This is a conversation about life after the music festival, including thoughts on dogs and cats. It was recorded late one evening on 11 December 2011.

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JP: Since you’re not doing the music festival anymore and you don’t even have a piano in the house.

Patrick: Not a thing.

JP: Not, you still have some music…

Patrick: I still play once in a while…

JP: You still have some music, some sheet music around. Describe your life now that you’re sort of, kind of, retired.

Patrick: I get up in the morning and have a cup of tea and read for an hour. Then I take a shower and have breakfast and then, usually, if I’m in good condition, I take a walk for an hour down to the sea and up to the village; and then, work on the music scores and transcriptions; and then, have lunch; then have a nap, watch the news; then work on the scores and then I read and go to bed.

JP: You have dinner in there too?

Patrick: Well, usually we don’t do dinner much. Do a nice big lunch. I do a breakfast which is either very light depending on the time that I get to it or it’s a nice hefty breakfast if it’s early, yeah. If I’m having breakfast at nine or ten I make it heavy, if it’s eleven-thirty which is often nowadays, since my foot, then I have a very light breakfast. Yesterday, for instance, it was yogurt with some of Stephanie’s – she made this, these preserves from quince.

JP: Quince?

Patrick: Yep

JP: Suzy’s.

Patrick: No, Steph ….

JP: or Remedios

Patrick: Remedios

JP: Ah ok

Patrick: What did I say? Stephanie?

JP: Stephanie, Yeah. So typically lunch is around 2 or 3.

Patrick: About 3 o’clock lunch.

JP: 3 o’clock lunch.

Patrick: So it coincides with the best part of the news.

Patrick: And then… well, unless I have some music to pick up in Palma or some errand in Palma or some shopping in Palma, then I work until I can’t take it anymore.

Patrick: And then maybe watch a movie, maybe. Walk the garbage. I don’t have a dog. I’ll walk the garbage. The dog used to take me for a walk.

JP: That was Lilly?

Patrick: Yeah! I found a note in amongst all the other things [of Stephanie’s]. From a guy there was an old guy who used to live here called Sebastian who… God there are so many things to say about him. Anyway, one day he found Lilly in the torrente trapped, she couldn’t get out. And he left a note in his inimitable Spanish “Señor, tu perro está en el torrente y no puede salir” – “your dog is in the creek bed and can’t get out” and he stuck that to my door. On a little piece of paper torn off somewhere. And sure enough there she was.

Patrick: Another time, you know I had a Renault 4 and I parked it in the village and we went to a restaurant. Lilly got out of the house somehow, came to the village, saw the Renault 4, jumped into it and fell asleep and it was somebody else’s Renault 4. She ended up in Soller.

Patrick: So, we got a call from Soller “Señor, your dog is in our car.” How did they know it was my dog?

JP: Did Lilly have a collar or anything?

Patrick: No, no. But I guess there must have been somebody who’s seen me around town with Lilly.

JP: Yeah.

Patrick: She, she belonged to the shepherds in Galilea when I arrived. First dog I saw in Mallorca was Lilly. We were driving up to see the house that we were buying and there is a flock of sheep going across the road with the shepherd. He had his crook and this little dog. Amazing. And then three years later when Allison was ill, the shepherd gave Allison Lilly.

JP: Wow.

Patrick: So I was charged with taking care of Lilly. And then I ran over her and killed her. A sad story.

JP: Yep. That is while you were backing out of the parking space.

Patrick: To come meet a German violinist in Es Moli for practice. Real shit, that guy. Awful.

Patrick: So then we got Fiddle and Solo, two other dogs. Then no more dogs. One was shot by a shepherd “for chasing his sheep,” he said. I forget what happened to the other one.

JP: And no more cats either since Boris passed away?

Patrick: No more cats, no.

JP: But you got chickens!

Patrick: Oh, you know, well, they can fend for themselves in the worst of times, whereas the cat would be right there, right there.

JP: At the foot of the fire.

Patrick: Yep.

JP: Yep. Speed bump.

Patrick: Boris was nice.

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Recording file name: 111211-conversation-with-patrick-life-in-retirement.mp3