Life Begins

On Sunday afternoon I went to ‘fix’ the vicar’s ‘broken’ computer. I say broken: It worked as soon as I turned it on, but I shouldn’t tease. It is the curse of the computer maintenance person that when you arrive at a client’s office everything starts working again and this means that (a) you can’t find out what was wrong and thus assure them that it won’t happen again and (b) you can’t charge for your time because there’s nothing to fix.

I spent the first half of the afternoon doing some maintenance on the computer (very relaxing) and the second half trying to travel through the fairly heavy rain back to Croydon (very stressful). I think that the transport system in London is pretty amazing but due to a non-existent Rail Replacement Bus service I ended up using four trains and two buses to get back to the office.

In the evening Jenny had organised a surprise party for me. It’s the first surprise party that anyone’s organised for me and this was somewhat overwhelming. I knew that something was going to happen but I didn’t know what it was. It turned out to be a Doctor Who party. Jenny had transformed the upstairs room at The Green Dragon into the TARDIS. As little Sam so rightly said: “Brilliant!”  Thank you to everyone who came out and especially to Jenny who put up with my inability to thoroughly enjoy myself at a time when I should be able to.

I am now able to announce the awards from the party:

Most accurate costume - Simon Jones as Sylvester McCoy

Most effortful costume - Chris and Hilary as the twirling Christmas trees from ‘The Christmas Invasion’

Most distance travelled - my brother Chris who came from Bristol

Most inconvenience incurred while travelling - Andrew Rumsey who had to drive through his own personal hell, Thornton Heath, to get there.

Best food - the things that looked like chicken nuggets but turned out to have chilli and cream in them. Yum. A big thank you to Esther for the buffet.

Finally: I need a new toothbrush.

On Friday we had the final Freedom of Expression show of 2009 at Christ Church. I played at it, as I had done during Tuesday’s show at The Green Dragon. I asked some of my favourite acts to be on the bill as a birthday present to myself so in addition to me there was Ben Sommers, Trombone Poetry and Miriam Jones. For some unknown reason I also decided that I wouldn’t be nervous enough playing to both those great performers and also an audience mostly made up of my friends, so I performed two under-rehearsed covers (Ben Sommers’ Baby Stella and Miriam Jones’ Chase Me) on the piano with Simon playing bass for the latter.

If I’ve been as nervous in the past then it was so long ago that I can’t recall it now. When I looked down at the keyboard to start playing Baby Stella my hands were shaking so violently that I wasn’t sure which note I’d be playing out of the two that my fingers were wobbling over. I think I got away with it and Ben and Miriam were very kind afterwards. Other people who haven’t seen me perform in a long time were complimentary about Simon and my overall performance so things are clearly going in the right direction.

After I’d been on I was privileged to sit back and watch three masters of their craft (four, because Jez was playing piano with Miriam). It was one of the best gigs I’ve been to, even thought I booked it myself. Martin from The Sound Of The Ladies generously agreed to host the show so that I could concentrate on playing and turned up with balloons, streamers, annoying trumpety things and cake. Mark came to the church for the first time to do the sound and Tom’s taken lots of gorgeous pictures which will be available soon on his website (I hope).

Saturday was a proper day off, and I don’t have many of them (out of choice: I’m not complaining!) so I cleared up my room a bit. It still looks like a bomb’s hit it, but at least it’s a slightly smaller bomb than it looked like previously. In the evening Jenny and I went out for a meal with one of my friends who travelled a gratifyingly long distance to see me during my birthday week. We finished off with a few games of slightly inebriated pool in the pub and then home. Lovely.

Wednesday was a catching up at work day. In the evening I failed to meet Simon on the train from Clapham Junction. I managed to catch the same train but couldn’t find the right carriage so we met instead at Hampton Court and got the bus over to The Europa to meet Jenny (and my guitar) and play a couple of three song sets for the lovely Roland Lucas and Dale Harris (Impatience, Perfect and Friends, later Manual, Select and Hidden).

