I’m here for the birds

Wasn’t the Queen lovely? It was a particularly nice broach, I thought and whoever wrote her speech was a genius. It had the perfect tone: not preachy but with enough Churchillian World War Two, we’re  all in this together, we’ll meet again references to keep the angry mob happy. It was genius because any psychologist will tell you that the best way to get people to comply is to point out the people doing what they should, rather than those that aren’t. Thanking us all for doing the right thing was perfect. The Daily Mail pictures and angry people on Social Media are actually making some people say, “Well, if they’re not going to do it, I don’t see why I should.”  It’s the same reason for why they don’t want us to stop and sit. If we see people doing it then it is human nature to do the same thing and people will inevitably share a bench without realising.

This morning, however, the Queen has become a nasty meme. The angry people are still angry, which I understand but hate. Anger is just a response to fear. This response to fear doesn’t help my anxiety and so I’m finding Social Media a fairly uncomfortable place to be.

However, there is a corner of anxious Twitter, where people like me have gathered for a while. It is a place where we tweet about tweets. We are only there for the birds. We share pictures of our bird tables and recordings of the birdsong we are hearing. When you are traumatised (and what is happening right now will feel like a trauma for many) it can help to focus on the small things. Watch the birds, have a pocket full of stones, take your camera out and use the macro setting. Stay small; stay safe; watch the birds.

The blue tit visits the mirror daily to engage the pretty tit in the mirror 

The Japanese are brilliant at this. They have 72 seasons, which help them to focus on the minutiae of life. We know about Sakura (the first Cherry Blossom season) but did you know that Tsubame kitaru is between the 5th and 9th of April? This is the season of the swallows return. It turns out that they are perfectly correct. Last night, I saw my first swallow of the season and so did my corner of social media. We were thrilled. We trilled. The Queen is lovely and the swallows are back.

Next time you feel the fear overwhelm you and the anger rising, I can thoroughly recommend taking a breath and being here for the birds.

All Aboard

Woo Hoo! All aboard the Christmas anxiety train.

Whoever you are, it is likely that the prospect of Christmas makes you feel a little stressed. There are extra things to do and a deadline. If you are a bit anxious that extra stress will make you feel more anxious. If you are a musician then the ‘extra things’ can easily run to two extra A4 pages on your “let’s try to pretend to be a normal person without anxiety” list. If you are also an idiot you’ll keep adding things and make everyone join you on the ‘New Improved Christmas Sparkle Anxiety Train.’

I am an idiot.

As if the lead up to Christmas wasn’t busy enough, with normal music teacher/MD of a Youth Orchestra/member of a band stuff, I thought, “You know what would be fun? We should make a school Christmas CD.”

It will be fun. The children are already very excited. Every child in the school is involved with each class learning one song and what could be better than listening to the whole school singing Away in a Manger while you eat your Christmas Dinner? They have been given a chance to design the CD case cover and I hope I’ve created a buzz around the project.

Also, it should raise some much needed cash for the school. We have been surviving with an ever decreasing number of music stands that we haven’t got the money to replace. We even have one held together with sticky tape. Everyone’s budgets for music have been squeezed, so that things we used to get for free we now have to pay for. For example, Sing Up and Charanga are wonderful online resources that used to be free and now cost hundreds of pounds each a year. It’s true that if we had never had them then we would have to make do with books and talent but as each recorder book costs £7 (= class set £200 and it’s illeagal to photocopy), each school singing book with music in is over £10 and the cost of a pianist who can play well enough to accompany at concerts is phenomenal, these apps are still good value for a school that does music properly. Many schools opt not to do music properly and there are some people who think of it as a subject that should just be for a few. Music is such a fundamental human response to things that it would be great if we could teach all children how to do it well. Children singing in tune can heal a broken heart (trust me) and people not even being able to clap in time can break one.

I have found a company (My School CD) that will do the sound recording, engineering and production. All I have to do is find the music, rehearse, make a timetable for the day, send off the paperwork, write new words to a carol for a staff song, stay excited about the project and sell enough CDs so that we don’t lose any money. It’s not keeping me awake at night at all.

Woo Hoo. All aboard!

Barcelona Birds

It was my fault.

It's always my fault.

"I can't talk to anyone," I sobbed at the Long Suffering Husband, "I just want to run away."

The LSH is a very nice man, although, at times, rather literal and that is how I found myself on the way  to Barcelona for a long weekend.  If you are going to run, it might as well be to somewhere nice and sunny and if you can't talk to anyone, you might as well go to a country that speaks a language where you only know one word.* Spanish has always been a mystery to me and I'll never work out the phonics of the letter c.

There were challenges.  Travelling when you are anxious is tricky, as are crowds, noise and bizarrely, churches. However, as walking, while looking at my feet or the sky and noticing bird have been my saviours, my view of Barcelona was unique.

I can't tell you about the Segrada Familia (except that there are doves and a bassoonist carved on the outside), the cathedral, the beach or any of the bars but I if you want to know about the trees, pavements and birds of the Catalan capital then I'm your woman.

The birds were the first thing I noticed.  They sounded different. Noisier, faster in their chatter than British birds.  They were somewhere hidden in the trees lining the streets.  Trees that burst with loud colours. No muted pink and white blossom of English trees.  The trees in Barcelona were proud and loud. Bright orange flowers of the Tipu tree, with it's pea-like leaves competed with the regal purple of the Jacarandas.  The flowers fell and covered the pavement stone carved with child-like flowers.

There were the usual sparrows (but bigger and noisier) and pigeons (there are pigeons everywhere) but there were also Swallows  and the larger paler Alpine Swifts diving, gliding and swooping, even in the heat of the midday sun, shouting for everyone to admire their acrobatic feats.

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," I muttered.
The LSH thought that Summer wasn't in doubt.  "Swifts flying high, weather staying dry." I replied.
He seemed relieved, as we do normally get rain when we go away.
They were making a lot of noise.
"It can't all be coming from the swallows," I said to explain why I kept stopping and looking up at the trees. "All that noise."

Then we saw them.  Bright green, chattering parakeets, with white faces.  Once you have seen them they are everywhere and the longer you are in Barcelona the less bothered by you they are. It's a good job we were only there for a long weekend, or I would have had a Monk Parakeet riding on my shoulder, learning English. These birds are thriving.  The descendants of escaped pets from the 1970s there are now over 10,000 of them.
"Look, there's a falcon!" The LSH had spotted a Peregrine hovering, hoping for a small bright green bird for tea. The authorities had introduced them to keep the numbers of parakeets down.  I'm not sure it's working and I'm glad.  I became quite fond of those bright green birds. Much better than pigeons.  In a flock of pigeons, you should always choose to be a parakeet.

At Park Guell, (where Gaudi lived and played) even the pigeons are decorated.

"Is there anything you want to see?" The LSH thrust the guidebook at me, hoping I might want to follow the tourist trail.
"There is a statue called woman and bird, I think we should see that."

We looked at it from several angles.

"Is it me, or does that look like a penis?" I asked.

The LSH agreed that he couldn't see a woman or a bird.

Here are the rest of my holiday snaps.

*The only Spanish word I know is sacapuntas, which means pencil sharpener (not pencil case, as my daughter told me.)  It is a word I kept hearing while the LSH was watching football. Spanish people apparently shout "pencil sharpener!" when they get excited.

(Who said, my one word wouldn't come in handy?)