Bloggy Desert Island Discs

I'm joining in with Anne at  Marmalade and Catmint  who has had the wonderful idea of  'Bloggy Desert Island Discs'.  Like the BBC radio programme, which is celebrating being 70  years old this year, you choose eight pieces of music that have meant something to you throughout your life and also choose a book (other than the bible or other religious text or Shakespeare) and you can also choose one luxury item to take with you on to the island.

Here are my music choices.........

Out of Town - Max Bygraves from the film 'Charley Moon' 

I have a recollection of standing in front of the full length mirror in my parent’s bedroom dressed in a blue sun dress with a white bolero jacket over it and holding an open  paper parasol.  I was singing this song and twirling the parasol, and doing the actions of dusting for the words  ‘the sun is a big yellow duster, polishing the blue, blue sky’ – I’d have been about 6 at the time.  I used to listen to Children's Favourites with Uncle Mac and could also have chosen other Max Bygraves songs like 'I'm a blue toothbrush, you're a pink toothbrush' or 'Tulips from Amsterdam'  or one of my other favourites like 'Sparky and the Magic Piano' or the Ronnie Hilton song about little mice with clogs on but I've made my choice based on the fact that I know for whatever reason that I was happy that day with my parasol.

Theme from Stranger on the Shore – Acker Bilk

I remember the whole family used to sit and watch this drama series on the television and we had a record of the tune as well.  I'd have been 10 or 11 when it was first broadcast.

It’s my party – Lesley Gore

The first single or 45rpm record I bought; probably from Woolworth. I was thrilled to have my own record as before I'd had to listen to my parents 78s of  songs like 'The Happy Wanderer', 'I see the Moon' or 'The Dream of Olwen' whistled by Ronnie Ronalde.  I must have been about 13 years old and I  felt so grown up.

The Sun ain’t gona shine anymore – The Walker Brothers

Ah, my first  'heart throb' – the unforgettable voice of the gorgeous Scott Walker.

All along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix

I saw him perform live, he played the guitar behind his back and with his teeth, he wore purple velvet, he was incredible, he was larger than life!

Fantasia on a Theme from Thomas Tallis - Ralph Vaughan Williams

An introduction to classical music in my early twenties;  I love Vaughan Williams's music but I'm especially fond of this piece.

Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone, from soundtrack of the film The Mission

I’m a great fan of Ennio Morricone’s music and this piece is so heart- wrenchingly beautiful.

Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar

Such wonderful music;  it would remind me of England and home whilst on the desert island.

My book choice is.....

A Month in the Country by J L Carr - I love this book.  It was hard to chose from several favourites and it is such a small book that I'd have to read it over and over again but that is no hardship!

My luxury item would be...

A vat or other huge container of  the Body Shop's  Vitamin E  cream; thanks!

Big Garden Bird Watch and Versatility

This coming weekend I will be participating in the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch.  All you have to do is record the birds you see in one hour over the two days!  (full details here)  I've done this for a number of years now even though we didn't join the RSPB until a couple of years ago.  We have lots of birds visit our garden and I have three areas where I feed them.  

We have loads of sparrows!  They have done so well  here over the last couple of years.   I think it's because we have hedges and shrubs on two sides of the garden.  They particularly like the holly hedge at the top of the garden where they wait to be fed each morning sometimes flying across the garden and into the hedge as I walk towards it just as if they are vying to be first in the queue.  The hedge is a good refuge from the sparrowhawk that occasionally flies across the garden and sometimes lands.

We have a few blackbirds too.  One of the males is quite aggressive and chases the other birds away from the food!

The little robin sings every morning before I put out his meal worms.  He is always first in line for these although he sometimes loses out to a couple of magpies who drop by to see what is available on the food table.  I can hear him now, through the open bedroom window, singing as I type this post.

We are so pleased to have the song thrush back!  We had three the year before last and they did an excellent job of clearing the slugs and snails in the garden.  In the middle of last year there was just one and then it disappeared but it came back and it is still here - I haven't seen it for a while but my neighbours have.

This week I was very honoured to receive this blog award from both Elaine at A Woman of the Soil.  and Suzy at Rustic Vintage Country  Do go and visit their lovely blogs and whilst you are there you can also visit some of the other blogs they have given this award to.  Some of them are bloggy friends of old whose blogs I know and love, whilst others are new to me. Thank you so much for thinking of me, Elaine and Suzy! I have to nominate 7 other blogs that I've  just  recently discovered and that I have enjoyed and I also have to reveal 7 things about myself so here goes.  I have found lots of 'new to me' blogs whilst participating in the 'Photo Scavenger Hunt' each month so I'm going to nominate some of those.


Stand and Stare
The Diary of an Unremarkeable Woman
Stitch of Time
Little Blue Mouse
A Place for everything
Marmalade and Catmint
Bright Star
 
Seven things about myself

1) I love Museums and historic buildings infact anything historical especially relating to social, local and industrial history.

2) I love books, reading, libraries and book shops.

3) I love the theatre and have a huge collection of programmes from just about every production I have ever seen from about 1966.

4) I left school at 15 and did my 'A' levels at night school then studied for a degree with the Open University (History and History of Art) when I was in my 30s then about 20 years later did their course on Creative Writing.

5) I've been researching my family history since 1988 when you had to travel to archives and look at parish register books placed on a cushion wearing white cotton gloves to protect the pages. It is so much easier now most records are on the internet.  I was surprised to find I have Scottish ancestors on my mother's side.

6) A long time ago (c.1975) at the first Museum and Art Gallery I worked  in I sold a painting of a can opener from an exhibition we had in the gallery to the jazz musician George Melly who'd been performing, the night before, at the theatre next door.  He was thrilled with it and told me it would amuse the boys in the band who were then John Chiltern's Feetwarmers!

7) I have bronze, silver and gold medals in 'Disco Dancing' - I danced my gold medal set pieces to 'Eye to Eye Contact' by Edwin Starr, 'Enough is Enough' by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand and 'We Don't Talk Anymore' by Cliff Richard.

Well, that's quite enough about me!  I hope you'll pop along and visit the blogs I've mentioned and perhaps have a go at the Big Garden Bird Watch as well.