Day 24

It was a house. Of sorts. A small cabin, really. Alone with blackness all around. Fin knocked on the door with his mittened hand.

A man, an old man, thinner than paper and as fragile, answered.

Day 23

Walking in snow-shoes was harder than it looked on television, but Fin got it after a few steps and falls. When the car had first died, he had tried Fiona on his mobile phone. Fiona first, he thought, then authorities of some sort. But his phone didn't get reception here. So he was walking. There was a patch of sky to the North that looked a bit lighter than the rest. He was following that. To a town, maybe, or house, at least.

Day 22

You could rent snowshoes at the airport. Right there at the airport! He rented them along with the two-door toyota without considering that he didn't actually know how to walk in snow-shoes.

He drove through the night, north and north, until the darkness told him nothing of what time it was. Then, about eleven hours and a hundred dollars of gas later, on an otherwise empty road with snow in fields of drifts on either side, his car began to slow down without him telling it to. It slowed and slowed and then stopped. Fin didn't know much about cars, but he knew they shouldn't do that.

Day 21

The customs card asked what kind of trip he was on. There was a box for business, one for pleasure and one for study. There wasn't any box for I'm-not-entirely-sure. He ticked pleasure and handed it to the customs guard. She was wearing a Santa hat.

Day 20

(ANOTHER GUEST STAR EDITION! STARRING GUEST STAR HARRY 'the man' MAN)

He walked down the long grey tunnel toward the plane. As the small lights went by, he remembered the science centre from his childhood. He remembered the sound of his father's voice outside the tube, apparently everywhere, calling for Fin, Fin, Fin, and Fin running from one source of the noise to the next.

Now there was no voice, except for the wind, the low long atonal engines, and their high whine. He was welcomed on board, and the low sounds left and old women stood up, stowing their hats, slowing the queues of younger folk and rucksacks.

Day 19

A winter wedding. Years passed, they dated and split and left and reunited, but one thing was always constant for Fin, it had to be a winter wedding. And, ten years later, it was.

Now they had daughters, and it was two weeks until their anniversary, just a few days until Christmas, and just a few days after Fin's mother's passing. 'Yes,' said Fin, after they had put the girls to bed. 'Yes, I have to go.' He was packing while they spoke.

Day 18

Because nobody told him not to, Fin got in the van with the rest, and rode back to Selema's.

They were all sat in the living room, brothers and dog and father and Selema, sitting, chatting as if it were a normal Sunday afternoon, not a Thursday at 3am. The carpet was the colour of new peas. Fin concentrated on it while he waited to be noticed. After a few minutes, two women, one older, one younger, came in from upstairs. Selema's mother went straight to her daughter, hugging scolding her at the same time. The other woman, the younger one, noticed Fin, and went to him. 'You're not one of my brothers,' she said.

This was the point at which Fin realized he had been focusing on the wrong sister.

Day 17

Selema didn't put up much of a fight. Just sighed and said, 'oh, alright. Fine.' They marched her, the brothers and father a small army unto themselves, towards where they had parked their seven-seater family van. Fin didn't know what to do. He didn't want to stay in the doorway alone for the rest of the night, but he couldn't go home until at least tomorrow, so he followed the pack, a few steps behind, with the dog.

Day 16 (Sorry it's late)

This time they ignored Fin, mostly, and focused on Selema. One of the new ones, in an orange polo-neck shook her shoulder gently. 'Wake up,' he said. 'We're all here. Danny, Barney, Rueben, me and Dad.' Another one, the oldest, probably Dad, said, 'that's enough of this, Selema. It's time to come home.'

Day 15

An hour took ages to pass. Two hundred and fifteen cars, and Fin's ribs and appendix throbbing with every breath. Just go home, they said, but he didn't. He told Selema he had run away. For one night, at least.

And then, just before car two hundred and sixteen, Danny was back with one, two, three, four other men. All big, all looking at him.

Day 14

'Oh my God,' said Fin. This wasn't as much like camping as he had expected. 'Who was that? Why, why was that?' Selema was already back lying down. 'Don't worry about it,' she said. Her eyes were closed. 'That's just my brother Danny. One of my brothers. I've got four. They take turns checking up on me. Every night another one. In rotation.'

