The Diana Years

I've noticed that, due to the Royal Wedding at the end of this week, a documentary series I wrote the music for quite a while ago has been reshowing on a couple of channels...The Diana Years. I'll post details if I spot it repeating again.

Tumbledown Scrumpy and Parsnip Wine

Tumbledown Parsnip Wine
Originally uploaded by garry.judd

When we moved into our new home, we inherited a veg patch and some fruit trees. We made pickled onions and beetroot and apple puree, but thought that we'd better do domething really useful and make some *booze*.

We took a load of apples to nearby Hopleys Nursery in Much Hadham where they had an apple juicing day and got a demi-john full of juice. We just put an airlock on and left it to ferment naturally with natural yeast. It started out a muddy brown colour, but as it fermented, it got lighter and looked like a rather nice scrumpy.

Yesterday was the tasting day!!! Unfortunately, a slip with the syphon sent the lees moving and clouding the scrumpy, so I've left it to settle again. However, I did get a tiny amount out to taste. It's very dry with a slightly vinegaryness to it. Doesn't sound too good in that description, but I've had worse!!! I've decided to syphon it into a new demi-john and to see if I can get it refermenting with a bit of sugar.

We also inherited two rows of parsnips...Many more than we needed for a winter of roast dinners, so we made a couple of gallons of parsnip wine. This is what the pic above is.

It's a lovely golden colour and has the consistency (and almost the strength) of a medium sweet sherry...It's very nice indeed and well worth the hours we spent boiling up the ingredients!!!

On the music front, I have just written a piece inspired by the septic tank.

The Sticks

Allen Green
Originally uploaded by garry.judd
One of the unusual things about moving more into the countryside has been how much easier certain things are due to being near to a different set of bigger towns. For example, my journey time into London has been cut by a third and also, it's much easier to get my hands on tech gear in a hurry.

At the weekend, I needed to get a new comms computer and a couple of disk drives. Rather than buy online as usual (I needed them urgently), I took a short drive south, through Allens Green, past the really unusual semi-detached pub there (pic above), through High Wych, past Victoria and David Beckham's place and into the outskirts of Harlow where there is a PC World and a Maplins where I got my gear.

It was a lovely sunny day and beautiful countryside...Sad to think that some of this countryside is under threat of development...For details see http://www.stopharlownorth.com/ .

I bought a mini notebook for comms...I was hoping to use the iPad when out and about, but it's not suitable because of the inability to hook up a hard drive via USB. It's a neat little thing with a nice keyboard. I'll just be using it for Outlook, Word, Excel etc... and maybe Skype when I'm away, so hopefully that won't tax it too much!!!

My Greek Kitchen, My Cypriot Kitchen

Beautiful Mediterranean scenery and wonderful food introduced by Tonia Buxton...With music by me!!!

I'm a big fan of Greek and Cypriot music, so it was a real pleasure to write music for these two programmes. I bought a bouzouki especially which records very well through the Neumann U87 and Universal Audio 6176. I'm hoping there'll be another series soon, so I can try the bouzouki through the channel strip emulations on the Focusrite Liquid Sapphire 56.

The shows are on this weekend...

My Greek Kitchen...

Saturday 16th, 0900 and 0930 and Sunday 17th at 1200 and 1230 on Discovery Health And Living.

My Cypriot Kitchen...

Saturday 16th, 1200 and 1330 on DMAX, repeated on DMAX +1 and +2.

Sunday 17th, 1100 on Discovery Realtime repeated on +1.

Hope the weekend weather is as nice as it will be on the TV...And don't forget London Greek Radio for some great music on 103.3 FM!!!

Lost Tribe Of Palau

...with music by me is on National Geographic and Nat Geo HD at 9am on Sunday 17th April and repeated at 10am on Nat Geo +1.

This was a very interesting film to do as it required sounds from the Pacific such as conch shells to place the music geographically...Very interesting subject too!!!

All music was mixed in 5.1 but I'm not sure if the UK broadcasts support surround sound.

Dublin

St. Stephens Green, Dublin
Originally uploaded by garry.judd

Back from a promo visit to Dublin...That's a pic of St Stephens Green, just a few minutes walk from the centre of the city.

I took the chance to finish the rewiring of my studio on my return. All ins and outs are fully functional and 5.1 is now fully up and running.

I have a copy of the new Cubase 6 which I'd love to install, but I'm in the middle of writing some incidental music for a feature film and so I'll leave it until that's finished..Just to be on the safe side.

I'm still getting to grips with Cubase 5...I've found the folder tracks very useful in making an all purpose template for recording vocals, instruments and/or MIDI in stereo and 5.1 which will make starting a project much quicker and simple.

Village Green...

IMAG0179
Originally uploaded by garry.judd

Had to dash to the postbox to send a DVD of surround mixes I've been working on for a documentary...