Maria and I have a canvas each facing onto the road. At this time of year hers looks amazing especially in the sun

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George is on the road – passed his driving test – FIRST TIME – with only a few lessons !!!

He inherits Maria’s car which was once Maria’s dad’s and then Maria’s mums. We buy a Ford from Maria’s brother that was once his mother-in-laws. Arthur’s car, which was once Maria’s brother’s daughter’s and then Maria’s, gets a new clutch in York but is scrapped a week later in Peckham at a garage owned by an ex Ewok.

Lisa is performing at the Green Note in Camden on Sunday – get tickets here https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/lisa-marini-green-note-tickets/9380025?REFERRAL_ID=twfb&fbclid=IwAR2d_X8ltNj3K4ivusvI7Fuhi5aulWoLkVTJ-s0wVJA1Fx4SBUA2p05wbHM

“I have seen LISA MARINI perform several times at different venues – as a solo artist and with different backing musicians. The thing that is a constant is that Lisa is spell-binding and mesmerising. Her self-penned songs are achingly melodic and artfully delivered. Her oeuvre is not soul but is totally soulful, it`s not jazz but is cat-like cool, it is not country, but she has global appeal.”

Lisa Marini is a delight to the ears and eyes…a joy to the senses.” Paul Latham | CEO, Live Nation

Beautifully crafted songs, infectious guitar picking and a defiant voice performed with some of London’s best young jazz players. Expect a delicious hybrid of Folk, roots and jazz.

I feel guilty for not having written for so long. I wake up early and a niggling wave of failure makes my heart beat even more irregularly than usual. Not that anyone other than me is bothered but although I have dropped many things during the course of my life writing this blog is not one I feel ready to drop. Putting aside childish ambitions to be an inventor or an astronaut or a diver or a vet, whilst an adult I have failed to maintain my music theory, piano playing, bass playing, German language, Italian language, a million different computer languages, learning maths, philosophy, photography keeping up regular exercise, eating fewer sweets, writing poetry, reading poetry and brushing the cats. Things I have kept up – watching telly – all the episodes of the Good Wife, Gilmore Girls and Friends – shopping, particularly online and particularly prime – tee totalism (enforced through illness) and that’s about it. I am not a failure yet but I am a lazy git!

That said I have been quite busy. As my health is excellent my body and brain’s reflex is to store brownie points by being a good boy at work. I have quite a bit of teaching and adminy things to do and I rather enjoy doing them. I have discovered that if I devote quite a bit of time devising systems to do things efficiently I actually enjoy the process of doing them more. I quite like puzzling out the optimum way of recording video feedback and distributing it in a timely way to students. Yes it’s true I am a bit of a nerd! “If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well” I hear the hordes of tiresome goody goodies holler – and here I am hollering right alongside them.

Since my last post Maria and I had a short holiday. Most importantly I discovered a very palatable alcohol free beer in Southwold but we also distributed my parents ashes and my eldest got appendicitis. What a strange thing to do on both counts! Needless to say however you do it you end up with a Clarks shoe load of parent dust and in this case, as the two events directly coincided, (ashes and appendicitis) an absolute shed load of anxiety. Poor eldest was extremely very horribly unwell and to be honest despite having my entire wonderful extended family doing the dust chucking I was just not in the mood, preoccupied as I was with the what then seemed a rational thought, that my dear lovely dead parents were reaping pestilence on my current loved ones just because in 1971 I sold the gold sovereign they had given me for an electric guitar. Anyway he is better phew!!.

The younger one has been in Senegal learning drumming. The experience was life changing in a million different ways not all to do with drumming. He is a total Afrophile now with the kind of wanderlust I used to pretend to have when I was his age. He is the real thing but actually my modest globe-trotting was never really a pleasure – I didn’t much care for going places, all scary and inconvenient, lucky really cos I don’t go anywhere now – ah that’s not true on our recent holiday we went to three piers, Southwold, Brighton and Deal. We met lovely family members and actually had time to talk properly. Most encounters with my extended family are big do’s really busy and noisy and full, civilized enough but not my thing. I much prefer slow socializing- aren’t I dull. Piers thrill me – I honestly don’t know why. I want to own one.

I might be involved in a fun project for the university, my first consultancy for five years. I really fancy it because it’s in Bridlington which is everything you imagine about a seaside town but dare not say in case you offend someone who lives there. I love it, love it, love it.

The Matthew Read Trio are in the midst of an Arts Council funded tour so they are nipping round the country in my Volvo Estate. Catch them if you can they are great. I am forced to drive either Art’s Clio with the dicky clutch or Matthews rather too nice Vauxhall. Anyway both vehicles have this thing you may have encountered called a manual gearbox. Who in their right mind would chose a car that has more than 2 pedals – one to go and one to stop. Seriously though I now hate the effort involved in driving manual cars and look forward to becoming reacquainted with my stately black petrol guzzling ocean liner. I believe she is back tonight with the trio- who play in Leeds on Sunday – be there or be square.

Love to all.