'They don't mind?'

'Mmm. Don't know.' And then she sighed a bit and pretended to sleep until she was really sleeping. Fin didn't sleep. He stayed awake, watching cars pass and waiting for Barney.

Day 13

'Get off, get off!' said the man. From Fin's point of view, on the parka on the step, he was huge. The man kicked him again, this time lower down, near where Fin thought his appendix might be. Imagine if it ruptured, here, on the street. 'Aw, lay off, Danny,' this was Selema. She was awake now too, waving her arm drowsily at the man, Danny. 'He's from school. He's harmless. Carries a thermos.' Danny grunted, looking at Fin, not Selema. 'I'll be back in a couple hours,' he said, 'and I just might bring Barney, so there'd better not be...trouble.'

Day 12

'I've run away too,' said Fin. 'I've brought us some buns and oranges and soup, it's just in one thermos though, so we'll have to share the cup.' Selema was sitting, with the dog, on a what looked like a man's parka, old and flattened. She was in the same storefront. 'Thanks,' she said. 'I'm glad you're not like the rest of them.' She took an orange and began peeling. The dog watched. (Fin thought of Rupert, at home with his mother.) 'You can stay here tonight if you want,' she continued, pushing the dog away with her non-orangey hand.

The night was warm, and the traffic noise easy to get used to. Selema fell asleep right after she finished eating. Fin watched her and the street for a while, then slept too. He slept remarkably well until some time, some number of hours later, when he was awakened by a kick to his stomach.

Day 11

He had left his mother a note, beside the stove,

Dear mom,

I'm really sorry, I've had to run away for a bit. Don't worry, it's not because of you or my life. I'm really quite happy. I'll pop by tomorrow round dinner time (I brought some food for tonight). x Fin

Day 10

When he was sixteen, Fin had fallen desperately in love with a girl with pink hair, black boots, and a wonderful, terrible, deep mind. They had been in the same class until she dropped out and ran away. Fin ran into her one day downtown, she was sat in the doorway of a boarded up shop. She had a dog at her feet. "Selema!" said Fin, "I thought you'd moved out of town, or something. Some people at school think you're dead." "As far as they're concerned, I am," she said, "and as far as I'm concerned they are." Fin thought about this. He tried to look pensive. "Are you okay?" he said. "Would you ask an animal if they were okay?" she replied.

Fin fell in love about then. He waited until the school summer break and then ran away from home himself.

Day 9

At home, his daughters were chasing each other around. The elder was wearing oven mitts; she waved them threateningly. Still dressed in black, they were too young to hold onto sorrow for long. The coloured lights they had strung around and around the tree shone on them, a blue girl, then a green one, then a red one. "Do you really have to go next week?" asked Fiona. "On the day, on that day? Do you really have to go?"

Day 8

The cookies were from his mother. Fin had received them in the mail two days ago, for his birthday, today. His mother would have made them some time last week. Some time before the heart attack. Fin had brought them with him to the funeral, tucked in the inner pocket of his heavy coat, just there, against his shirt against his skin. The car was empty, Fiona and the girls had gone home hours before.

Day 7

(Today's installment will be provided by SPECIAL GUEST STAR WRITER Harry Man. I don't know what he's gonna do. I can't be held responsible).

Fin made wonky stars. His mother picked up each one and placed them on the tin foil, and licked her fingers and dunked her hands in the warm soapy water of the sink. Fin wanted to do the same but he couldn't reach. (He was also still holding a star). Three o'clock came and the oven filled the kitchen and made both their cheeks go red. It made Rupert fall fast asleep.

So here he was, the wind burning like the oven opened and the cookies were ready, only now he was outside, in the cold, waiting for the hearse bearing his mother to pull away first, before opening the door to his cold car.

Day 6

Fin thought. And then he remembered, and then he was excited. "How many days?" he asked. "Six days and one night," said his mother, "and then Father Christmas comes." "No, not him, Santa." "That's another name for him," "Father Christmas?" "Father Christmas." "Father," repeated Fin under his breath. "Father Christmas, Father," quietly, punching out stars.

