I'm not sure why I attempt night trains, I don't think I slept at all last night despite the reasonably wide bed and proper duvet. But there were two advantages to taking the night train: First, all day yesterday I got to look forward to finishing the 2-show day at the Globe with immediate scarpering to Scotland, and today I got to enjoy the entire day of gorgeous sun, from a breakfast picnic with Alison McGillivray in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens to a very satisfying alternation of trampoline-jumping and hammock swinging in David McGuinness' back yard (UK: back garden). I had no idea trampoline jumping could be so exhausting, but my legs really had to work to get as tiggerish a bounce as possible.

Having mentioned Glasgow as a candidate for a place to do a Ph.D., Alison helpfully quizzed me on what topics would tackle. This is a question I've been happily answering a lot lately, and today with the hoped-for effect that I finally took note of which topics riled me up and put a little flame in my eye and which ones were just deeply interesting.

Now I'm completely wiped out, resting in the Canal Station bar in Paisley with a ginger beer and free wifi signal while waiting for Claire, who has spent the afternoon in the car, to arrive, so that we can plot our first day trip tomorrow. Then I promise some more pictures!

I can't believe that it's already tomorrow that I'll be jetting off after an evening performance of Henry IV Part II to catch the Caledonian Sleeper! Where has the summer gone?

Before I relay my excitement about heading for the hills, yesterday I did take the opportunity to hang out at the British Library again, after being treated to a lovely lunch of quite authentic Indian cuisine at Diwana. Despite the thrill of holding manuscripts in my hands, I headed straight for the facsimile section and proceeded to get very excited about the differences between Italian and English ornamentation in the same manuscript sources. But why does no one sing these pieces? They do look fabulous.

While putting the books back I used my usual check-what-else-is-on-the-same-shelf technique to come across a facsimile of the three-volume anthology of polyphony that Francis Tregian the Younger copied out while he was in the Fleet Prison from 1609 until his death in 1619 for not attending Anglican church services. The collection is beautiful and vast, if not as well known as the other manuscript Tregian was working on at the time: The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

The last few days have been filled with preparations - the third fruit leather (plum) is drying in the oven now - the first two (blackberry and apple) have turned out well. I've had to modify a few preconceived ideas of meals to accommodate what I could find in Sainsbury's (maybe there's a bulk food shop in Glasgow to supply the still-missing dried onions?), but overall I should be eating well. I've also been hitting the many outdoors shops near Charing Cross, all of whom are having end-of-season sales, much to my advantage. My old Canadian water-filter, a model that they don't make anymore but with a flushable filter, just passed its test of filtering blue-coloured water back to clear.

I'm trying to be as prepared as possible for my weekend on the Knoydart peninsula because it will be my first time backpacking overnight alone. I've been hiking in the Alps alone and have led trips through the Adirondacks and other places, but I've never gone solo before. I will post an OS map of where I think I'll go once I've done some day hikes next week and have a better idea what's reasonable, but I do hope it will include Ladhar Bheinn. Don't worry, I won't try to do it all in one day, I'll camp at the base and hike with a day pack up. In the mean time, can anyone tell me please if I'm missing something?

Backpack
Day pack for the mountain
Walking poles
Boots with new shock-absorbent insoles
walking Sandals (for camp)

Map
Waterproof map case
Silva compass

Tent
Sleeping bag
Thermarest
(No mallet: there be rocks)
flashlight

rain coat (orange)
tops, bottoms and underwear (as much quick dry as possible, as much orange as possible)
MEC sweater
poncho (very bulky but I love it)
extra socks (for those puddle-up-to-the-middle moments like I had in the Lakes)

Water filter
chlorine tablets (in case there is a virus risk)
water bottles (2)
Stove
Fuel
Pot (foil lid)
Pot handle
Mini mini espresso mocha
plastic knife, fork, spoon
Flask for hot drinks/soup with folding spoon
flat-folding bowl (orange, very cool)
sponge
all-purpose highly biodegradable soap

matches (waterproofed)
tinder
emergency candle

meals, packaged in sandwich bags (1 extra meal)
lots of snacks
espresso, tea
powdered milk (num num)
sugar
cup a soup (extra)
all in a dry bag (orange)

Army Knife (with saw, scissors, tweezers etc.)
Duct tape (mini)
bungee cord with carabiners
nylon rope
large plastic bag for waterproofing backpack
Phones (O2 covers most of the peninsula and my Swiss one can choose vodaphone if not)
Bug repellent
Sunglasses
First Aid Kit
Notebook
Pencil
Camera!

