Hi friends, several things to share with you all, as you know this year has been… shall we say slightly different, it has been referred to as “2020 – the year that keeps on giving”
So, after a summer together here in Cherry, and being so grateful for our garden and lovely home that has been our oasis in these strange times we are preparing for the Autumn and Winter.
As you know like most musicians the opportunities just dropped off the radar, even the fallback position of street performing was removed, it was a crazy situation and if we had been living hand to mouth as we did in the early days of our lives things could have been very different indeed, however being over sixty has its rewards: yes, it does have some benefits besides the aching bones and creaking joints.
My word for this year has been determination and however hard it’s been and it has been hard, I have mastered several new skill sets. Zoom, Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve 16, green screens, creating interesting content and accepting for most of us mere mortals that two hours is too long for an on-line meeting however much one loves the surject. And the list goes on…
August, I needed a holiday, so I took off the whole month only to be offered work which I couldn’t turn down. We went to Scotland, a holiday which we were never sure was going to happen.
We booked it last year and both our children came with us, it was remote, sunny, surrounded by wildlife and different in many ways to other summer holidays. We had booked a cottage complete with cooked breakfasts and would normally spend most of our holiday sight-seeing and eating out at the most leisurely speed possible. The holiday went ahead but unfortunately the restrictions meant that no breakfasts would be served and we ate out, once.
The cottage we stayed in had no cooker but did have a toaster a kettle and a microwave so not to be undone we took along out camping stove and cooked our own breakfasts outside… we could have complained we could have been downhearted but we were together, warm, well fed and happy and it will be a holiday we will never forget.
We were determined to make it work, sleeping arrangements were adjusted to accommodate snoring. Our fifteen year old Westie with her amazing youthfulness tired herself out, although we hadher carry bag with us, we let her enthusiasm take preference over our better judgment. My daughter and I arrived home from a predicted 10.5 mile walk, some of it up and down a mountain (but that is a another story). The map disagrees with me!
We arrived back at the cottage where my son and wife had been for the day staying reading and taking it in turns to comfort our little dog Sophie who had spent most of the day either shaking or very lethargic. We decided to take her to the vets, they were brilliant and the following day Sophie bounced back but we never again let her do all the walking and she spent half her time being ferried around in her bag, she never complained. So, with determination we made the very best of what was a very different holiday.
Unsurprisingly as a musician I can be in touch with my emotions and can be brought to tears by the most abstract thoughts, I don’t apologise for this however as the press releases subsided and we looked back over the summer I was completely taken by surprise when a replay of Boris’s request “you must – stay at home” brought a tear to my eye.
I guess the stresses of the lockdown had been there hidden away and I had been determined to survive in every way I could. I hope you all have come through unscathed but no doubt for some this summer will have not passed without loss of one kind or another, loss of liberty, of fellowship, of making music together, and for some it will have been worse.
September, hurrah! Back to school, and on day one my wife comes home having fallen in the school carpark – now sporting a very bruised arm, A&E agreed, bruised and also broken. Another six weeks at home is the usual diagnosis, does this never end?
Apparently not, she was the third school staff member with a broken arm that day.
Things will get back to normal, it may be a New Normal for some time, so chins up and we will get together again and make music.
In my year of determination, I have created about thirty educational music videos on YouTube site (search on YouTube for FretsnReedsif you’ve not seen any) I have also started these blogs which are on my FretsnReeds.com
If you want to benefit from my educational outpouring please will you subscribe on YouTube
Subscribing on YouTube is free as is following this blog, however on a blog we call it follow. Subscribing does a few things for you; it means that you will get a reminder that I have released another piece of information that without which your life would be incomplete 😎 and for me it allows certain avenues which are withheld until I reach one hundred subscribers. I am determined to reach that milestone and you can help me.
Face to face facilitating. We are looking at ways to re-introduce our get togethers but it must be the right thing at the right time, here’s looking to the New Normal, and for group members we will contact you through the usual channels.
Look out for my new logo! I’m excited on the inside but my game face isn’t showing it, yeah right, you know me better than that. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again soon.
I must dash now, I have another video how-to in the making. lets all look forward to music making and getting together.
FretsnReeds 