after the rain ....

I've been dodging the showers today trying to get the clothes dry ... nothing can beat the smell of clothes dried outside on the line ...  Everything is so green after the rain ... 

Yesterday was not a great day ... hearing that pains are here to stay ... learn to live with it.... scared .... not ready to find out how this is going to develop ......... focussing on the good things

So  the washing ...
and the grass that smells great after the showers ..
and the mountain that looks like it's washed clean after a downpour
and the smell of seaweed at low tide ...
and this new community I'm starting to meet ...
and the fuschia that just love the rain and dance with joy in the drops .... little ballerinas ....

Who said you couldn't sing?

I've just come back in from a walk in the mountains - our visitors haven't left yet after the Festival and it sort of feels like I'm on holiday still and it's very hard to sit down and do some constructive work!!  A blog feels a bit half and half - work and holiday:) 


People ask me regularly can they learn to sing cos somebody told them they couldn't sing .... and I thought that would be a good subject for today's blogalong...


Everyone can sing ... if you can talk you can sing!  
And you already know how to do it ... but sometimes we all need a bit of coaxing to trust what we can do...

Who said you couldn't sing?!

Was it a teacher?  or a relation? or a friend? who said that you should keep quiet and stand at the back and just mouth the words? .... what abuse!

I recently had a student who was told when she was very small that she couldn't sing  - she's now retired.  So she kept joining in, wanting to sing, but always felt that people were laughing at her and saying she wasn't brilliant...or so she felt.     After her initial nervousness and doubt about coming to class, we discovered a lovely sweet voice in there... totally in tune and with  a perfect sense of time - not a big voice, but lovely all the same.  What a waste! ... all those years of believing she couldn't do something she loved so much.  

Let me repeat this ....

"Everyone can sing ... if you can talk you can sing!"  

I feel like I need to shout that!

Now the big problem is, if we can't sing like Pavarotti or Streisand or Ella or whomever our ideal voice is, then we think we can't sing at all .... 

Total rubbish!!  

The thing is ... you can never sound like one of them because our voices are totally unique - there can only be one Pavarotti or Streisand or Ella, just like there can only be one you.   But you can still sing!


I believe that we have a physical need to sing - just see how much your spirits lift after singing to yourself in the shower or the car.  

So, if you've always wanted to have a go, just get on with it and practice - sing more in the shower or in the car and perhaps find a community choir or a teacher near you - someone who will encourage you and guide you.  And your voice will get stronger every day.   

Blogalong with Effy Day 2

Fiddlers Green Festival 2013

Day 1 of joining Effy's Blogalong (see yesterday's post) - and since I haven't figured out how to link this blog to my website yet, I'm reposting this at my home page blog part thingy!!

Taking part in a well known festival in your home village is a special honour .... here are some of my memories of a beautiful week in Rostrevor - where the Mountains of Mourne run down to the sea...

Setting the scene at Fiddlers Green .... about 700 feet up the mountain in a meadow called Fiddlers Green - sailors' heaven ... 200+ people walked up with picnics, instruments, childrens' push chairs, blankets and excitement ...

....

....and took part in a concert....

Baking bread and telling stories with Breezy Kelly

The stage all set for brilliant music - traditional tunes at their best ..
















Spoken Dance at the Music of Healing .... absolutely breathtaking ...

Our own concert in An Cuan

The week started out sunny and ended in a thunderstorm further up the mountain ... with a glass of whisky to toast the occasion - we were all like 'drownded rats' as they'd say around these parts ...

Haven't laughed so much in years though .... it felt like being a child again, standing out in the rain ...

 And the view was worth it ....

Afterwards it looks pretty innocent ... with clouds steaming off the Cooley Mountains across the water.

All in all a fun week with great friends, great music and great craic...   See you next year :)

Now it's time to get back to work and get some new songs ready for the next venture.

30 day Blogalong challenge

In an effort to try and get myself blogging more often I've signed up to Effy Wild's Blogalong Challenge - to do a blog a day for 30 days. for the month of August!    Tall order, considering I've been doing about 10 a year in the past while, but here goes .... nothing ventured nothing gained.   Thank you Effy for the push !!

I've even been slow on my journalling this summer what with the wonderful weather we've been having plus Fiddlers Green Festival as a legitimate distraction (as opposed to all the illegitimate ones that my goldfish brain keeps falling prey too).  It would be brilliant to get more focussed on my writing again and I'm hoping that this will help a bit.  

