April Cried and Stepped Aside

April is one of those wonderful yet miserable months.  Flowers begin to blossom, while we all have to knuckle down and crack on with the pile of work that remains to be done at the end of our academic slog.  Instead of spreading it out over a whole year, naturally, most students leave it until the very last moment – and even if you do spread it out, you always seem to end up with an 'all-nighter' or several long days of non-stop work, sustenance comprising of black coffee and a speedy snack from the pizzeria next door.

London is glorious, however, and it keeps my spirits up.  The windows are open, the sun is streaming in, and it's boiling hot.  Last year, the Easter weekend was around 11ºC, while this year the weather is an astonishing 26º.  I'm beginning to worry that the beautiful weather isn't going to stick around after my Tuesday deadline.  I'm excited about Tuesday, as I've had a bottle of champagne sitting on my shelf for the last two months – all of us musos are going to sit outside Somerset House and soak in the sunshine, and open up the bottle.  If it's very hot I may run into the fountains …  I'm looking forward to revision, just because I can do it wherever I want!  I have to do my coursework at a keyboard because most of it is jotting down music, while I can go and revise in Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath.  It's going to be good.

And, ah, the summer …  The Proms, the sun, live music, no work to be done, free to write whatever music I want to write, lots of time with friends, road trips across Britain, ice cream, – I'll obviously pop home for a cup of Joe's – shorts, and loads more.  Very much looking forward to a busy summer!

But before I get ahead of myself, next week is the Royal Wedding.  Our Prince William is getting married to Kate Middleton.  The country's getting more and more excited – well, at least in the south east!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.  Some of the muso societies are all going down to Hyde Park to toast the royal couple, but I wanted to head down the Mall and get swept along like an ant before its queen, a subject of Her Majesty.  Instead, I think I'm more than likely going to stay in Hampstead and join my friends for some kind of houseparty – we will be donning some royal masks.  I suggested to a friend that I should go as Princess Beatrice, to which she quipped, 'You'd best get a horse's head then'.  Oh dear.

I think there should be a national Blue Peter competition to find the tackiest piece of merchandise in the Kingdom.  In return you could get given a Blue Peter badget, but with Kate and Prince William's face on it, just to top it all off.  One of my newest friends, Honor, posted some random toy train ('a commemorative coal hopper') which commemorates the wedding on my Facebook wall – it's certainly a contender for the prize. Naturally, it's painted in a majestic purple colour with gold fringes.  What we really need to find is a Union Jack baseball hat with bright pink Minnie Mouse ears with two antennae stretching out from the centre with the pictures of the royal couple contained in laminated love hearts.  That would be what I would make, and it would sell in the millions.  You know it's true.

Anyway, I'd best be heading off.  I have to write a Mozart sanctus and a Debussy melodie in the next three days – it's going to be stressful, and perhaps fun at the same time.  Oh, and happy Good Friday may I add.  I've been listening to Ron Kenoly's 'Jesus Is Alive' all morning – great 1980s gospel-funk worship!  Check it out.  It even has Michael Jackson's bassist, Abe Laboriel, and the old Weather Report percussionist, Alex Acuña, playing, as they're both 'born-again believers'.  Great stuff.