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It is the day after the Bank Holiday weekend and it is  the quietest day for ages. There is no pattering rain, almost no  holiday D.I Y-ing, banging, drilling across the back garden fences. My email has not pinged for over an hour. The builders in the neighbourhood must be taking a longer weekend. At the weekend, anyone who, firelighters  and sausages at the ready  was poised, appear to have gone back to work. It feels like I have the neighbourhood to myself- apart from my neighbour upstairs who is always there, and the  buddhist chanter next door who is not chanting …… yet. I was meant to be going to the post office, but I am glued to the silence. It is hypnotic, especially in the urban landscape that I call  home.

I can still  hear the  occasional siren wafting over the breeze from the Holloway Road about half a mile away, and I can still feel the rumble of the buses passing my house, as they do, every 10 minutes ( ha ha ha -well that is what it says on the timetable). But….

the birds are not singing and there are no swifts screaming in the sky. I never noticed when they left. I never do until it is too late. They do it every year. Just disappear back to where ever they came  from 3 months earlier. The sound is gone and the marker is left. YOUR SUMMER IS OVER SUCKERS!  I had a  poignant day yesterday. The wind changed and somewhere I felt that ‘back to school’ feeling in the air. A little panic came over me, a need for my mum, a freshly laundered hanky, a motherly hug and clean satchel. I cried over something very insignificant in a lost type of way and panicked about the passing of time.

SO I HAD BETTER CARRY ON SINGING.

SONG OF THE DAY – Walking on Sunshine ( Floating on Cloud 9)


I spent all day singing this song which has taken me months to arrange and re-arrange and I think I have finally cracked it! I sung it all  parts in one tempo and then realised it was too slow – so had the luxury of singing them all again as there were no appointments out there. This is  a demo for  my choirs, so will sound much lovelier once there is a whole group of singers singing it not just me. Make some sound ! Sing Along! We have not got for ever. x x

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At the moment I don’t get many opportunities to play with a whole band and monitors and sound crews and guitar roadies ( ha ha) and all that stuff. Always  of acoustic and acapella mind….. so it’s great when it happens. At the Guildhall Rock and Jazz Summer School where I was tutoring I got the chance to play with some of my favourite mates and this is one of the numbers we sung this year,  about a week ago. Please excuse shaky, dotty video, there was sadly no lighting crewe and all video camera holders seemed to be off duty ……… x

Song of the Day -Wedding Song -Written by Anais Mitchell performed by Donna Canale, David Gale, Geoff Nicholls, Gitika Partington and Richard Sadler

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It has been an extraordinary month…lots of stories to tell, but not all today. What with the theatre vocal coaching, jazz and rock summer schools, gigs, singing servicemen               ( Eh! Luigi! whereas my spaghetti), the glut of  trombone players in my life, Olympics I do not really know where to begin.  As a footnote and  complete diversion to any logical narrative flow I should warn any Mrs Worthingtons that If you want your daughter to make it in the music business, do not get her a trombone. Get her to learn the bass guitar, as that seems to be the missing instrument in the band these days.

But first of all, let us start with today. Needed a walk as spent too much time cooped up in a train yesterday so we did a circular walk to London Zoo and back,  about a five mile round trip. So had a quick look in Walden Books and the fabbiest arts and craft shop near the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm called Slanchogled which is Bulgarian for sunflower.

Noticed by chance that the Roundhouse has a BEACH! that’s me on the stool in the  red trollies) sand  deck chairs, a screen to watch the Olympics and table tennis. They also have a happy hour with double cocktails ( I only had ice-cream..honest!) at a later time in the day…we were there in the morning when it was mostly kids. Managed to get a quick game of ping pong in before kids started drooling over the table in an orderly queue for a game after us. All very  urban Brazilian, with the railway and the blocks of flats.

Quick pop into the zoo to check the pelicans were thriving, and then a cuppa and a large sugar free flapjack in le cafe du coin in Prince of Wales road before we walked back home. Right . Better do last minute preparation for a day of Singing in Harmony at the Bishopsgate Institue tomorrow….not too late to join us.

SONG OF THE DAY – The Love I Lost…Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.

If all goes well we might be singing this in 4 part acapella harmony tomorrow. Gamble and Huff…great songwriter…a real piece of musical history.