So, we're starting tomorrow.  

Dreaming

I wrote this song back in 1994 in the middle of a tour in Germany and before the ceasefires here at home.

Things were very bad at home .... Everytime Tom and I headed away on a tour we both had been feeling that we didn't want to go back again.   But at the same time while we were away I was incredibly homesick.   We were staying in a part of East Germany where nobody spoke any English and while I loved the place I still couldn't settle.   Every morning I woke up feeling a compulsion to get back to Ireland as quickly as possible.


One night I dreamed a very vivid dream and our host suggested I write it down into a song ... The first 5 lines are exactly what I dreamt.

"I saw the devil, he was running after me
Past the Madonna who was happy just to be
In a room that was falling around her with thunder
That was coming from the floor not above as it should be
But when i turned around the door I'd just come running through was gone
And I awoke to find myself in the middle of this song
I'd been dreaming"

On the following two nights I had more dreams - I was very taken by the strength of the East German people who had stood up for themselves and brought about the collapse of the Wall.

Then I saw the women from the Eastern world come walking
'cross the desert from their homeland in the search for something better
And my answers to their questions didn't measure to their strength
And someone murdered someone and the money'd all been spent
And the cause they'd all been working for got swallowed in the greed
And I thought about these women and their struggle to be free
While I'd been dreaming.

  Only dreaming, I'd been dreaming

  Dreaming, only dreaming

  And I thought about these women and their struggle to be free

  While I'd been dreaming.

After all - at home we were all just the same, worshipping different named Gods but otherwise the same.

Then I saw a building with three women in the scene

One threw a bomb and the second one she screamed

As she pulled through the broken body of her child from the chaos

To the third dressed in green in the uniform of order

And as I calmly watched I suddenly could see

That they all looked the same and they all looked like me

But I'd been dreaming

  Chorus:

  Only dreaming, I'd been dreaming

  Dreaming, only dreaming

  And as I calmly watched I suddenly could see

  That they all looked the same and they all looked like me

  But I'd been dreaming

I didn't feel we were able to speak out at home and was feeling the effects of living under the stress of constant fear for so many years.   

Well do you wonder what it means?

All these pictures in my dreams

All the yearning and the fears

And all the terror and the screams

Well I can still feel the devil round the corner of my memory

And he's waiting for a woman who won't stand up and be counted

And I'm sure there's others like me

Afraid to have their say

Simply sitting back and hoping that it all will be ok

But that's just dreaming.

  We're just dreaming, only dreaming

  Dreaming, only dreaming

  And I'm sure there's others like me

  Afraid to have their say

  Simply sitting back and hoping that it all will be ok

  But that's just dreaming.

Spiced Granola

I found this lovely recipe for a spicy granola adapted from Good Housekeeping

Wonderful sprinkled over yoghurt, or as a breakfast cereal.

Makes about 1 3/4 lbs

Preheat oven to 160°C (140°C fan), mark 4.

In a large bowl, mix together
1lb rolled oats (I use jumbo oats)
3 oz nuts roughly chopped (or any other nuts available)
3 oz pumpkin seeds (today I used a mix of pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds)
3 1/2 oz dried fruit
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

In a separate pan, heat gently for about 30 sec, until very liquid
4 oz runny honey
2 fl oz vegetable oil

Stir in
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Pour over the oat mixture and mix thoroughly.

Divide the mixture between two large baking trays and spread out evenly.   Bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring once, until golden and toasted.   Leave to cool completely before bagging or storing in an airtight container for up to 3 months (if it lasts that long!  - In our house it lasts about a week).

I use whatever fruit, nuts and seeds that I have available and sometimes mix it with shop bought granola to stretch it out a bit.

A walk in the Mournes ...

It was so beautiful here on the last Sunday of June - we headed up into the Mournes at the Bloody Bridge - walking away from the sea for a change... 

 

Lots of foxgloves peeping out of the ferns - they look like wee fairies coming up to see what was going on  

Looking down to the Irish Sea - it was so clear we could just about see the Isle of Man in the distance

The colours in the rock pools were so clear...

I love the shadows ... this was on the bridge that Tom was standing at earlier ..Knew I had long legs in some part of my life!!!

 and back down again .... next time we'll get up to the Mourne Wall ...