Day 5

Sometimes Fin and his mother made potato balls at the counter, sometimes they made other things. One day they were making cookies, cutting rolled batter into either star or tree shapes. "We should always make cookies," said Fin. He had the star cutter and was trying to fit as many as he could onto his batter without cutting off any tips. "Cookies are for special occasions," said his mother, "to make them even more special." "What special occasion are these for?" asked Fin. Rupert was by their feet, watching, waiting for drops or spills. "You know," said Fin's mother. "Think about it a little; you know what the occasion is."

Day 4

Fin's mother was tall and nice and had lovely black hair. She didn't often get angry or sad. She would let Fin push a chair to the counter while she prepared dinner so he could watch. "Like this," she said, pressing a soft, white ball of potato, "so that it becomes flat." Fin pressed his own potato ball too hard and most of it fell off the counter. "Try again," said his mother, and the next one was perfect.

Day 3

When he was five, Fin got a labrador puppy and lost his father. Each day, after school, his father was there, until one day, after school, he wasn't, but the dog was. Fin named the dog Rupert. Every day after school they waited for two hours together on the front steps for Fin's father to come home. After a month Fin's mother sighed and said, 'The neighbors,' and made them move around the house and wait at the back.

Day 2

Forty-five years before this, to the day, when Fin was born, it was much warmer. His mother looked at him, red in the nurse's arms, and noticed the how the sun shining in from the winter looked like it was shining just for Fin, just to surround him. That was when they lived in the South. And Fin's father was there too. Smiling in shorts.

Advent story Part 1

Fin stepped out his car and took three steps. The snow was past his ankles, it seeped through his socks and burnt. It was dark out (though that didn't mean much at the time of year, it was always dark out), it was late. He walked back to the car to make sure it was locked. It was. To make sure the lights were off. They were. Then he walked away again, this time more than three steps, this time he kept going.

The story behind Advent

Hello everyone. Don't we all love Christmas? Admit it, we do. And, really, even more than Christmas, don't we all love advent? The anticipation, the tension in the air, the calendars with the little doors...

Well, I do. I love it.

So, inspired by my brilliant writer friend Ros, here's what I'm going to do for you people, blog-readers: I'm going to give you an advent calendar. And advent calendar story. Every day, starting December first, (that's one week from today, ONE WEEK!) I'll give you another short installment. The story will culminate on December 24, with the end of advent (and start of Even More Fun).

Now. Don't go thinking I'm just going to chop some old story up and feed it to you in pieces. No way. I don't even know what I'm going to write about yet, actually; I'll make it up as I go along. And you can take part in the adventure!

Now isn't that festive?

Amadeus

My string quartet has an all-Mozart concert coming up as part of Bath's annual Mozart Festival. So, of course, we're practicing very hard.

Today we tried playing his Quartet in C major from upside-down sheet music. It was a promising Post-Modern attempt at a fresh angle on an old horse; however it didn't work out as all my 9-bar rests were, in fact, 6 bars, and our cellist started crying and convulsing with laughter.

Next rehearsal, we're going to try the more post-baroque angle of making it a race to the end of the piece, disqualification for missed notes.

Book friends, fondly.

Friday was a fine day.

Jeff and I had our book-launch/art opening at Latitude 53 Gallery and, despite much encroaching explicate nudity, what fun was had! Thanks to my so so many wonderful friends and family of every kind. It makes my heart and head fuzzy-in-a-good-way that you all came out to support us.

Oh, and if you didn't I still love you, probably, but you could maybe buy a copy of the book (available at the gallery and, interestingly, Leva, and, soon, your favorite independent bookshops 'round town) just to seal the deal.

It was great, Jeff was great, you are all great. Great.

Great.


x
xxxx

50% of The Cedar love Halloween.

You can never get enough.

The most tumultuous relationship I have, tumbling from want to need to obsession easily, even naturally, is the relationship I have with cereal.

Oh, cereal.

So fast! Instant gratification! So filling! All those carbs mixed with all that milky protein! So good. Just, so good.

I let so many important nutritional opportunities pass me by: slow-cooked stews, veggie lasagnas, five-green salads with home-made dressings, caught as I am in the wicked web of cereal.

