Category Archives: Delta Ladies

Starting From Scratch

When the rules of the game change we must change or likely loose. And the rules have certainly changed.  I am now firmly in the “one day at time day” category. No great long term plans and I will see what happens when I andf get there.  Mentally I feel a bit more on the ball all of a sudden. Physically not so much. And the balls are all in the air at present. So if I am not at the end quite yet, what next?  I really do feel clueless.
I have been keeping up on the creative side as much as possible of course. Its mostly what I do these days. I can’t do more and I rarely do less.  It takes more effort than it used to though. A lot more effort. 

I wrote a humorous and slightly near the mark song yesterday. Dare I sing it? I am not sure. Many don’t do irony. I  once worked with a very clever songwriter and singer. She had a  great voice. She was also a burlesque performer and a natural comedian.  What she had not reckoned with was that people did not get the joke and essential wrote her off a posh stripper. She was quite a wit but many didn’t get it. When she went on to try and push her songwriting career people didn’t really always want to know.  That was a great shame and  a major talent has been missed in my opinion.   

So I shall endeavour to make the most of  the abilities I gave creatively as long as I am allowed. It’s been a hard year or two having lost close friends and its only in the last month or so I really felt as though I was not under a permanent cloud.  I just woke up feeling different. Not better and not worse but different. The world is not looking quite the same.   

Surprise, surprise. here’s a song. It’s got a bit of dulcima  in the mix too and tin whistle though these are not featured. They are just working away supporting the song. 

 

  

Diana-Stone Studio.APRIL 2021

A June 2021 Round Up

Personally  it’s been a very draining 6 months.  I have been working solidly on music projects both solo and collaborative but of course nearly al remote ones. Other stuff I had hoped to do has ground to a complete halt now. Also mostly due to lockdown I gave not really been able to get anymore local connections made. Added to that I have had a lot of  problems with long term Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions which seems  to have been much worse this year plus depression and anxiety. So fighting that tends to impede the creative flow quite a bit. At present I do feel its a real uphill struggle and it’s getting harder.  I also like many wonder if we will actually get a full UK unlocking at the end of July. If we don’t that will be more than a little disappointing as   the present regime does not yet permit the normal mix and mingle type activities (Folk clubs and Open mike and normal pub gigs) to name just a few.  I feel as though my mental facilities are dwindling as well. Currently I am living on a diet of youtube videos and little else to keep me amused in my downtime.  There are some very interesting blogging genre videos.  One that I watch is this guy Hobo Shoestring   https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHoboShoestring and if you like trains and the wide open spaces there is a lot of joy to be had in the videos he posts. he has been riding trains for 30 years and is what you might call a natural philosopher perhaps.Another one I watch is  https://www.youtube.com/c/HubNut/featured which is about ordinary cars with a motoring journalist called Ian Seabrook. He drives and then fixes them eventually and more.  It’s  one of the things helping to keep me sane at present at least In a small way.   There is a lot more I watch but I am not going to list everything here.

This a very spontaneous song that popped into my head  on Friday so I have recorded a quick “demo” version. Its  an acoustic (Folk sort of) song  with fiddle and a bit of tin whistle too. 

        

And in other news, a question. Who put that camera in Matt Hancock’s office I wonder? But the world will keep turning I guess. 

Does any one remember that book “Feel the fear and do it anyway”? I might even have a faded and yellowing  copy somewhere on my shelves. So following its prevailing mantra I did something recently to expand my comfort zone and help reduce my anxiety. I am not saying what it was but rather like the way that some people either like marmite or hate it, to my surprise it was really quite pleasant which I had not expected. Its not something I shall be doing again for a while I suspect but if appropriate when needed I am ready to put my new skill set and hopefully win friends and influence people, I havent got that book though. 

I notice a lot of people are now back out gigging again which is good news. I would love to be out and joining  them and I hope the opportunity comes again.  However the recruiting drive has not been  successful so far despite trying different several different approaches sadly. It’s hard not to get disheartened frankly.  I will keep trying though it’s beginning to feel like an exercise in total futility. It feels almost like I am on some sort of blacklist?  It really  makes me  wonder at times.  Answers on a post card please 🙂   I hope that does not seem too negative as its not intended to be but if I am doing something wrong I would love to know what it is? 

 

 ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2)