ANYTHING ELSE?

On the train to Oxford.

Now, where did I leave off? Oh yes:

Basel. Rhine. Sunset.

...and the Financial Advisor wanting me to decide where to live. He's not the only one. Indeed, I feel like all of 2010 is being dedicated to trying to figure out where to go next, trying to see and experience as much as possible as the instinct to settle down grows inside. Knowing that writing this bicountry post would be a way for me to start getting my brain around it explains the two-week delay in writing: it's a subject both exciting and exhausting to attend to, making it easy to keep it running around pretending to sort itself out in the back of my brain while I do other things but not so easy to tackle head-on.

Basel provided a near-perfect weekend. Playing a Bach Cantata was a very welcome break from Globe incidental music, from which I am suffering a tiny bit of cabin fever, the predictability of which did nothing to alleviate the symptoms. The Cantata series is special in itself too, a labour of love from the organizers (UK: organisers), and a very intimate performance in that the whole thing is one-person-per-part. Although we had to play so quietly I did wonder if perhaps Bach would have used a ripieno choir.

Trombone section in the Predigerkirche

Backlit through the church windows during a tacet

A few days before leaving to Basel, I asked Nate (playing bass trombone above) and Ricardo if they could please organize a BBQ (UK: grill party?) by the Rhine on Saturday evening, and so they did. It was a fantastic way to see people and catch up - Basel is so small that it's easy to drop by and say hello no matter where you live, and many people did. It was also nice to remember and enjoy the slower pace of Basel life, watching the sun set over the Rhine and make way for Perseids (of which I failed to see any but others saw a few). That morning I'd biked (UK: cycled) to the Lörrach farmer's market to marvel at the display of fresh fruit and vegetables, enjoying a perfectly continental lukewarm cappuccino with some friends and their one-year old who has made strides in walking and talking since I left in May.

Indeed, the only imperfection was that I didn't actually swim in the Rhine, it had just rained and cooled down, and was flowing too quickly to be remotely safe.

But for all that made it a nearly-perfect visit, for all the dear friends I saw and all the familiar places I visited, I waited for that connection to a place that one associates with being "home" and it never quite came. Not even when I briefly went inside my apartment, which still showed all its signs of having been nested in by me, it didn't appear - at least not in that visceral way that I had hoped for. It felt like a place that belonged to a very happy time in my past. Being surrounded by friends was incredibly special, and yet as many of them will leave Basel in the next few years, it seemed like a pearly bit of transience, yet special enough that I was left without a doubt that I'll see them in varying combinations no matter where I decide to live.

Back to London on Monday morning, I made it from door to door in exactly 4 hours - something of a record. That evening already I was off to Gloucester to play my first concert with His Majesty's Sackbutts and Cornetts the next day in Gloucester cathedral. It was a treat to play with the three cathedral Men and Boys choirs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: the first time I'd played along with this familiar Anglican sound. Playing a full concert of Gabrieli on a morning rehearsal is a challenge but the concert went well and between it and the Bach I felt I'd had a good dose of playing. After immersion in the Globe's style of adding parallel 5ths and 8ves to Renaissance music I was especially pleased at my shock at playing parallel octaves in the Magnificat a33 - did Gabrieli really write those? To my delight I found out later, No, it was a reconstruction.

Off in the car with Gawain and Kirsty to what the roadsigns call "The NORTH" - in our case, the Lake District.

