French Model Railway: If at first you don't succeed......

Drumming practice update:

Got to the beach this morning at 7.25am with drum and stand and sticks and stool to find the tide well and truly in and no rocky perches available.

There was nothing for it but to trudge along the cliff top path to the next bay. Not a soul in sight and found no rocks but a section of beach beneath the cliffs which was covered with a thick layer of broken shells - no idea why. This layer proved thick enough to support the stool and stand - legs of stool sunk in a bit.

The carpet of shells.

The cliff

The early morning view.

Is that tide coming in?

The empty bay.

This is where the recently finished Viv Albertine book comes in useful. After an incredibly successful session on the beach (could have kept going for hours), I had a humungously awful session this afternoon with the drum pad. It was as if I'd gone back to the level I was at back in April. Utterly dejecting.

But Albertine recounts stories again and again of this kind of regression and it's reassuring to know that such backward steps are not a sign that the whole enterprise of my learning to play the snare drum is doomed from the start. I hope.

Last session on the beach tomorrow as mid-morning we're off down the coast to Andernos-les-Bains where we are staying in a hotel for 4 days - not sure what the drumming possibilities will be there.

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Currently listening to:

Hot Chip

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Last night's dinner:

Fried chicken leg, potatoes and green beans

Preceded by the last of Monsieur Coulon's Vieux Pineau from Oleron

And followed by one of the oldest wines I've drunk for some time.

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Prior to dinner took a final cycle up the hill of darkness to the bright, verdant land of Nirvana.