Georgia got older, Walt came to work and I went to Luton

Debs,


No gigs in this blog. Just family and conference].








Our cooker conked out so we bought a new one, from Huddersfield [your adopted UK home town]; the only stipulation was that it was red. And it is. It also works, and I had no excuse, so Sunday the 13th found me baking!  Found a 21st birthday candle, so used that, then added some more single candles to get to actual age.





Maya decided to put some pictures up. V cute.

On the 17th Walter brought his work to Leeds O2 Academy; in short, PIL [Public Image Limited, come, Debs, catch up!] was playing. Tara, Mig and I joined Walt around a very fancy mixing desk. PIL were ace; I had to get up early for Carnival Arts Conference in Luton the following morning, Mig also needed early start so he and I split, leaving Tara and pal to party. [Here's a pic of me and my boys].





I had to get up at 6am, so I woke up at 3, 4.15 and just after 5.30, at which point gave up and got up. Didn't stop me nearly missing the train. At 6.30 I remembered that I had a bike, and that the station was just downhill from my house.

The Carnival Arts Conference was in Luton, a town that I spent an unhappy year and a half in, aged four-five. Well, it wasn't all unhappy, but having to stand in a waste-paper basket at school for stealing a marble which I had found on a table and put on my desk, traumatised me for ever. *

Anyway, this excellent conference was in the Carnival Arts Centre, Luton, organised by Pax Nindi, and here I met several old pals, including Marina from Mirfield and Alexander D. Great from Port of Spain, via London.



I was hugely impressed by [the Republic of] Liverpool and Cardiff's contributions and their experience of organising their own carnivals, wherein they both re-evaluated what Carnival was about. Also thoroughly enjoyed the lady from Bermuda's talk on Junkanoo [see cardboard fish, left]. Alexander [two times UK Carnival Monarch] gave us a great calypso, as a rousing end to conference.

I came away, inspired, and still awake. Marina and I went to St Pancras together. Here was a blue piano, and now someone playing it. Ah live music, real instruments.




Back in Leeds, I remembered my bike and cycled home 20 hours after I had left it, and rather more slowly than before.

 I left a note on the board that evening [see right] to suggest that I might rest on Saturday, but in the morning, Alex phoned up, and next thing I knew I was teaching in his music centre.

* I didn't steal the marble, I found it, picked it up, and put it on my own table. So not hiding it, and didn't, aged 4, deserve the public humiliation that followed.