Here's a bit really best explained in pictures, but I'll let you know a bit of what we did too. After a late arrival from Gloucester, we plotted our journey from Buttermere up Haystacks and went to sleep in the Ambleside Youth Hostel - the only one we could check into so late. The next morning, in order to give Kirsty a bit of time to practise a very daunting chromatic medieval harp, Gawain and I went for a brief but fun paddle in a canoe onto the very North tip of Windermere. I can't state a preference between canoes and kayaks, the former is a bit more social and easier to portage, the second is faster and better in harsh conditions. On a lake in the early morning in good company I think I'd easily choose a canoe, and it was a lovely way to start this mini-holiday discovering the English Lakes.

After the brief paddle we drove through stunning scenery until we got to Buttermere, where we'd stay that night in the attic room of the more intimate Youth Hostel. We then set off up Haystacks, apparently Wainright's favourite peak of all. I'd expected a slightly more treed set of hills, but apparently they were all logged around 700 years ago. Ok then. Instead we were greeted with great swathes of purple heather.

Heather

Occasionally out of this heather we were greeted by herds of curious sheep, grazing away at the tops of the hills.

Sheep and Heather - what's not to like?

For anyone who thought that the English countryside was gentle, check again.

Proper climbing

Kirsty triumphantly at the top

It was after the peak that the gorgeous views really began though, sweeping down the valley onto not only Buttermere, but Coniston Water as well.

We're in the way!

Please Note the Orange Raincoat

The way down was rocky and my knees let me know they weren't impressed by any of it. So I've been to a Podiatrist at last and had my feet cast for some orthotics just a couple of days ago. The last bit around the North side of Buttermere was unexpectedly beautiful. The South side earlier in the day was swarmed by tourists (against all recollection from G & K), but maybe because of the cloud and late time of day we had the North side almost all to ourselves. I often quite like a well-proportioned bit of cloud when walking; enough to consider it mist and appreciate the atmosphere it lends to the hills.

Buttermere, sunset behind the mist

The path wandering through the rock

In an attempt to evade more tourist-swarmed shores, we drove to the remoter Enerdale Water the next day for a walk around its shores, giving us a view up the valley that the clouds had been coy to expose the day before.

At many places on the trail, you can see vast dry stone walls demarcating the properties of the sheep-owners.

Enerdale was definitely a bit more lush than Buttermere, with fern, shamrock and wild grasses filling out the spaces between trees.

This picture was taken shortly before a downpour in which I got to test-drive both my new orange raincoat (see above) and the pants (UK: trousers) I bought at a second-hand (UK: charity) shop on the hunch that they were of quick-dry material. Fortunately they were.

And this picture is taken not very long after - yes, it's in full colour!

It was with the above view that I recollect having a strange feeling about the English Lakes - like all the rest of England, so familiar to everything I've grown up with, yet different when you look up close. It's a bit like the language - you think its the same one until you get into a proper conversation. I think I've never seen heather in Canada: it's a girl's name. Our Ontario lakes are different: they've got birches and stunted pine trees and they smell more. You don't see stray sheep and also not the farmer fields demarcated by hedges on the distant rolling hills. And so on. It all sounds very moot but the effect of this similar-but-different everything is that I start to feel a bit homesick for the birches and stunted pines, whereas all these subtleties made G & K even more connected to what they could call home.

The drive from Buttermere to Ullswater, where we could try out our new tents, was rewarded with this view:

The next day we woke up early, packed away our tents (which had kept us dry though a rainy night) and went out in a canoe (UK: Canadian Canoe) onto Ullswater for an hour. After his brief paddle in the bow two days before, Gawain had a go at paddling in the stern and we explored the end of the lake before letting the wind blow us back home.

The drive home was going quite well, so we took a short drive into Lancaster and the surrounding towns where Gawain grew up before I got on a very fast train back to London.

The shows at the Globe that weekend went quite well - two days of not touching my instruments seemed to be made up for by the kickstart to my breathing that I got when climbing the hills. On Monday Ann, who has been living in Basel for 10 years, moved back to London, so I showed up at her place to put up shelves and drink some champagne. On Tuesday the nesting continued with the buying of ivy plants and filling the nooks and crannies of her luxurious converted factory with vegetation, and we made an exciting trip into London where I bought my first OS maps for my upcoming trip to Scotland.

