I have not posted for a while now and everything changed since last time including how to use this WordPress site so I’ve kept it fairly brief.

As the pandemic continues and plans are left aside, my thoughts go out to all those who have lost someone or have suffered in other ways.  I cannot think of a single person who has not been affected by it. I am so sorry.

I continued to work through the crisis in my day job but that did not always go so smoothly.

I tried to write music but I felt numb. 

Instead I planted over 100 bulbs in pots and thought about spring and the future and what that may bring. Even if I leave the garden here I have the pots (about 60 of them)! There are very few flowers in the winter to cheer one up but here are two:

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I don’t even have that many New Year cards…

On 4 December, I released on Cherry Red a song called Let Let Go composed with Anthony Phillips and James Collins.  The film which I made many years ago is a snapshot of memories and fitted in to the song which has a nostalgic feel to it. Here is my brother and I in a Mini Moke…

On December 13, I sang and played the guitar on Ray Jones’s song he composed produced by Malcolm Doherty. Ten Feet Tall is in honour of Hannah Grace Deller who has been on the frontline during these difficult times and all the other nurses.  I was immensely proud to be a part of this and really feel happy that I could convert a song and put the guitar down and do it justice although I really wanted to Ray to sing it but he wouldn’t!

Normally I post three or four times a year but this year I have only posted this once.  There were so many things I was going to write about such as Buffalo Bill and his enormous Wild West show in Earls Court but I decided it wasn’t perhaps that interesting to anyone else but me! All the things I had watched such as the Sopranos 20 years late but you know what the only thing I’ll mention is…

The Black Taxi Tour of London with Stuart and my nephews because there were not a lot of things to do during this time and I felt like it was something during the dire economic standstill that was thoughtful.  I am therefore so glad in between lockdown tiers we managed a late November trip.

An avid autograph collector, Stuart, with a few tales to tell of his celebrity encounters: “Oh Sean Connery I thought he was gonna punch me when I asked him for his autograph: Daggers” showed us the sites:

His highlight and ours was the oldest hat shop in London!  Quirky!  And the best Christmas decorated wine shop where you can’t buy a bottle for under £60!

However, it was the poignancy of what Stuart said that really struck a chord: “You see those cabbies there all in a line – they’ll be there for four hours until they get a ride; it’s dreadful.  Many won’t be doing this job next year: You see Oxford Street: In five years most of those shops will be gone that Philip Green got a lot to answer for.  Don’t talk to me about Sadiq Khan he’s ruining London.  Do you know how much the new electric black cabs are?  It’s not affordable.  I’m going to have to start doing walking tours.”

We got dropped at Little Venice where I knew there was a ping pong table but when we got there we found out that it had been stolen so off we trudged to the next one on my list of public ping pong tables but all that was left of the table in Portobello Green was a giant concrete slab and then it got dark.  Again.

So I write this just before the New Year starts in the hope that everyone has a better 2021 and that we may see a way out of this long, long tunnel that has eclipsed life as we once knew it. 

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” – Victor Hugo