[DSPCD002]

The music on this album is a collection of original Mediterranean instrumental guitar music inspired by the following happy interlude.

In 1986 my wife, Stephanie, and I found a flat in Chelsea with a rent so low that people refused to believe us when we told them. It was in a quiet area between Draycott Avenue and the Kings Road which we nicknamed Bistrovia and the only drawback to this little garden flat was that the doors to its tiny patio could not be opened for the huge mound of rubble, soil, remnants of building tools and an old forgotten bicycle that lay piled outside. However, after a month of clearing all this away, we uncovered, to our amazement, a beautifully paved patio with a small flight of romanesque stone steps with two bricked rockeries on either side. As we were the only ones in the building with access to the garden, we realised the possibilities available to us.

We covered the whole area, steps, rookeries and all in brilliant masonry white and found a table and chair to put outside. Even the house that backed onto our garden had hacienda style windows and a balcony which lent an added Iberian mystique.

We had made our own Bistrovia and we couldn't believe how beautiful it looked. Each spaghetti we shared on a summer night was like a magical holiday and sometimes we even fell asleep under the stars. Stephanie and I gave as many summer lunches as we could which lasted well past twilight and into the early hours of morning and we all told wonderful stories to each other beneath a crescent moon.
Although we had to move in 1997, the memories of Bistrovia will last us all our lives, but they're too special to keep to ourselves.

So, if you have a patio, or even just a dining table or even just a bottle of wine you've been keeping for a special occasion, I'd like to pass these feelings among you - like a dish of so many mixed olives - as a modest recompense for never having asked you over.

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