Funny old month and somewhat tiring. A few fun gigs and some final work done on the “French Album”, plus quite a lot of stuff to do with my own projects. 2 More festival appearances left for Delta ladies this year. And gigs booked up to December. Normally we would be planning for next year by now but everybody seems to be a tired now. 14 years of constant gigging and it’s been fun, but I am not sure how sustainable it’s going to be going forward. Some us are getting distinctly past our sell bye date now. I am really going off driving distances at the moment and that’s a major part of it a lot of the time. 

The next decision is either take the safe options or gamble the farm. A small gamble is worth the risk perhaps. A role of the dice is looking more appealing as there is never really any certainty in life from one day to the next. So many unexpected twists and turns. Most people also don’t want truth, just something beautiful. Sadly to ignore the facts of the matter doesn’t make them go away and I think many may be in for a very rude awakening soon.

I was quite disappointed to hear someone continue to reiterate racist and xenophobic tripe and then claim that it wasn’t. When I hear people talk about “British culture” sadly they dont  mean Benjamin Britten, Glyndebourne and Shakespeare or tolerance either.  The fear of  a different sounding voice is something I don’t really understand.  

I grew up in Brixton and was taught to read by a women from Pakistan who always wore exquisit traditional clothing. My class was taught by an immaculately dressed chap from Trinidad I think. I was taught woodwork by a guy from Poland (sadly he failed in that particular mission and mostly my woodworking  didn’t ). The guy we bought our shoes from was from somewhere in Eastern Europe. the local working mans Cafe was run by Italians and so on. This was early 1960’s when I was growing up.  

To me for my entire life Britain has been multicultural  Well before the EU with of course people from the remains of the dominions too. 

14% of UK residents were born outside the UK, and yet I hear ranting about uncontrolled immigration. 

To put it another way  about 1.8 million out of around 68 Million people.
Yet I am told we are over run with marauding hoards. 

Presenting those people with the facts its seems is not enough to shut them up.  They still blame others for the havoc inflicted on them by their own elected representatives and they will and have been fooled again. 

Lovely old sky tonight. almost a full moon with silvery herringbone clouds across a velvety blue. 

In the end it’s the little things that matter, the little things that you share with people. 

We have a small patch of ground next to us which seems not to actually belong to the property next door or us and I have seeded it with mixed wild flowers as it looks a bit dull so we may get a bit of life in there now it’s rained a bit or at worst the birds can feed on them.

Today I got up with what I thought might be the start of a migraine, but caught it just in time thank goodness. 

I have another violin that made in India that is in need of restoring so I shall start work on bringing that back to health soon in the hope of making it sing again. 

“All you get to decide is what to do with the time that it is given to you.”
― Gandalf

Finally here is the answer.

Finally here is the answer.