I had a bad night couldn’t get to sleep until 04.30. That’s not happened for years. A combination of anxiety, arthritis playing up and feeling very depressed about a lot of things that are completely outside of my control. Some of the things bothering me are primarily down to my own shortcomings but everybody can’t do everything.

Generally I look at my the posts on my socials most mornings before I get out of bed. Recently I have often been moved to tears by both the good and the bad. I can’t say I have a faith though I feel that perhaps there is more to the world than we see day to day and maybe something beyond that binds us. Most people will still hold out a hand to help I would hope though perhaps many don’t through fear which is also understandable of course.

Got my pedometer today. seem seems to work quite well. What I am interested in is how many steps I take on a day when I am at home. It looks so far like quite a few. I shall see what it adds up to in a week.

Music wise a thought: My voice has always been weird so any more quirky aspects are usually an improvement and I only have a reliable octave and half. I sing but I sure ain’t no singer at times. But I can make it work in the context of what I do though.

I went to Morrisons and the left wing mirror glass fell out on the way back 😂 Got to love old cars. A new one has been ordered…

Time traveling again. In 2008 I left my day job. I had a fair few adventures since then but it was a leap into the unknown definitely. Was it worth it? They say the journey is often more important than the destination sometimes. So was it a good journey, mostly yes I would say. In one sense that particular journey did have an end which was predictable but still very unexpected and it derailed me, then whilst trying to rebuild and arise phoenix like the covid lockdowns caused everything to stop and it felt like a combination of groundhog day and being trapped behind glass able to see the world but not being of it somehow.

Fast forward to now. I am still here and I didn’t starve after all, but the outlook is not so great in some respects. In 2025 I lost a lot of confidence in my abilities and my various projects have spluttered, backfired and ground to a halt in many cases. And what they don’t tell you comes with package is the increasing isolation that seems to be part and parcel of aging. I have acquaintances, people I have met through music and some of them I sporadically work with still.
The people I knew longest and who were closest have died. There are now maybe a couple of people I can still tell my troubles to if needed and maybe others that I don’t want to burden with my problems and sour my relationships potentially. January’s not a good time for me and this year has hit hard in the sense that I feel as if everything is just stuck like a fly crawling in pine resin. It thinks it can fly away but even at maximum revs its just not taking off. Being a fly and not possessing I presume a vast intellect, it just repeats the same action until it dies of exhaustion…
Without social media just about keeping up the illusion that I am actually not living in virtual reality as a brain in jar in vast warehouse/bunker somewhere I think I would start cracking up by now. Still you have to laugh 😂

À votre santé, que la route s’élève à votre rencontre…

I wrote this on my blog in 2008….

“I did my last day at the office on Friday and had the obligatory leaving drink and presentation which was embarrassing but I was also quite touched as I had not really expected it. A lot of folks turned up and I do feel a tinge of regret as I was there along time and if I had no ambition to do anything else maybe I could have kept on, but I think I would have been barking mad before very much longer. Also I had got used to a fairly maverick way of doing things and me and the corporate culture have got very far apart now. In a sense it allows me to complete the re-invention of self that’s been coming for a long time.. Everyone was very nice but many were shocked as I had been working there 13 years and they had assumed that I would be there until I retired I suspect. I told them what I was expecting to do in future and everyone was very positive.

the brain cells were already well fried by that point and tempting as that might sound the job was just getting too much for me in the end. I was so stressed that I was forgetting how to do things which was quite scary. I am sort of in freefall at the moment and I will be trying to make a living from the music side of things for the next year, but if it doesn’t work out then I will be back in IT in some respect or maybe just filling shelves between gigs. I have a portfolio of other practical skills that should get me through one way or the other.

I now feel a lot more relaxed and I am going to take a calculated risk on a new career (though its not really a new career as its something I have been involved with for a long time) and also will take some time to study and improve my skills a bit. I am giving myself about a year to see if I can support myself as a musician. I don’t know how realistic that is but I am going to give it a try I don’t need a huge income just enough to pay the bills and I hope that is realistic… “
My-old-blog-to-april-2008/

It’s easy to see why people give up and hit the painkillers. How do you motivate yourself on those days when everything just hurts? It’s difficult for sure.

At the moment the new bit is doing sitting squats which I can also do through the day and that seems to be helping as I how have a bit of definition between the bottom of my ribs and the top of my belly. The core is my main problem so I am also doing stand-up planks. If I can keep it up I shall be able to continue my career as a frivolous musical internet tart. Today as I write this I have felt a little lost to be honest. Its very clear to me now that to keep on trucking I need a bit of a mini workout regularly if only to maintain my present mobility.And possibly a little over exercised too. Suddenly felt really cold and realised I have the heating set too low. A combination of east wind and a lot of rain has made it a tad chillier than usual here.

So whilst I want to get on with stuff I wont be doing too much this week I think unless I have a bit of revival and uplift. I Might transcribe a couple more of my old songs from recordings this week though as the first couple have gone well rather well. Although some of the songs seem complex due to the arrangements but the basic harmonic structures are often 6 to 7 chords underneath many of them so they are performable.