Gardens In The Rain.

I never wrote a blog yesterday because I didn't do anything worth writing about. I did venture out into my sad little garden for ten minutes between showers to feed the birds and check on my fishes. There wasn't much to see but I was pleased to see a viburnum in bloom and my clematis looks like it will flower in a couple of weeks. We can't expect too much, it's still February. I watched Ireland beat Scotland in the rugby and in the evening I watched a documentary about David Bowie followed by his performance at Glastonbury in 2000.
It is Sunday morning now and I am listening to Nocturnes and La Mer by Debussy. It is my only Debussy CD. I bought it in Help The Aged for £1.49 quite a few years ago. I wrote a little piece about it at the time. I bought it because Van Morrison mentions Debussy in his song 'On Hyndford Street'

And tuning in to Luxembourg late at night
And Jazz and Blues records during the day
Also Debussy on the Third Programme
Early mornings when contemplation was best.

I looked on YouTube for more Debussy and found a piece called Gardens In The Rain. It is a wonderful piece of music written for piano. Sweet Thing, In The Garden, Cold Wind In August, When The Leaves Come Falling Down spring to mind where Van uses the imagery of gardens in the rain. Did he get the idea from Debussy one wonders? Maybe not, because when we saw Van perform the song On Hyndford Street at his concert on Cyprus Avenue Belfast in 2015 when he got to the bit about Debussy he said, "I don't know why I put that in there". I was quite miffed about that because I listened to Debussy because I thought Van did. It doesn't really matter though because it's still a nice piece of music. You can hear Debussy play it himself below in a recording made in 1912.