I went to Brill on Friday evening - the traffic was quite bad on the way. Paul picked me up and Cathy and Bette were already in the house. We had an Indian meal with a bottle of decent claret. Saturday morning Cathy sang the Sappho settings and I recorded them on the Zoom - this was a very simple process and I think Cathy liked the sound we got in the living room. We went and had and had lunch in Thame and Paul took Cathy to Oxford. I went with Bette to the computer shop and then slipped into the gtr shop. Someone was in there trying a 1963 Fender Duosonic and very attractive it was too. I asked them about the Danelectro U2 they had had and apparently it was a recent one. They had some late 60s Teles for just under �4k which cheered me up. The Gretsches were under �500 which surprised me - I later found that they are Korean made but the reviews are very good. I caught Bette up in Waitrose.

Yesterday was my birthday and so Paul took me to the local pub for lunch - it has new management who own a farm and raise/grow the produce. The chicken, beef and potatoes really tasted great - also the rhubarb crumble. Bette and Rose had arrived by the time we got back. Paul took me down to the coach stop and I got back to Heston about 8pm to open more cards.

This morning I got on with mixing 5 tracks from Gilbert and the 3 fragments from Sappho. I used one of the Gilbert tracks on the first fragment, a new synth part on the second and some existing gtr for the third.

I listened through to the Naked Ride Home and Imogen Heap's Ellipse which were my bday presents to myself. Vita seems to like working at Allies and some weekends takes the poodle home with her.