Category Archives: whatever

Stuf that I can’t fit anywhere else…

February first thoughts

February 3, 2021glass cage, music, Musings, whateverdiana Stone

February has got off to a slightly wonky start it has to be said. I have now been doing my extended daily exercise routine for about 3 weeks and I have had to row back slightly due to problems that I suspect are linked to over enthusiasm. Currently I am doing most of my typing standing up. This seems to be mostly an improvement in on area. Some gain but this week a little too much pain sadly has put the kibosh on it a tad. Also anxiety is still a major issue.

In the world outside this room there is some better news at least including the possibility of an early relaxation of some Covid restrictions. This due to evidence mounting that vaccination is reducing the the R rate and also natural immunity having a similar effect. There is still plenty of fake pandemic ant-vax news flowing far and wide sadly. Especially on Facebook where everyone is a virologist of course. But some good news along the way.

And of course the last Trump has well and truly sounded….

So musically I continue to boldly go, but sadly only via the internet at present of course which is sometimes a difficult thing to do in terms of motivation. Often though it is simply a matter of starting and stuff happens. Occasionally on a day of zero inspiration just going though a practice routine may awaken an idea or two that starts in a fairly uninspired way but finds its own life in the process of simply doing stuff. The molding of the clay suggests something random and so it is with sounds too. The result may be far removed from the starting point or original direction at inception.
Technically I have plenty of resources which almost leads to having too much choice, which leads to dithering and time wasting. The main point is of course the result, and of course results and your millage may vary 🙂 The dulcima looks at me sort of funny from the corner daring me to do something with it. I have tried and continue to do so but so far I have not managed to hit my stride with it. It remains a little aloof it seems.

In Delta Ladies news the last remaining festival we are booked on has now moved to July 2022 as I expected it would. That seems a very long way off at the moment but there is talk of a virtual appearance of some sort this year as a place older and moral booster hinting at better times.

Our building works nearby are in the final phase so soon we should have our public open space open. By April though sooner would I hope if possible. That will make a huge difference as we approach the start of our 4th year in Great Denham. So much has changed since moving here of course and most of my expectations have been swept away on the wind. And find I have very little left to say about anything now.

Can we ever say more than we did our best?

January 23, 2021Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, music, Musings, whateverdiana Stone

Can we ever say more than we did our best? I am not sure we can really. I am mired in gloom today and not really sure why. The sun was out on a crisp winters day. I took a brief trip to the shop to collect from the amazon locker. Came home and tried to work on some project stuff but I couldn’t get motivated at all, though I did start a lyric and a couple of ideas for a tune or possibly two. Its the first week of my extended exercise routine and I think its helpful. I need to keep fairly mobile now if I can. Otherwise if I ever play a gig again I will keel over from exhaustion before I even get started. Its a very clear, very cold night heer in Bedfordshire and you can recognise a couple of the major constellations. the universe continues perfectly well without my interference of course 🙂 Everything feels so strange as we come close to the first anniversary of restrictions brought in for Covid-19 in the UK where at the time of writing we are on our third lockdown which will be in place until at least spring judging by the way things are currently going. Some days go well enough but today has been hard for me. I would like to talk to one or two absent friend but they have passed beyond the orbit of this world now. Its hard going. I dreamt I was playing a gig with the full line-up of the Delta Ladies with Vicky martin at the helm in some big edwardian pub or other. Its seems like another world now to be honest. So on waking ity was disappointing to know that that’s pretty much all gone now. Vicky was a pretty much irreplaceable force of nature and whilst I did attempt to carry on it we could not quite make escape velocity in the end. Plus lockdown finished everything pretty much in March of 2020. 2021 has started and I feel exhausted mentally and I feel I am beyond the point where I can try and pick up the pieces again to be honest. I do not expect there to be anyone riding out of the shadows to pick up the baton now. I am not even sure if I can actually cut it live now frankly. It’s now nearly one year since the last Delta Ladies gig in a small pub in reading called “The Retreat”. Remaining members of the band have also had fairly serious ill health to contend with too. Its possible there may be a grand finale at some point. But there needs to be a new road or else there is no road to travel now.

It’s a pretty low ebb for me now. I really need be mixing with people but the current situation makes it impossible of course. My fairly paranoid internal dialogue is increasingly difficult to block as well. I am creating music and trying to keep going. One day at a time is as good as it gets though. From here onward is obscured to me assuming there is a going forward from this point as nothing is guaranteed in this life.

I send out my musical messages in a bottle into the either and wonder…

So can we ever say more than we did our best?

December begins

December 5, 2020Diana Stones Songs, Musings, whateverdiana Stone

What a year, it has been. Were to start? I am quite daunted by the possible futures that may be coming my way. Everything is new, in this bave new world though and events have pushed me back to the back of the queue now. Also my mentors and advisers have for various reasons moved on in every sense. I am thrown back on my own resources but that’s really not enough. I will give a hurrah for the first Covid-19 vaccine and the fact that this points at a way forward but its a long road home and much has been lost and will never be the same again. I thought I was set to embark on a different path but its turned out to be a minor divergence or perhaps a pleasant detour but once through the woods I have rejoined that old path again but my companions are no longer fellow travellers in my caravan.

I am blinking in the light and wondering what comes next? Also my mind has got to a very strange places and everything I once desired is changed and transformed. A new road calls and its not like the old one at all and trouble may well catch me out somewhere.

Just embracing new thoughts and trying to get comfortable with them is not so easy now. I was never one for gurus but I think I need one now. There’s a lot of confusion and possibly illusion too. So basically help I need some navigational aid. A new roadmap to take me on the next leg of this journey towards home.
Its a different world and a separate one from many now. Like viewing everything through a perspex safety screen or from a great distance with a sense of massive disconnection.