Tag: exeter

Tour Finale

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backstage dressing room selfie yellow orla kiely coatsinks and random stuff backstage props water bottlesoutside the shed with white trainers on outside shed yellow mustard coat oral kiely beretI’ve currently got a kidney infection and today is the first day I’ve been at my laptop, hence the silence over the last week. I’ll spare you the grim details but aside from the obvious problems there have been a lot of annoying side effects. Due to the location of the kidneys, stretching out my back really hurts which makes walking and moving around difficult, and my tablets are making everything taste horrible (even water!).

These photos are from the end of my tour with Rhum & Clay. It brings to a close my two years of working with the company and it was quite weird to be finally saying goodbye. I’m so lucky I got to work with such a brilliant company so early in my career; I’ve learnt an invaluable amount from them and gained so much experience and confidence as a composer.

The last three weeks of the tour were in Exeter and I was back and forth between London for two of those weeks, which meant a lot of hanging around on cold train platforms with my bassoon as you can see. There’s also a few photos of the backstage area – backstage often have to double up as green rooms and dressing rooms and they are invariably messy; lots of shoes, caffeine, remnants of props, bolts of black fabric, LX tape and empty water bottles. My natural environment!

Thank you so much to Rhum & Clay and everybody involved in the tour. I’m so proud to have been a part of it!backstage long mirror selfie random stuff from in the dressing roombassoon dress matching mustard coat

Leaves

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red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior autumn molesey wilderness forest exterior garden setting sun dusk evening red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exteriorSo if these photos seem familiar I’m basically following the same formula from a couple of weeks ago; take one coloured coat (this time my favourite maroon number, a fiver from Deptford Market 3 years ago), head into the garden… the leaves are so lovely this time of year, what can I say! It seems every time I’m home the trees have changed colour again and I want to document it on my camera! I love this time of year when nature is in technicolour and the changing colour of the leaves are such a powerful and perennial metaphor for the passing of time.

As I was editing this post I was reminded of this set of photos featuring the same shirt and trainers. That post was from when I was last on tour in the South West with Rhum & Clay, and coincidentally I’m on tour again with them at the moment. It’s so brilliant to be able to see different parts of the country whilst in such good company! I wrote the score for the show we are performing and it is so stimulating to revisit a project I care about so much, as so often in art that’s not the case. Completing a painting, finishing a novel or recording an album all have a moment of finality where the product is finished and the time for alterations is over. Theatre is the opposite: constantly evolving and adapting to new stages and audiences, nuances and cadences never quite the same from night to night.

Facebook/Twitter/Bloglovin/Lookbookred burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior aIMG_8818 red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior autumn molesey wilderness forest exterior garden setting sun dusk evening red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior red burgundy swing coat oversize maroon accordion pleat white blouse new look nike trainers black bow outside garden exterior autumn molesey wilderness forest exterior garden setting sun dusk evening

Foxes

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I live in a countryside area of north Surrey by a river, and regularly encounter foxes, badgers, swans, geese and ducks. James is very much a badger guy but I am particularly fond of the foxes: the beautiful colour of their fur, the elegant way they move and their crafty reputation. I smile whenever I drive past them. At the moment there’s lots of young foxes in the streets near my house, sometimes when I head home I catch them playing.

I am upset whenever I see a dead fox on the road – up to 50% of the UK fox population are killed by cars! They are not vermin and pose very little threat to humans, and frequent calls to instigate a fox cull are spurred on by sensationalist and impartial media reports. Did you know for every one attack on humans by a fox, there are over 5,000 from domestic (i.e. trained) dogs?

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So here is my fox t-shirt – I bought this from Aubin & Wills (as well as a matching fox mug) shortly before they closed in January and everything was about 85% off (hallelujah). I made the skirt with my Mum: the fabric is covered in African animals and was originally bought by my Grandma in 1960s Ethiopia! (and some bows here). Lastly my new necklace is from my recent trip to Liverpool, found in Little Red Vintage.

Do you have a favourite fox? I’m partial to Mr Tod from the Beatrix Potter books as well as the Janacek opera The Cunning Little Vixen (incidentally that animated version is amazing) and whatever the fox in Farthing Wood was called. Possibly he was just called Fox. For more on foxes read here.

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Image  (Credit PETA)