I make plans, great plans for myself and my stomach, but then, well, I get hungry, really hungry, and cereal's right there for me, quick, easy, delicious.

One of these days I'll work up the courage to kick it out of my house, if not my life, at least for a week or so. But right now, I'm just so hungry....

Shooting the Sky

I really had nothing against Guy Fawkes before I moved to the UK. True, I found it a bit strange that there's a holiday for a guy who tried to blow up parliament, but, well, whatever; Halloween's pretty weird too, when you think about it. Not to mention groundhog day.

But now I'm less than impressed. Thanks a lot, Guy. Thanks to your political persuasions, there are gun-shots outside my flat, right across the street, every night

every night

for a bloody month a year. Starting now. Going until a month from now.

Or at least they sound like gun-shots. Which is what groups of overly-celebratory and underly-supervised kids setting off fireworks on a golf course sounds like. For the first few nights I'm terrified. Checking the window after every bang just to be sure there's no blood, no sirens. In a month's time there could be orchestrated machine-gun fire and I wouldn't notice.

Just saying:

1) it's annoying. It's 1am. My cat is terrified.

2) if you want to shoot someone, try this time of year, and don't bother with a silencer.

I'm a maybe not genius

So. I had a brilliant idea the other night. For the artwork on the Cedar's ever-so-close-to-ready next EP. See, I teach (approximately) a million children a week, and very often while I'm teaching them, their siblings are just sat there. Watching. Making noise. Drooling*.

So, why not put them to work?

The album sleeves we get are originally blank, white, and then you print whatever on them. What if I just kept a pile of them with a pile of crayons and had all these children draw whatever they wanted all over them? No two alike!

Brilliant?

Or, perhaps, as I've been thinking a bit more, recently, probably a really bad idea, and a bit too much like child labour for comfort?




*Dependant on age.

Oh, Tom the Toad. (aka Bub the Slug.)

My job (one of my jobs) requires me to cycle for about forty minutes down a thin little path to the university. Despite the rain, despite the early hour required, despite the large highway right next to it, this would be lovely, I think, except that it's Autumn in the UK. And Autumn in the UK is

slug season.

They're everywhere. Brown-grey. Green-yellow. Black-brown. Blue-white. Every colour, every kind of slugs. All over the bike path. This dampens the cycling experience twice over:

Firstly, because I can't help but agree a little bit with J. K. Rowling's in-Potter hypothesis that an important part of a person, a part of their soul or essence or humanness or whatever you want to call it, dies when they kill something else. Any kind of killing, be it bug, bee or slug, feels intrisically wrong and I don't like to do it.

Secondly, because of the sound. The sound of a slug being crushed by a bicycle tyre. First the gentle smoosh, then the louder-than-you'd-think pop as the outsides let the insides out. Over and over again, this sound. My getting-to-work soundtrack.

I'm looking forward to winter. (Although that means it's almost snail season....)

I could have a nobel prize by now.

I just read a news item stating that seven hours of sleep was the optimum amount. Stating it like everybody already knew that, that's just common sense.

But I thought it was eight.

I've been shooting for eight all along. If I had known I had an extra hour to work with, go for a run, do some research, write a chapter, learn a new instrument, I would have used it!

Damn.

Is this true?! Seven hours?

1.75

Oh my goodness, oh my gosh, I got a job. A real job. In two weeks time I'm going to be teaching undergraduates things at an actual, not-made-up-by-me university.

And it's about time. Because it's almost my birthday at which point I'll be much too close to thirty to not have had a real job, ever. So far I have had many jobs, but, one a scale of one to five, with one being selling-rocks-to-the-neighbours and five being salary-with-benifits I have averaged a mere 1.75.

Here, for the scientists, is the working out (a sampling of actual jobs I have held):

-Door to door for Greenpeace= 2.5
-Being the Freak in a Freak show= 1.5
-Prenteding to be someone else in front of people, often on a stage= 2
-Road-side fruit stand attendee= 2.5
-Violin teacher= 4
-Freelance musician= 2
-Life model (yes, THAT kind)= 2
-Stay-at-home cat-mom=0

The Olympics! The Olympics!

