Bluebell's second outing...

Bluebell is having another outing...! Hurrah!

Sad circumstances though )o:  - Brigid's funeral. Lovely Brigid who was such a partner to Malcolm and oh so much singing from the same songsheet as he. Lovely Brigid, with whom I walked round parts of Salzburg and Berlin and who was so sweet and kind. Really one of those blessed people one is always glad to see: positive, happy, outgoing, compassionate. Gosh, she'll be so missed.

Occasionally one meets a couple and thinks: this really is a marriage, a meeting of hearts and minds and souls and spirits. Brigid and Malcolm were such a one. Their relationship was very special and a great blessing to others.

He's devastated.

I'm also playing some Leonard Cohen and Beatles at the funeral as well as playing them in and out on the harp. This could be quite a teary occasion...

Wasn't the weather sublime yesterday?! I dined with Simon Young, my piano teacher from when I was aged 4-7, at the Savile Club in W1, and though we didna sit upon the terrace it was a balmy Summer's evening when we emerged at 11ish to head to the tube, the sort of evening one remembers from holidays in Greece and the like. Bliss!

Lunch was Chez Aviary and this time very much outdoors, although Charlie, Aviary and I were somewhat cursed by the neighbours seizing upon the sunlit opportunity to do some industrial scale use of the electric garden equipment..... TRRRRRRRRRrrrrrmmmmmmm (GROAN!)

Out of the blue, my mission to the Sainsbury's herb counter for Aviary's delish baked potatos meant I bumped into Maggie Collinge/Postlethwaite whom I haven't seen for nigh on 8 years or less, since singing at her wedding to John. She's now based in NZ and surfaces this side of the globe de temps a temps to visit her extensive family. Most enlightening...

Maggie introduced me years ago to her dear friend the late composer, Tom Eastwood, a deeply lovely and peaceful man who lived along the road from her in smart Fulham, but in some destitution. We worked together a couple of times and I loved the music of his that I got to perform, especially his opera The Voyage of the Catarineta which we put on at the Barbican in 1992. Justino Harmerando made his professional operatic debut creating the role of Grub, the ship's cook. (I had a duet. It was ok.) His nephews read poems at his funeral - Joseph and Ralph Fiennes.

I remember Mama had a conversation with Tom at a Barran-Poolopot party that she reported back to me: he had said that his ambition was to write a piece of music that would bring about world peace. Gosh.

Is that a realistic ambition for anyone? I feel quite chuffed if I manage to move even one person to tears of joy or sadness with a performance or composition, let alone usher in the Golden Age.


    For lo! the days are hastening on, 
By prophet bards foretold,
When, with the ever circling years
Shall come the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth,
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song,
Which now the angels sing.

I seem to remember there'll be lots of harp music then by all accounts too, but hopefully not so frequent funerals.


For Brigid and also for Tom Lord,  Molto, Molto Grazie.