Cat Scratch Fever

We've got a new kitten!













Lovely isn't she? We haven't named her yet, as we're not sure of "her" gender.

I'm still working on my latest piece of music, based around the diary I kept of our Dorset holiday. I've now done 4 "days", so I'm over halfway through, and I'm very pleased with the progress. However, I don't want to post any clips until I've finished the whole thing.

For the first itme in a year, I've put up a "Noise of the Month" on NoiseWeb. It's an edit of a half hour long piece by 230 Divisadero. Great stuff, and it's well worth checking out their myspace site:

230 Divisadero on MySpace

In the garden things are fading past their best as the autumn approaches, but the Ladybird poppies that I got the seeds for from the Chelsea flower show are still putting on a splendid display:

Holidays in the Sun

We've just got back from short holiday in Dorset, and very lovely it was too. We weren't expecting good weather, as the forecasts had been poor, but it wasn't too bad in the end. In fact it only really rained one morning, and I wanted a lie-in anyway. The rest of the time it was pretty sunny and warm. We even managed two days on the beach.

We went on a few wonderful walks to find ancient sites. We walked to the Grey Mare and her Colts, and then on to Kingston Russell stone circle, both of which were gorgeous.















We also revisited the Nine Stones of Winterbourne Abbas, which we had first been to a few years ago. After that we walked from the Hardy Memorial to the Hellstone dolmen.















I love Dorset, and I always feel very at home there. We had an amazing cottage this year - Star Cottage in Netherbury. It is next door to what used to be the Star Inn, now converted into a very lovely house. The river Brit runs down the end of the garden of the cottage. We saw a kingfisher there, and were regularly visited by a very tame and friendly robin, who sat on the backs of our chairs!














We packed a lot in to a few days, including climbing Golden Cap (amazing views) and going fossil hunting in Lyme Regis. Lyme Regis is a favourite of mine, and I want to return there soon to spend a couple more days looking for fossils.

I spent much of my time in the evenings writing lyrics - or at least when I wasn't cooking up culinary delights! As a consequence I am now trying to compose a song cycle based around the holiday. I'll let you know how it progresses.