sunny day and it was so tempting to go out somewhere where there might be spring flowers and solitude. I loaded a bag with tools, scissors, string, Margaux and her new hat (which later caused continuity problems), got into my Ugly Painters Trousers (Who me? Or the trousers?) and off we went.

Everything was just as beautiful as you could imagine. There was even a cuckoo mournfully calling in the distance, and there was the occasional family lining up on the little bridge to be photographed under the wisteria. Everything smelled beautiful too, delicate scents only hitting you once you'd passed the little tree that they emanated from.

Margaux enjoyed it, apart from the times her skirt started to fall down, when the string detached from her head, and when she lost a finger. She was so brave about that, that I didn't even know until it was too late. She got to fly, rest on mossy logs amongst black, round toadstools called King Arthur's Cakes, pretend that I was making her out of wood (she was actually made from  £2 bag of air-drying modelling clay from Hobbycraft), and even got an admiring audience from time to time. At one point a delicate little dragonfly flew up close to her to take a look. 

I had my guitar, and mimed a few chords into the fallen trees. I hope the beetles appreciated that. Or should that be The Beatles? Even getting lost in the woods on the way back didn't seem to matter. They had revolved, and up was down and down was up: that always happens when you get lost in the woods. 

Later, a work in progress track about puppets from my new album has been edited to fit the footage. I made a separate special track, but it was too late by then, and that track might end up being a different song.

Back in her plastic bag, Margaux lies atop the printer, next to the radio. Her little blue felt hat has a few twigs on it. The orange beetle that stopped off on the saw blade to check out whether it was edible or not has gone. It was a good day with a sense of purpose, spent in a beautiful place that it's so easy to forget about. This is such a lovely time of year: the sycamore leaves are huge and velvety, plants that will be enormous are small and excited about their potential, and if only the blue tits would stop eating the clematis buds and the pigeons would stop lining up on the bathroom roof to flap down to the bird feeder every time I'm not looking (it's their guilty eyes that are so annoying, pre-guilt before they do the Bad Thing like with children), life would be perfect, at least in the tiny sphere of home.

The album is almost ready for guest musicians, and I've started asking people. I've had two yesses and one no, and meanwhile I'm revving up for singing the lead vocals... I think at last the hay fever is leaving my lungs and heading back to the fields.

Ideas keep arriving in the middle of the night, which is annoying (why don't they arrive in daytime?), but better then than never, I suppose. I've spent this afternoon in the gloom, editing a guitar part so one of my guests doesn't realise what a crap guitarist I am. Don't tell him please! It's done now, took a lot of concentration but it's made a massive difference.

Oh Margaux! Didn't see you sitting there! Sorry about your finger: I'll make you a new one, and also a pet hen if you're very silent and very good.