Arabian nights...?

A night-time view of the Birdcage Bandstand on Brighton seafront. 

Recently renovated from a rusty edifice to this glorious blue, its tiled floor is just asking to be danced on! When I moved to Brighton in 1986 I used to live in the street that led down to this place, and it was used as a bandstand at the time. In 1990 a Breton band - Ti Jaz (their blog) - played here, on a "Small and Beautiful Places" tour of the UK,  and we all did snaking Hanter Dros and other folkdances along the seafront underneath it. Then it was left to crumble gradually, and in 2009 the renovation happened. Thanks! 

Rondeau de Marsan, with Dani Detammaeker

Well, we're all on the right foot... that is, the correct foot! Saturday's Gascon dance workshop, with Dani from Toulouse, was amazing. His style, his clear teaching, his sense of fun, his lightness! Fantastic Rondeaux and the Carnaval de Lanz, with a touch of Branle, Mazurka and a quickie Fandango... In the evening the Bal aux Harmonicas dazzled! Along with Buzznicks and Mistral, it must be said, warmed up by Jeudi Matin. A wonderful reminder of how moving and engaging a good enthusiastic dance crowd can be... thanks to all Dansez Français-ers. (More photos & videos will be up on Flickr soon.)

Staying in bed is another benefit of retirement!

Ah, I'm just having a cup of tea and listening to Today. With the curtains open I can see the sun making its glowing way over the roof opposite, and the birds flying between trees. There's time to observe nature and it seems to be everywhere! They are just talking about it on the radio, we are on track to eliminate half the species on Earth, with a 2 million year recovery time. Even though I have the new South Downs Natural Park on the north edge of Brighton, on my immediate doorstep, Zone 1, is an urban natural world... the foxes, many garden birds, lambs lettuce growing in pavement cracks... I must get up!
11am: Then the next radio programme, Midweek, was all about this natural world thing too! Clive talking about his work as a forest ranger in Suffolk, and David Gentleman, famous painter of african elephants, musing too about the natural world outside your own window... what's Bill Mollison's phrase about "the change starts at your back door"? Go to it, people!

Oooooh, what a feeling!

Sowing seeds for food, in the sunshine, in a bed of soft friable soil. This is the "nursery" - Italian spinach, leeks, American land cress (like watercress), spring onions, cornflowers, marigolds, nigella, mangetout peas... hope it's not too early! Just as Chris Wood sings "we're watching the spuds chittin'..." Whilst at home, in the warm, there's tomatoes of all sizes and colours, beans, purple basil, more flowers...
Now there's time to spend a few hours looking after these things in the daylight, rather than squeezing it in after a long working day, maybe this is where semi-retirement comes into its own. Longer days to come, light evenings after next weekend... come, pumpkins, get a move on!

Starlings swoop...

The beginning of sundown in Brighton, on the Equinox, the starlings wheel and spin and dance their crowded ballroom capers, taking the eye along with the shapeshifting mass. Since most of the West Pier has gone, they now swoop and chatter above the other pier, the one with the noise of pinballs, screams from the Ghost Train, the whoops from the helter skelter. A better place to join the human race? I haven't really watched them as avidly before, I wonder if they stay up all night as the longest day approaches?
My friend Rose, who I realise must be 80 in a few days time, says that the secret of retirement is to keep moving...