A new year

2009 was the best year of my life. In many ways, in feels like it was the first year of my life. My son was born. I moved my family to start a new life in the country. It certainly marked the start of a new phase in our lives.

The only sadness came with the death of Grandad Bee in August. I’m planning to write something to commemorate his life.  Hopefully I’ll get onto that in 2010.

I guess because of Wilfred’s birth and Grandad’s passing, 2009 was the year that brought into focus all that is important. So I suddenly lost interest in reading the papers, in national news or global matters. These things felt beyond my world.

I now have new ways to pass the time: watching my son grow, feeding the birds, chopping wood, reading books, painting windows, walking in the fields. These things make me happier than ever.

In 2010 I’m going to watch the garden grow – before deciding what grand plans we have for it – I’m going to try to catch a fish in the River Beult or in Bewl Water, I’m going to explore Kent and East Sussex with May and Wilfred. Most importantly I’m going to spend time with friends and family and as soon as it’s barbecue weather we’re going to relocate from the kitchen to to the garden.

Wishing everyone a prosperous and healthy 2010!

Winter Wonderland

The snow came to Kent last week and stayed, creating a winter wonderland all around us. Can’t even get into the office.

Astonishingly, Andy, Tom and Pete managed to complete a long-planned cycle trip from London at the weekend. Well, I say complete, in Pete’s case he got within 10 miles and then holed up in the nearest boozer to defrost. We had to go fetch him in the car in -7 degrees cold. The roads are strewn with cars that have skidded off the edges.

So we’re holed up in the house in Chainhurst. We have been out for some gorgeous walks though.

This was Wilfie’s first sight of snow, and his first Christmas of course.

We walked down the River Beult, which was cold and serene.

Here’s Andy and Tom with me and Wilfie.

And here some of the local oasts in the snow.

Looks like there’s more snow to come today. Chance of a white Christmas!

Snow Patrol at the Royal Albert Hall

I think Snow Patrol is one of those bands you’re not supposed to like. Or rather, you’re not supposed to admit it in serious muso company.

I like Snow Patrol.

I like especially their album Eyes Open and also the song Run from Final Straw. (Ranny if you’re reading this I’m sure you’ll second that.)

Last night they played for nearly three hours at the Albert Hall. I was there with my brother-in-law Dave. The band had clearly been planning it for weeks, maybe even years, and were made up to be realising a dream.

The first half was a quiet, slowed-down, semi-acoustic set; the second half loud, with the full band. A bit like Dylan’s circa 1966 gigs, without the booing. The only problem was, there’s not a lot going on in a Snow Patrol song and, if you slow it down too much, it almost sounds like it was grinding to a halt.

The setting was great. The band fantastic. They’d borrowed Elbow’s string section and did a very good cover of One Day Like This.

Gary Lightbody is a good frontman, funny and engaging. He talked a lot and had the audience in his pocket from the moment he started giving out free hugs.

One other thing. Apparently Snow Patrol is the last band ever to appear on Top of the Pops.

Wilfred’s christening

Wilfred was baptised on Sunday at St Mary’s Church in Goudhurst, where May and I were married in 2005.

He made us all very proud. He looked beautiful in his silk gown, a family heirloom that May was also baptised in. And he behaved impeccably throughout the hour-long service, which was part of the Sunday Communion. Indeed I think he rather enjoyed being the centre of attention.

We then had our family and Godparents back to our new house for lunch consisting of cassoulet (a revelation!), chocolate cake courtesy of my sister Wendy and cheese courtesy of Cropwell Bishop stilton.

To wash it down we had magnums of Louis Roederer champagne and lashings of Berry Brother’s Extra Ordinary Claret. A very fine weekend all round.

Some pictures. Here we are in the church.

Me talking to the vicar at St Mary’s, the Reverend Bill Hornsby.

And here’s the whole family outside the church.

This is what we’ve been waiting for…

Bob Dylan’s new video to “Must Be Santa”,  seen here on You Tube.

I’m lost for words.

This is the soundtrack to Christmas!

