Brunch and daffodils

I received another wonderful email from Australia in the midst of the UKIP mayhem yesterday, which I found deeply moving. "Dear Ben, I watched "our gay wedding" here in Australia this week. Many thanks for sharing that part of your lives. It was an education for me..truly…and changed my views…to better ones. The basis of all human rights is ultimately love…and you demonstrated this wonderfully. So thank you. My best wishes to you and Nathan... people who point you towards a better view of truth/kindness are ultimately good friends… May you both be well and happy..live in peace and concord."

It is profoundly moving to know that our love has been partially responsible for an epiphany of this nature. The thought almost blows my mind, in fact. More excitingly there seems to be a growing number of people in Oz who are referencing our wedding whilst calling for equal marriage in Australia.

I cast my mind back a year to a time when we thought by doing the project we ran the risk of becoming national laughing stocks. I am so relieved that we were brave enough to do it.  A year on, we've been nominated for five major awards and moved many people in a country ten thousand miles away. Seems astonishing I'm out of work!!

Philippa sent me an early morning text this morning. I must have been awake when it arrived, because I heard the phone gently vibrating. I answered the text and got out of bed to go to the loo. When I got back in, Nathan was as warm as toast, and it struck me that there's actually very little that is more wonderful than the feeling of getting back into bed for a snuggle with a toasty warm partner!

I had brunch with Llio in Muswell Hill. I haven't seen her for a while, and she was looking fabulous. Rob Viola walked past the cafe, waved, and popped his head in, apparently just to say how cool Llio's hair looked! He was absolutely right of course: it's pillar box red and glows in sunlight. On a beautiful warm spring day like today, it glows big time! We spent our brunch buoying each other up. Both of us are writing and recording music in an era where no one seems to want to buy recorded music, so a lot of mutual support is required!

I walked back to Highgate through the woods which were full of silly, happy, bounding dogs and thronging with the sound of birdsong! The first daffodils are up as well.

From Highgate, I went to Kentish Town to rehearse the Fleet Singers. We made our way slowly, but surely through about half of the piece, and bits of it are beginning to sound really rather lovely.

There was a glorious sunset as I drove back to Highgate. As I walked up the steps to the front door of the flat, an aeroplane passed over, high in the sky. It was glowing blood red and was a curiously beautiful sight.

We heard this year's UK entry for Eurovision this evening, which is a fusion of Charleston music and trip hop. It's very Will i Am, and I rather like its vibe. I'm told the Eurovision fans are less convinced. I guess it all depends how well the performers perform the song live. I was horrified that the BBC didn't opt to unveil it on terrestrial telly. You had to press the red button for the big reveal (hopelessly inauspicious.) I was also horrified that they opted to interview the performers rather than the song writers. It is, after all, the Eurovision Song Contest. A contest for songs, not singers!