Hugh's blog
We’ve just arrived back to Jura having spent a few months in Italy. Jane is half Italian and has family in Rome, and so we decided to stretch a proposed Christmas visit into a more lengthy stay - an opportunity to escape the worst of the Jura winter!
One of the over-riding memories I have of leaving the city behind and arriving on the Isle of Jura is how much time I suddenly spent outdoors. Granted, this may have been largely due to the fact that I was camping out in a damp and leaking old stone cottage, ahead of rebuilding it.
I've been amazingly fortunate with the musicians who have been involved on the record. As the production process has gone on things seem to have fallen into place, with the key musicians injecting exactly the right degree of expertise and personality, non more so than Steve Jansen.
My lovely dog Minnow died in the Summer. She was getting old and had been bravely coping with a serious illness for a few months. I'd never imagined that I'd know for myself the truth of the expression 'a man's best friend', but the two of us arriving here in Jura and roughing it together for a year or two certainly proved it to be the very best of friendships.