I love the olympics. I love them I love them. I don't know why, really, as I don't like watching sports on television in any other context. Perhaps it's the international relations element. Like RISK with luge. In any case, I love the olympics.

Which is why it is so sad that I am not nearly good enough at any sport to ever compete in them.

Which is why I am so happy about the gig I did yesterday. I recorded a piece of music for the Beijing 2008 UK team martial-arts routine! So even though I don't get to be in the olympics, I get to be in the olympics! (Or my viola playing does, at least)

Next time, hopefully, it's for team Canada. (And I can get a team toque.)

Cut Yourself

Cut your own hair. Really, you should try it. It's scary at first, but then you've made the first cut and there's no turning back and it's not so bad really, not so bad at all.

It took me twenty-six years to realize I can cut my own hair, for free! Any time I want! No need for expensive salons, awkward stylist chat, trying to figure out how to word what you want, exactly... Really, people, it's not very hard, and, in the words of Regina Spektor:




maybe you should cut your own hair
cause that can be so funny
it doesn't cost any money
and it always grows back, hair grows even after you're dead.

I'm Sorry, Tom.

Dear Tom, and all other non-musicians,

I'm sorry that every, every, every, time you come to one of my parties, friendly, cheerful, socially adventurous, you end up sitting by yourself on the couch while everyone else, inevitably, ends up in an impromptu jam session. I'm sorry that all we can do is offer you the weak solace of 'you can play percussion,' handing you two sticks or a bell or soup pan. We know that even though you may be out of your element in King of Swing or McDermot's Reel, you're actually a very smart, creative person. Really.

So please don't feel you have to wash the dishes by yourself in the kitchen.

But thanks, they're sparkling.

x
e

Don't let them be misunderstood

Last night we opened for The Animals. Yes, the house-of-the-rising-sun Animals. Many of them are dead, but they still have their original keyboardist and drummer. These guys have been playing the together for almost 50 years now. The drummer looked adorably like my grandpa.

The gig was for the Brailles Village Fair. As well as the music, there were contests for the biggest leek, loveliest knitting, best chocolate cake baked by a man, and best human-or-animal face made out of vegetables.

It probably wasn't their most glamorous gig. But there they were. Surely they could have retired decades ago if they wanted. But there they were. Smiling and making music for the big-leek growing people of Brailles. They were nice in the backstage (village hall) bathrooms and lively, loud, and happy onstage. I couldn't decide if it was tremendously sad, or brilliantly inspiring. Since they were such nice people though, let's go with the latter.

Why we need our own publicist.

I don't know who gets the job of writing the blurbs for bands on leaflets, but I certainly hope it's not their only job. The Cedar are playing Moles Club on Wednesday night, and here's what the leaflet says about us:


"To call Neil Gay a singer songwriter is an injustice as great as calling a beautiful summer sunset 'quite nice'. The lyrics vary between the intensely personal & universal truththat strike a chord with everyone. When live the emotion of the song is brought to the fore producing a captivating experience that keeps audiences listing in rapt silence." [sic]

Oh those audiences. Always listing.

So, fellow logophiles, how many errors can you spot?

Minnie the Moocher

The problem with doing what you love for a living is that you love to do it. So, when people ask you to do it for them, for free, you usually say yes.

The arts, I think, are the most plagued by this problem (although maybe doctors are a close second). Nobody really expects their administrative assistant friend to file for them in their spare time. But with musicians, it's chronic. And with British musicians, it's the worst. You go to recordings not knowing if you're going to be paid the union rates, a small honourarium, in drinks, or not at all; and once you get there you still don't know because everyone's too polite to bring up the issue. But you love it and hate the idea of being left out, so you always say yes.

I hope my cat doesn't mind generic brand food.

Tiny Head

A shocking number of my old schoolmates who have recently surfaced on facebook have babies. Some of them even have babies old enough to be classified as children. Some of them even have more than one.

So. To deal with the situation as best I know how, I'm getting a cat. A lovely, neurotic cat with a tiny head.

There's just one problem. The British seem to be much more concerned about a cat's freedom to roam than the Canadians. Everyone I talk to brings it up: it is, to them, nothing but cruel to have an "indoor" cat. Meanwhile, I was always led to believe that indoor cats will live longer and be less traumatized than their outdoor counterparts. But maybe this was just some humanist-fascist balm applied to make us feel better about not wanting to invest in a cat-flap and flea-powder.

