Silver snowstorm - January 13

"Silver snowstorm, music without words..." this line from "Serpentine Song" somehow encapsulates the snowy landscape for me. You don't hear it fall, cars, trains and buses stop, and all that's left is an extraordinary cold and silent beauty.

It's a strange feeling, one minute in tropical Mexico and the next in frozen London. But in its way the world of icy branches inspires song as much as the land of the evergreen jungle. "A humming bird in snow..." In Loch Lomond I interwove two such opposite worlds, to metaphorically express the dichotomy when you think things are one way but really there's a whole other story going on. I did actually see humming birds in the Yucatan, and then today in Richmond a whole flock of gulls were circling above in search of food. From a palate of bright colours to a mysterious scene in black and white, each world has its own charm.

Back home now I've written down some new lines for a song before getting back to rehearsing...