Category Archives: Delta Ladies

October’s Musings In The Rain Kingdom

Golden October? Pumpkin seeds🎃 Lots of those in a pumpkin when you slice them up. The second experiment with the slow cooker today which will be pumpkin stew if the gods allow it.
It’s still mighty wet out though. I guess harvesting will be difficult? Not that I know about such matters of course.

This rains been going on for a week solidly now and it’s definitely not normal in my personal experience. Maybe this is a real manifestation of climate change. Its very different to the last few years at this point in the season. As usual I am trying to do stuff in the studio and I have started with a slightly unusual drum pattern for me which I have an idea about. Will it work? Stay tuned or not I guess, (more bad puns coming up). I will be teaming it up with a modal flavoured electric 12 string guitar part. I know I will regret it as it always takes me about half an hour to tune it. And also to find a suitable tone that’s interesting but not too distracting. The struggle is real 😉

Update. It took me 20 minute the get the thing sufficiently in tune, but it’s sounding Ok now.
The tracks maybe not going to work that well. I have put some string lines on it from the Korg but I am not sure if I like it or hate yet it so I will stop now as I am getting kind of irritable.

I think a lot of my issues are routed in the fact that I stil have an ongoing struggle with depression and anxiety that makes a thing more difficult than they might otherwise be. This as I am sure you can understand also has left me with a tendency to not entirely trust others motivations and a fear of being manipulated/used which has happened in the past due to a combination of naivete and also sheer desperation at times. The few odd extra musical job opportunities’ have dried up completely this year, which hasn’t helped much either and the arthritis can only be managed to a certain degree. I get frustrated with myself that I am not able to engage more with people generally in social environments which I do find difficult on my own anyway. I have tried to live a simple life but its always got very complicated due to the fact that I have never been very good at walking away and perhaps too often guilty of flogging a dead horse. So music has a lot of extra baggage attached to it for me. I have usually gone the extra mile for people to try and make things work. I have sort of lost faith in it all really I suppose.


One Step Forward Two Steps Backward Means All Work And No Play

Existential angst mostly. That’s what’s on my mind.

Labour and Conservative, what is the difference. Slightly less xenophobia?
Also the simplistic “working people” trope and still no proper “social housing” as in old school council houses due to misplaced ideology plus a few 100 other things….
So most people think it is one bunch of suits swapped for another (that’s actually what I think too).

The real ideological problem is in my opinion this: Clinging on to the old school notions that everyone wants the equivalent of a “middle class” lifestyle and sharing that view is in part the problem, Up north there are a lot of people who don’t share those views and are frankly often ill educated with a very narrow minded and naive view of the world. They are the ones and their descendants that Thatcher wrote off. They are the ones that supported Brexit, and some of them were rioting, possibly in part because that nice Mr Khan that owns the local 7-11 has a 3 year old Mercedes and they don’t… There needs to be a massive cultural shift. The arts need to be opened up to everyone. It will taken generations to fix. Not all old school socialist ideas were daft. Yes we need a strong economy and a skilled workforce, but also we need poetic road sweepers and homes for those that can work but will never be even hedge hoppers let along high flyers. Aspiration is fine but all the perspiration and grafting in the world won’t get you there if its not in the stars for you.

On a different subject I do YouGov polls. they did one today about “How Woke Are You”.
daft really, but the comments were interesting. A lot of guff about “woke” erasing british culture… I am so woke to the point that gammons are at risk of spontaneous combustion if I am within 3 meters of them.

And I just saw this from another occasional musical co-conspirator: “Statement from Ealing Blues Festival Founder Bob Salmons (aka musician Robert Hokum) as he bids farewell to the event he started in 1987 and where he remained Artistic Director, until 2024. “Well it’s not so much ‘Elvis has left the building’ as ‘Bob is leaving the park’ as I have joined the likes of Stephen Hawking and Rob Burrow in having Motor Neurone Disease and thus have to say ‘goodbye’ to the event that I have brought to Ealing’s Walpole Park since 1987.”

Blimey….

That was a shock.

Here are a few of my Tunes

  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Just a sleazy blues
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Sometimes you have a revelation and you can’t keep it to yourself so you end up singing about about it almost ecstatically. So I did. Go me. A very recent recording inspired by those moments of special sharing twined with enlightenment.
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Tune in Gb
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    A few thoughts on lost opportunities' in a pop rock setting ballad.
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Just cause you are a bad person by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    A stream of consciousness song.
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    I am So Empty Now by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Safe For The Moment by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    A moment of pure joy letting go
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    jazz fusion world style instrumental
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Simple acoustic guitar instrumental tune.
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Autumnal Piano Piece
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Wish You Would Let Me by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    False Prophet by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    In To The Dark by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Third World Intervention by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Hard Walk Into Sunlight by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    Ennui 11 by Diana Stones Glasscage
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    A mellow song for a rainy day.
  • by Diana Stones Glasscage
    A sad violin instrumental about loss.

The Thin Veneer Is Starting To Crack

My mental health is playing up and pushing me off balance slightly again. Whoops.
A bit of a polish and buff up wont cover it this time. Ho hum. But we do what we can whilst we can. Or at least we try. At times I do think should I consider going back on to medications again, but I don’t think it would be any better as the medications really do numb everything. They are great in a crisis, and I was on them for several fairly long periods of time.Now though I am not sure. If I got to the point where I was not functioning well I would jump back on the train though I think. Writing it down makes it easier to deal with it as it puts me at one remove from myself almost. I am easily triggered at times though. Lived experience made me what I am, and that cannot be undone. I wonder how people with very severe trauma manage, but of course the answer is actually that often they simply don’t.

A friend in a band that I built a website for many years ago got in touch as he has a tech problem he needs fixing. He has just played his first gig at Cambridge Rock Festival after a year off due to recurring illness as he has MS and and also a serious back injury. I said I was glad he was gigging again and he replied:”The gig nearly killed me, but better to die with your boots on so to speak”. That’s my tribe.

Its the weekend as I write this and hopefully things will remain quiet after the disturbances last week. It’s been very disturbing for everyone. What happens next in British society is paramount. We have the opportunity to reboot the narrative now. There was a genuine grassroots demonstration of a feeling of solidarity and an outburst of common sense which may well have defused what could have been so much worse. But it is a little bit back to the future and somebody my age has seen it all before. So my faith in humanity is now slightly restored.

I did try to see the Perseids but sadly there was too much cloud cover here as is often the case. Still they will be around until the end of the month so there is a chance. Each night I try and look.

I have had a few distractions that have stopped me from making the best use of the last few days though. Family and other misunderstandings.