How life in a small country town turns out to be BUSY!

Yes...I know...It's been quite a while.  But I promise you, I haven't been lounging around in my PJs and ugg boots in front of the fire all winter (just some of it).  I've been BUSY!

Big things are happening.  Firstly, there's this...probably the biggest.

We have bought a small slice of paradise, two and a half acres to be exact, and are now in the midst of getting shed quotes, fencing (pulling out old and putting in new), water tank arrangements, and house designs, and all that goes with building from scratch on a blank canvas.  Not something we've done before, so it's all a bit scary.  But exciting.  At this stage, we're planning on a strawbale/mudbrick combination, but nothing is settled.  It's going to be a BIG couple of years.

Then there was more music as a student at Tech, more gigs, even some recording.  I even got to play a shiny black electric guitar and pretend to be a rock chick for about 5 minutes (though, sadly, I think those days are long past for me really!).  

And for the last few months, I have been busy making a book.  A book of maps, though not ordinary maps.  More maps of the mind, of the imagination, maps of thoughts.  As part of the 'Brave New Works' arts festival held here in Denmark every year, an exhibition titled 'Everything is a Map' was held, and so, silly me, I decided to create a book of maps.  I didn't realise quite how much it would take over my life, and for the last couple of weeks I've done not much other than live, breathe and (not) sleep maps.  Indeed, I didn't actually sleep at all the night before it had to be handed in, which was actually a week and a half AFTER the deadline, but thankfully, I was granted a special dispensation and allowed to let that pass by, and I scribbled the last few words on the last page before rushing into town to drop it off as the exhibition was being set up, to open the following day.  Yes, just a little tight! So tight in fact, that I didn't have time to take any photos.  So I have a few 'teaser' pics that I took of some of the first pages, but I promise to post photos of the whole book when the exhibition is over and the book comes home.  But, PHEW! what a job!

There were also walks along the glorious beach at Greens Pool, looking for maps in rock and sand and sea, as the sun sank down in the west, and where, it seems, 'X' may actually mark the spot.

As part of my music assessment, and as an extra submission for the map project, I recorded a song version of a poem I had written a few years ago.  My friend and fellow student played lovely cello.

And last but not least, as I remembered that today is Remembrance Day, I have posted a song I wrote about my own Granddad's experiences in the Great War, and my feelings when I visited the battlefields in Belgium where he fought.  It took me quite a few goes when I first recorded this, to get through it without having a bit of a blub, so it is very rough (I will try and record it again when I have time).  But I managed to sing it at a Spirit of Peace community event held in town last weekend, and my mum was in the audience to hear it.  And I didn't cry.  It's called 'Passchendaele.'