Dear all,
Well I’m going to begin this entry by raising a glass to my wonderful little car which today passed its MOT with flying colours. Given the onslaught of outrageous mileage, a driver who is rubbish and knows nothing about what goes on under the bonnet and a couple of bumps it’s had (one not my fault, one most definitely my fault) I think it’s done really rather well. As you may be able to gather I’m just a little bit happy/relieved it passed its MOT. The tour could have been fun without it…
So what’s been happening then. Well Nic and I had a fun week up in Cumbria playing care homes (see previous blog for why we were doing this…). Grange is a quirky little place and this is where we were based and some good times were had. The response in some of the homes was very moving indeed and I’m very proud to make a difference to the folks in there. A rather surreal experience while there – we walked past a Booths supermarket at about 9 at night and were slightly unnerved to hear what sounded like a gunshot. We assumed this couldn’t be true…but it was. A man was shooting a pigeon with an air rifle in the store. That’s not normal is it? Anyway on the Thursday Nic and I then made the journey back to Stafford and played the legendary Vaults jam night which was a blast as always.
Then it was off to Falmouth with Urban Folk Quartet. In case you’re under any wrong impressions Falmouth is in Cornwall which is not near Cumbria. It is not anywhere near Cumbria. To wake up on a Thursday morning in Cumbria and then find yourself in Cornwall the following day is an unusual experience. As if that wasn’t silly enough we as a band decided to drive there and back in a day owing to various commitments the next day. This meant returning to Stafford at 4.30 in the morning. Bloody hell. Anyway, despite all of this it was a mightily cracking gig at a university venue which had a cool sort of rocky vibe with lots of young and old people dancing around like mad people. All in all, a good way to spend an evening I’d say.
Since then it’s been various teaching, rehearsing, radio appearances and recording and a gig in a hospital. Obviously. The recording refers to the Urban Folk Quartet’s new album which is sounding very very exciting indeed. And of course my own tour kicks off on Saturday in Chelmarsh then off to Twickenham on Sunday. I’m very pleased with my new album Incidents and Accidents and the reviews are looking good so it’s all rather exciting. I also have some exciting foreign trips lined up with Norway, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France and the US all to be visited this year and another possible one too.
Now, even in my proud history of first world problem rants this may rank fairly near the top of the list but bear with me. Those bloody silly doors you find at some big buildings. You know, the ones that have all those little sections in them and revolve around at about 0.0000000000004mph and then inevitably get
stuck every time because too many people try to fit in them? Hang about, I have a photo:
Yes those things. I mean does it not fall once again in the pointless frill category? Along with sticks for tea instead of teaspoons, chopping board plates etc? I mean what’s wrong with a normal door? You know, a door you have to open. Or to be fair, automatic doors do make sense especially in a hospital but why not just have a normal one that slides open when you walk up to it instead of one that takes the length of three operations to actually go all the way round and always runs into problems when doing so and rather more to the point, is actually MORE difficult for wheelchairs etc?