November 16th

dark november days
more leaves on the ground than on the branches
larches like golden ghosts in the ever darkening landscape
silhouetted against a sky heavy with impending rain

I was wrong in my earlier belief that this part of the world being is more about yellow than red – or at least copper and gold – the fall colours continued to be ever more splendiferous, and for an extraordinarily long time – it’s been an epic autumn, I think partly because with all the summer rain the leaves had a really good grip! but we are now headed into the skeletal season, with brown black and grey the predominant colours… only a month to the winter solstice…

Last night was first rehearsal for the St. Matthew Passion, which the Barnard Castle Choral society are going to sing in Durham Cathedral on March 16th – now that’s worth showing up to practice for…

The late-breaking bad news is that doug’s storage in the east village was flooded, and all our master tapes (kamikaze, wau-wa) got soaked, as well as much of doug’s archives, and all my road cases – I’d forgotten I’d put a lot of stuff there in the big clear-out. doug rescued what he could and is slowly drying out the tapes – friends have taken the road cases and keyboards and have packed them with 50 lbs of rice to try and dry them out – new yorkers, true grit…