I have just about got over Christmas. We were back in the studio in Burnham on Crouch yesterday and I put some accordion on one of the more rootsy tracks, which seemed to work OK.So I shall be doing a bit more of that in future though Phil Cunningham will have nothing to fear from my occasional squeezing and wheezing, mind you Allie Bain has not much to fear from my fiddling either. Due to the ongoing back and ribs problem I can only do a limited amount of playing so my skills are not going to improve that quickly on it. We have about 15 tracks of which about 10 will end on the album I think. The cold is slowly relinquishing its grasp though I felt very tired last night.

We have two gigs this Saturday, one in Billericay in the afternoon at a club called Blues at the Farm as Elephant Shelf. Not the most flattering photo on the website but hey we are quite hale though rather aged and crusty I had never heard of Billericay before that Mr Drury mentioned in one of esteemed songs.

Then one in the evening in our Delta ladies incarnation in the wilds of Barnet at the pub where Elephant Shelf had one of its very first outings (before I joined believe it or not) called the Lord Nelson.

I have it on good authority that at some point this year we will hit the 1000 gigs mark as we have averaged around 140 gigs a year in our various incarnations (Elephant Shelf Jessie Pies Cleavage of Death and the Delta ladies) which I suppose is not bad going really.