Seven Spring Melodies

Jonathan tagged me for this Seven Spring melodies meme and I am happy to oblige. But seriously, do people really change what they listen to depending on the season? I don't think I do.

Here's what I've been listening to recently. The first two are easy because the children have been learning them at school and hum them around the house.

• Z. has been learning the words to Claude Nougaro's Armstrong, je ne suis pas noir .....
• E. likes Boby Lapointe's La Maman des Poissons which is all about how kind the mummy fish is to her little ones and ends with the excellent line "et moi je l'aime bien avec du citron"!
• Every time I turn the radio on, I can guarantee that Liberta by Pep's (I'm afraid the apostrophe is part of the name) will come on within about two minutes. It's starting to get on my nerves a bit but it's definitely one of the melodies I'll associate with this spring.
• I've had another album in my earbuds at various points over the past few weeks, the Mauritanian Daby Touré's Stereo Spirit. I associate it with last summer, so it's probably wishful thinking given that it's been peeing it down for the past week.
• My bruv and his family gave me the Jackie Album (Vol 2) for my birthday a few weeks ago. You probably had to be swoony and pre-pubescent in 1970s Britain to really appreciate this CD. It's difficult to choose a favourite track but I'm going to plump for Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
• ... and Rod Stewart's Maggie May ( although it's obviously not late September and I'm probably a lot older now than the eponymous older woman - the morning sun certainly really shows my age)
  
• And last but not least, Devendra Banhart's Cristobal. It's two years old but it still sounds fresh and .... well springlike I suppose.

I'm tagging you all, yes all seven of you. Happy May 1st!

Blue

There was a lot of blue - blue in the pool and the sea, the sky, the taverna chairs. And some red too - the deep red of springtime poppies. And a bit of black - mostly on the backs of old Greek women preparing for Orthodox Easter.

There was the smell of orange blossom and cistus in the air. The taste of ouzo every evening, sometimes competing with garlicky tatziki or taramasalta.

There were blue glass eye charms too - and we've come back with a few adorning bracelets and key rings.

Because the only downside of always going on the cheapest possible late deal holiday is that you only have a couple of days to look forward to discovering your destination - the Island of Evia in Greece in this case — so you have to make up for that by making the afterglow last for as long as possible.

Yiamas!

Cornaigmore

TourScotland uploaded this photograph to Twitpic today. It's Cornaigmore school on the Isle of Tiree - my very first school. I started Primary 1 here in 1967 and didn't leave until we went back to the mainland four and a half years later.

Just looking at this photograph is bringing back memories of the headmaster Mr McDougal standing outside that lean-to with a great big whistle in his mouth; big boys with tackety boots streaming through the hallway; wet coats, cremola foam and the occasional sheep in the cloakroom; and the perfume of my very first teacher Miss Dodds. The area at the front of the school is the machair which stretches all the way down to the beach - a great place for a game of rounders in the summer.

The school seems to have changed a bit since then.

(Thanks Sandy)