What have I done?

So,
what have I done in the three days since I got here?

Well, work(music-making)-wise, I've written the start of a typically tuneful Levyesque ballad with a dude called Abe from Brighton (now living in Barcelona) on the guitar; I've written and started to arrange a proper old-school barbershop song with a jolly tune but sad lyrics (this is always how barbershop songs are); We also spent around 3 hours one evening making up words by writing down the first thing that came into our heads and then handing the sheet of paper on to the next person in a circle for them to respond to it in an improvised way. It's like everything here: Very arty-farty, surprisingly fun, and remarkably productive.

Social-wise: There are currently seven of us here:

Me and Sam - Cambridge, UK. Drove down together

Jules - The don of the project. We're staying in his mum and dad's house (his Dad is a knight of the realm no less!) so he knows the workings of the place and is in charge of making sure the washing up gets done, the septic tank has whatever-it-needs-doing-to-it doing to it, we don't run out of gas or water (our water comes from a well at the bottom of the garden. Apparently it occasionally runs dry in the summer months so we have to conserve water). He's also a great pianist and does lots of the production for other people's tracks.

Julie and Seyriol - These two are not an item but they are certainly a double act. Julie (originally from Wolverhampton, now doing physical theatre in Paris and teaching adolescents for a living) and Seyriol (A Welsh guy living in Brighton who writes plays and sings) are both incredible bright sparks. Very over-the-top and spontaneous, they riff off eachother and occasionally burst into song.

Dave - Record producer, Electronic music whizz, flute player. He's quiet compared to the others but he seems like a genuine and gentle guy.


Abe - The wild man of the group. He smokes a lot of dope and serves to entertain at all times.


I've played a lot of table-tennis, drunk a lot of 80p-a-bottle wine, watched a far off thunderstorm, played an accordian, eaten and cooked some great food (I've even induced Beatabet into the realms of Lentil Spaghetti!) and got ill. I seem to have contracted a mild version of man-flu called kid-flu. It's lame and involves having to carry around a loo roll all the time to save my sleeves from being deluged by snot.

Weather is generally great but it's been raining a lot. That's it.