On Thursday I joined Caroline for a walk on the South Downs, North of Chichester. I've never walked 17 miles in a day before - my hamstrings seized up completely but it was good fun nevertheless and we were rewarded with some stunning views.

Rolling Hills

View from Beacon Hill out to the Isle of Wight

This calf still had an umbilical cord

Shortly after seeing this cow we saw three deer cross the trail - some unexpected wildlife!

12th-Century Church in East Dean

View from the pub in East Dean

And as though I weren't skipping town often enough, yesterday afternoon I went up to Oxford to have a lovely supper with Marc and Gaby at a Bangladeshi restaurant and catch up. Oxford is a very pretty town, so quaint and old and lovely that I fear it must be awfully set in its ways.

On the way home, I'd locked my bike at Paddington station, and would have had just enough time to ride to Charing Cross for the last train home at 0:48 except that the train slowed to a snail's pace outside the station (how busy can it be at 0:26?) and arrived four minutes late. I strapped the lights on my bike and plummeted down Oxford street at unprecedented speed, darting through Trafalgar square and triumphantly into the Charing Cross lot at 0:47:09 only to find the door closed and locked. 20 seconds later I found the open one, with a man in it just starting to close the screen, but not letting me in, saying the train was pulling out. Every train arrives late, and yet the one connection home leaves early. So I got back on my bike, which spontaneously shed all its oil and became three times as heavy, and rode the 45 minutes home.

The rest of this week goes to planning my weekend backpacking near Mallaig. I've been visiting camp shops realizing that I'm short of gear (today I need to buy pots - my last ones were mauled by a bear and I'm not kidding - still deliberating which). Yesterday I bought some rope to hang my food in the tree at night (the OS maps cleverly show you where the trees are) - I'm perfectly aware that there are neither bears nor raccoons nor chipmunks to get into my food but I just have to hang it in the tree anyway, ok? Shortly I'll go out to the local blackberry patch and gather some to make fruit leather, which for non-canadians is a cooked fruit puree (in this case apple and blackberry) dried flat in the oven until it becomes leathery. I do the same with tomato sauce, which can then be shredded and rehydrated in the spaghetti water when the pasta has reached al dente (makes for a starchy sauce but those extra calories are inevitably burned). But more on wilderness cuisine another time.

Oh, and I'm back to two-finger scrolling at last!

In Basel. So far this weekend has entailed:

Beer. Rhine. Sunset.

Beer. Rhine. Sunset. Grill.

Coffee with Friends at the German Farmer's Market.

Lunch with Friends and little Sophia and Rebecca.

Rehearsing Bach in a 15th Century Church (concert today at 5).

Buying red orthopedic sandals and an orange raincoat.

Going to see a concert of wind band music from the 16th-Century.

Oh yes, and a session with a Financial Advisor who wants me to decide where I'm going to live.

After approximately 20 attempts, I managed to roll a kayak on my own last night - yey! I felt much more at ease floundering about under the warm swimming-pool water than in the sea: I could see everything going on and would spend multiple attempts before giving up and coming up for air. Normally I'd concentrate on getting my paddle at the correct angle, then negate my success by failing to keep my head back, getting just far above the water to gasp another breath before splashing back down again and hanging out upside-down. At one point I thought - why am I not panicking? I suppose taking away the cold and the salt left me in an all-too-familiar position: as a trombonist I'm used to not always having the liberty to breathe whenever I like. Funny profession. The successful roll felt easy and I was a bit shocked to find myself in an upright position again and even looked around me to see if someone had given me a push... but no, I'd done it myself.

My only concern was that getting out of a kayak, I realized that my left knee was in a great deal of pain, as though I'd twisted or pulled it somehow. I guess the bike's going back in the shed. It's not hurting now but still feels wierd... it's been at a slight angle all my life, making me a bit pigeon-toed on the left side; I have a fantasy that it suddenly decided to straighten out.

