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