Quick, blog-readers, I need some opinions.

He that brings them together

I'm sorry. I've got to do just a little tiny Harry Potter post. More of a comment, really, on the social phenomenon created by a book.

A book!

How wonderful is it, that a book can make over 300 people go stand in line outside in the rain for three hours at midnight? In costume!

So, yes, I went, my friends went, most of Bath went, to the official releasing of the last Potter book last night. The bookshop was nicely located between high-street bars so that all the late-night drinking punters could heckle us as they stumbled home. Nothing like a confrontation between a stag party and a load of adults dressed as owls.

(For the record, I only had ten minutes to make my costume, between the end of a gig and the beginning of Potter fun. So. I was a wand.)

Kids love to be naked.

Kids, they just love to be naked. They really do. Little kids, like, under 6, let's say. I visited the home of some students this weekend (after cycling to their village, which happened to be on top of a mountain, almost) and it was naked, naked, naked.

The little boy, 4, answered the door naked. The little girl, 2, had lunch with me naked. They showed me toads and bean-plants in the garden, naked. We danced the hokey-pokey and turned ourselves around, naked (them, not me).

I know it has to do with lack of inhibition and/or the concept of bodily shame at that age, but there's more to it than just plain oblivion. These kids had clothes on, and took them off. They love being naked!

So, the question is, why do kids love to be naked? Is it because:

a) They know they're being slightly mischievous, and kids love that business.

b) They're most comfortable that way.

or

c) They know something we don't.

Old socks live on air

"If your band was a cheese, what kind of cheese would it be?"

Ah. Interviews on top-40 radio stations: simply charming. That said, before this week, I'd never actually done an interview on a top-40 radio station. The few scattered bits of radio experience I have are all of the staid, CBC/BBC type, the type that focuses a bit more on content and a bit less on sound effects.

Bandmate 1 said, "Blue cheese."

I said, "Disgusting. Definitely not blue cheese. Camembert, maybe."

Bandmate 2 said, "We're not a band that tastes like old socks."

Bandmate 1 said, "Well, really, if we were a cheese, we wouldn't be here."

I said, "No, we'd be in the fridge."

The announcer/interviewer said, "Great, that's a take."

And that, my friends, is the message we proudly passed on to the youth of this great nation.

BBC by the sea

I guess really famous people have to get up pretty early. I guess that's probably the price of intense fame. Take today, for example, when my string quartet and I filmed a commercial for the BBC. We had to be in Cardiff at 7:56am, meaning having to catch the 6:56am train, meaning having to get up in the 5's. I hear some people do this sort of thing everyday. Wow. They must be pretty famous.

We shot the commercial on a windswept cliff overlooking a blue-and-grey sea. It was meant to look like they caught us in the middle of an everyday rehearsal. In our full ballgown blacks. On a cliff by the sea. With microphones in our bras. Playing the themes to television shows we never got in Canada.

The best bit: having the director choose me to be the boy-crazy one who can't stop talking about Mr Darcy. 'Emma, talk about Mr Darcy and his wet shirt for about a minute, go. Oh, and can you play while you do it?' Just your everyday rehearsal.

manditory introduction post.

Well, here it is. The manditory introduction post. Just like it says, there, in the heading. A small sort of celebration for the birth of just what the cyber-universe needs: another blog. Another blog about telling every sound engineer from Bristol to Brighton that it's not a violin and other heart-stoppingly entertaining tales of a professional freelance violist. Here's a sample, based on true facts of today:

Today we played a festival in a small sunny town. There were a lot of children at our show, more than usual. And less parents, maybe none at all, as no one seemed to want to take responsibility for baby one - who entered stage left, climbing up and onto the stage during the set. I smiled at it. It smiled back. It climbed back down and into the crowd. No parents involved at any time. - or baby two, entering stage right, putting small stones into its mouth gleefully. A photographer (not a parent) moved this one out of the way. In any case, we now have a nice new band slogan:

The Cedar, as appealing to babies as stones.