In the pub the other night after the two shows, I realized suddenly what I really like about actors. They can tell you plainly if they like or don't like something, and why. Doesn't sound like a super-human feat, does it? But when was the last time you heard a spontaneous and well thought out discourse on why something was good or bad? Needless to say, the actors were amused by my observation and made me test them on it, in the course of which I learned that Star Wars was originally intended to be a silent film, and, having realized that my tourist activities could derive some inspiration from a well-placed question, a good deal of good things about "London." The only pitfall of the conversation was when one actor turned to me, puzzled and said "This is something you LIKE about us?!" Well, yes.

Afterward I did wonder: why do I find judgmental discourse refreshing? Is it because I'm bored of people not forming opinions on ideas or on music? I ask many people what they liked or didn't like about a concert and get the answer, oh, I just liked all of it. What? Is the baroque obsession with good taste too elitist to indulge in the 21st century? Are people so often told what to think that adding their personal opinion on top of it all seems over-the-top? Or do I find it refreshing to hear people judgmental for a different reason altogether: because as a performer myself I'm always so concerned that other people are judging me that I feel relieved that at least part of my paranoia is vindicated? Did I say all that out loud? As a matter a fact, no, not a word. Oh good.

Oy - day off!

"Oy" because it's almost three o' clock and I'm still glued to my computer with no light at the end of the tunnel - there are still a virtual pile of emails to answer, laundry to put away, a todo list to make for this weekend in Basel, and I've still got to figure out details of my trip to the lakes next week, so it looks like my plan of heading into London is dashed until tomorrow when I've only got an evening show. One email I could have dashed off in five minutes, but the combination of concision and diplomacy extended it to twenty-five. Which reminds me of one of my favourite quotations:

"If you want me to speak for an hour – give me a moment’s notice; if you want me to speak for half an hour, give me a day’s notice; if you want me to speak for five minutes – give me a week." - Winston Churchill

So far I've not seen much of London at all, half-days being sucked into staring at this screen and full days evading that fate only by hopping on a train and going somewhere further afield. Saturday was one such day: I headed down to Chichester for a perfect afternoon:

A fantastic pub lunch:


...followed by a walk by the sea, watching the crabs dart about in the shallows:


and looking into the myriad other places we could have walked:


then a cup of tea, plotting ambitious musical projects, and a practise on the trombone before heading into Chichester to walk about and catch my train home. Chichester cathedral is lovely - this is the close where the members of the Men's choir are put up:

and this is the market square, with North, East, South and West streets all branching away from the tower in the centre of town - a very handy Roman design. You can see by the position of the setting sun, I'm standing on South Street.


Yesterday was another 13-hour Globe day due to another 8:30 am rehearsal. We started the rehearsal a few minutes late since the café only opened at 8:30 on the nose, so starting with a coffee and muffin in hand made it much better than the last early call, where said objects materialized only at the break. The dep had the daunting task of playing the lute and cittern cues (on baroque guitar and harp) as well as some percussion ones - he could have been a complete stress-bag, but he wasn't: instead he very cheerfully asked "what do I do next?" and managed to keep an admirable level of concentration from morning until night.

Last Friday I was feeling grumpy and bored again and as noted from a post a few weeks ago, a small but important mission is an excellent remedy. Determined to break the trend of keeping myself fed with overpriced sandwiches and ready-meals from Marks & Spencer, I went to the supermarket to stock up my part of the fridge (which had left some mustard, jam, mayonnaise and chutney - all good things but not on their own!). I decided once I got there that since I was saving money I should buy all my favourite foods and came back with, among other items, some herbed organic lamb burgers, tortelli alla zucca (that's with pumpkin and ricotta), the fixings for smolked salmon and cream-cheese bagels, pressed orange juice, nectarines, yoghurt, a free-range chicken and some cod fillets which are presently defrosting. Then I made myself a beef burger with sauteed mushrooms, stilton, walnuts and rocket on thick-cut heavy whole-wheat toast, which I consumed along with the fine local ale I brought back from Cornwall.

Having vowed to used proper English and not litter this blog with lazy and superficial emoticons, please do not mistake the following simple-but-elegant self-portrait of me lying in bed that night, which I have carefully prepared for this entry:

: )

Back to the emails now, I'm afraid...