You Will Never Be No Good

Vaughan Williams on the radio (Concerto Grosso), the promise of a good thunderstorm, spring and torrential rain. Oh yes. Everything is fine here. What about you? I love thunderstorms. I've probably raved on about one I remember from when I was about four. We lived in Nottingham then, where I was born. We moved when I was five but there are lots of things I can still remember about living there. This storm was in the middle of the afternoon and caused the sky to go very dark, with the result that the whole of the front room was full of weird shadows caused by the combination of strange light outside and having the lights on inside. I seem to remember being scared and fascinated at the same time. I'm not bothered now and when I was single I used to sit on the step during storms, just out of the rain but able to see the sky and any lightning there might be. Maybe not a good idea. I still like to sit on the step during rain and my daughter will join me, wrapped up in a coat. We don't have a particularly wonderful view but the main thing is the ambience, the strange breeze that goes with rainfall, the white noise and the general air of environmental goodness that goes with it all.

My daughter starts drum club today and yesterday she was distracted from her pre-sleep reading by the sound of the percussion heats of The BBC Young Musician of the Year. Now this heat always promises some of the most unconventional pieces of the whole competition and of course she loved it. We had to promise to tape the second part. I wasn't going to watch it but flicking back to it, I was drawn in my something I recognised but which I could not remember the name of. It turned out to be a Vibraphone, piano and Bass Guitar version of Spain by Chic Corea. I suppose I cannot say that the player of this piece should have one, because I didn't hear all the other pieces but she did anyway. Maybe her parents will let her get the lizard now. There were some things I remember from Evelyn Glennie albums as well.

Mood soars. Like early morning, up before the rest, tracking down the hills to the fresh and calm sea. Shadows are already short and high against the walls of the buildings. Presence like Eva Marie Saint, and where did this come from; what song are you listening to? Sun shingles away across the bay and we are left with the smell of oil and fish from the shouldering trawlers left gently rising in the current that makes it this far into the harbour. How much about this world do I know? Enough to make it real from the few memories that come back. Rain and sun all in one day. Too many people now. Nothing flows any more.