Cov, Northants and Brum

The day before yesterday was insane. I keep thinking the insanity is nearly over and then something else crops up. I'm getting increasingly shocked by the sound of my alarm clock in the mornings, which surely means it's time to stop for a few days. I have also weighed myself. Enough said. If I don't go on an immediate health and fitness drive, I'm going to have to start looking for upholstery instead of clothes!

The day started at shit o'clock with young Josh upstairs in our loft. He'd come to see us the night before, for a relaxing and joyous evening of telly, chatter and food. He hadn't emerged by the time I left the house, so I called a fond farewell to him from the bottom of the ladder and jumped in the car.

I was heading to the music school in Northampton, where I was listening to the Youth Choir in their first rehearsal on the Nene composition. I realised yesterday that going back to that place is a bit like going home. The place still buzzes with expectation and excitement and everyone always seems so pleased to see me. I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the common room. Teenaged memories flooded my mind. I remembered, for instance, Sam Becker telling me he couldn't eat a Mars bar because it played havoc with his brace and that clarinettists shouldn't eat chocolate before playing. Quite why this conversation has stuck in my mind for almost thirty years I'm not sure. As I drank my tea, I could hear little stubs of my melodies from Nene emerging from the Upper Hall and floating along the corridors. I wondered whether my younger self would have been proud of the man I've become.

Anna and Rachel, both former students from my time and now people who work in the building, found me making a second cup of tea in the kitchen, and we put the world to rights, talking, amongst other things, about the extraordinary sixth form A-level music courses in Grendon in the early 90s, and the tendency for kids from Northamptonshire to be rather lacking confidence these days. 

It was great to hear the young people singing. I was actually a founder member of the Northamptonshire Youth Choir and the Upper Hall is exactly where we used to rehearse. I had a little moment when I introduced them to the concept of heterophony, and realised that I was in exactly the same space, where, 26 years ago, composer, James MacMillan, visiting the music school to run a composing workshop, had introduced me to the same concept. The passing on of knowledge...We had lunch in a lovely little cafe which is attached to a giant vintage warehouse down towards the Nene between Jimmy's End and the train station. Whilst waiting for food, Rachel took me into a corner of the shop to show me a load of lamps which had been made out of all sorts of quirky objects including bowling balls, pairs of skates, tea pots and bizarre kitchen utensils. I'm afraid I fell in love with a lamp which had been made out of an old euphonium and I instantly knew I had to buy it.

There were more workshops in the afternoon, and then it was time for me to drive to Sutton Coldfield where I was due to run a quiz.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was warm and the Midlands was bathed in glorious sunlight. I decided to take a detour to Stoneleigh to say a very quick hello to my Grandparents in the graveyard of the church. The sun by then was very low in the sky, casting long shadows across the village and making the orange stones of the church glow copper.

I had a quick walk through the meadow before jumping into the car again to The Belfry, which is where the quiz was being held. It's a fairly soulless golfer's paradise, which I'm sure many of my friends who do corporate work will know like the backs of their hands. This is actually the third quiz I've been involved in at this particular location. As I set up my computer it had a major crash and all the film clips I was due to use vanished in a puff of smoke. There was a bit of a panic as I tried to get a sense of what on earth was going on. My default is always to panic with matters relating to technology. I'm not one of life's natural problem solvers in this field, and to make matters considerably worse, I didn't have any reception on my phone.

Fortunately I was being "assisted" by Lesley, the big boss of the company, who appeared in a blaze of calmness and instantly found a way around the problem. Even she was confused as to how the system had become so corrupted and couldn't quite manage to get everything back with all the correct thumb nails showing me what clips actually were. I genuinely think I have a bad influence on all technology. I think there's some sort of static electricity within my body which destroys machines. How many times have I sat down in an edit or a recording studio and heard the person I'm working with say, "well THIS has never happened before..."?

Anyway, the quiz went well. I had a few little errors with sound and things but by and large I felt pretty relaxed about things. Lucky, really, in front of the big boss!

The journey home was long. It was 2.30am before I was in bed.