We’ve moved

After a stressful few weeks we’ve rescued our house purchase from the brink of collapse and we’ve now moved out of London to a new house in Chainhurst in Kent.

For now we have no broadband, no landline and no mobile phone reception. Aah country life! It’s bliss: you never talk to anyone.

If the truth be told, May, Wilfred are only just starting to adjust to our new life. But the house is in decent order already thanks to lots of help from Bob and Rita over the weekend to unpack some boxes and get a couple of pictures on the walls.

We now look forward to Wilfred’s baptism on Sunday 15 November and welcoming our close family and godparents to join us at our new house.

Then, in no particular order, I need to chop down the hedges, paint the shed, paint the entire house, lay a new lawn, build a tree house and teach Wilfred to fish in the River Beult, which is a short walk out the back of the house.

So that should keep me busy for the next ten years. Can’t wait!

 

Wildlife photograph of the year

Isn’t this amazing? It’s the winner of this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

A guy called Jose Luis Rodriguez took it. It’s an Iberian wolf, hunting in northern Spain.

I’ve been to the exhibition of the wildlife photographs, at the Natural History Museum, each year for the past six or seven years. There are always some spectacular images.

No Age at the Scala

First, the names: No Age – from Los Angeles – is Randy Randall (guitar) and Dean Allen Spunt (drums and vocals). Spunt?

Second, a confession: Andy and I watched the whole of the support act thinking that they were in fact No Age and wondering a) why they weren’t very good b) why no-one else seemed to think they were any good and c) why their songs didn’t sound like any of the No Age songs we had heard.

Inexcusable.

I can’t even offer an explanation other than old age. Maybe that it was getting a bit late for a support act to come on stage (again, see “age” excuse).

When No Age did come on stage at 10:30pm the mostly teen and student crowd went ballistic. We definitely had the right band now. It’s a while since I’ve seen such a frenzied pocket of dancing, crowd-surfing, stage-diving and security-guy-baiting.

No Age songs are fast, loud and short.

I think it was their first gig on a UK tour. They looked like they enjoyed themselves and they must have been made up with the reception they got.

Pixies at Brixton Academy

 

The Pixies are one of those bands that will make me feel forever seventeen. Like Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. 

I saw them at their first reunion gig at Brixton in June 2004. Probably the best show I’ve even been to, and certainly the only time I’ve seen three encores. The crowd just wouldn’t let them leave that night. I think there was a genuine feeling that this might be the one and only time we got to see them.

So here we were, five years later, back at Brixton, to see the second gig of the four-night “Doolittle residency”. It could never live up to the 2004 night.

I turned up late. I had been on a wine course at Berry Brothers & Rudd. Last night we were learning about the Gamay, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Zinfandel grapes. I had to taste ten different wines, accompanied by cheese and biscuits, cured duck with the Pinot Noir, and chocolate with the Syrah.

(They revealed the wines we were tasting at the end of the session. By far my favourite was by far the most expensive: the 2004 Nuits-St Georges, Clos des Argillieres, 1er Cru Burgundy. So at least I have good taste.)

The Pixies were running through their Doolittle B-sides when I got there, just in time to grab a Guinness and get in there for Debaser, the first track from the album, when it really kicked off. They ran through Doolittle in order before coming back for an encore of greatest hits.

It was great. Not great like 2004, but just great to hear the Pixies sound as fresh as they did when I was seventeen.

Fun in the Bentley

Family friends Bob and Paula popped round at the weekend in their Bentley. Not just any old Bentley, as you can see. A replica of the Bentley that won le Mans in the 1920s. They were on the way to Burgundy to meet a couple of Lagonda drivers and … err … enjoy living the good life I imagine.

Here’s Holly and Ross at the wheel.

Bob actually drives this thing – it doesn’t sit in the garage being polished. He’s been round eastern Europe and to India in it!

And me, May and Wilfie. Bob was good enough to drive May to the church in the Bentley, on our wedding day four years ago. That turned a few heads.

You can see Wilfie’s got the taste for driving fabulous retro cars.

And here are Bob and Paula as we wish them on their way to France.