On Thursday I was late for my regular appointment looking after small children in the morning, but managed to get there just in time for everyone to sing Happy Birthday to me (the third, and not the last time, this week). After that I wandered up to Euston to collect my phone from the very generous Lisa who’d come to London for a meeting and brought it with her from Kenilworth!

Some work in the afternoon and then in the evening I went to Camden to record Friends for Balcony TV with the lovely Greg, or was it Layla? The results should be online in a few weeks. Finally a spot of babysitting back in Croydon and some more presents. It’s almost all books so far: Excellent.

Yesterday I was forty. It didn’t feel particularly different from being 39 and 363 days to be honest (but thanks for asking, everyone!) Luckily, I had a fantastic day, probably the best birthday ever. In fact, if people who make slightly ropey cooking lager in green cans had organised my birthday, it would probably have looked something like this…

I had (another) lie-in. I’m beginning to wonder whether this blog should be re-named “Life Begins at 10.30am”. Then I jumped on the train and tube to North Greenwich to meet Tom, his Aunt and his friend and we went to see the ATP Tour Tennis Finals at the O2 Arena. Very impressive it was too. I even remembered to eat an early lunch on the way there so that I didn’t have to spend anything on the over-priced food and drink once we were inside. We saw a doubles and a singles match and both went the distance, so we definitely got our money’s worth. It’s always astonishing to watch live professional sport, particularly when you’ve had a go at it. It’s a totally different game, and much quicker and more skilful than it looks on the telly.

As we left my eye was drawn away from the large crowds heading for the tube and towards the signs saying “boats back to central London”. I persuaded Tom and his mate (who’s name escapes me, sorry) to get on the Thames Clipper back to London Bridge (£3.55 if you’ve already got a Travelcard - bargain!) It was dark by this time and we zoomed along and stopped at a lit up Greenwich, Canary Wharf and many more lit up bits of London. Beautiful. We stood at the back, just over the yellow line and next to the sign saying “don’t stand over the yellow line” and it felt wonderful having the wind and spray on our faces, particularly having been inside for a few hours. As Tom said, “why would you get on a boat and then sit inside?”

After I got home I just about had time to sit down and answer the many Facebook messages saying Happy Birthday (thankyou everyone - isn’t Facebook great for that?) and then I grabbed my guitar and headed off to The Green Dragon for the slightly unnerving experience of playing at my own show: Freedom of Expression. It’s diffcult to say how the actual gig went, but it was great to see so many people there and to have Simon there onstage for all sorts of reasons, reassurance not being the least of those. The marvellous MJ Hibbett compered to leave me free to concentrate on worrying about my own performance (average, I’m afraid - Simon was great though) and he’s blogged about the evening in general so I’ll point you to his description: here it is!

Jenny had made a cake, but I was too discombobulated to actually eat any. There might be some left later tonight, I’m not sure. I had a final birthday beer with Dr Strange, Jenny and regular Freedom of Expressionist Graham and then we headed home. A great day. Thank you to everyone who contributed at any point during it.

Quite a gentle day yesterday. I was at a couple of clients offices in the morning not doing anything strenuous. I sorted out one problem and pointed out some things that would improve the other clients’ systems. A positive start.

In the afternoon I pottered really. I still got things done but with no particular purpose in mind. Drifted might be a better expression.

In the evening Jenny and I went to the Big Beer Band in Croydon. If you’ve not heard loud 16-piece Jazz for free then you’re missing out, particularly when you have the opportunity every Monday evening.

Off to the Masters tennis this afternoon then gig. More tomorrow.

Saturday was a fairly simple story. Bit of a lie in. Go to the office. Rain. Get some work done. Have some dinner. Back to bed. It wasn’t particularly exciting but it does give me an excuse to catch one day up on this blog and tell you about Sunday in the same posting.

Having said that, the majority of Sunday was remarkably similar to Saturday. Bit of a lie in. Got to the office. Rain. Get some work done. I don’t want you to think that my life is regimented in any way, but I do mostly work, play gigs and run Freedom of Expression shows. I like it that way.

In the evening Jenny drove me over to Lewisham to The Fox to play a half hour-ish set for The Hangover Sessions. Carl runs these evenings and they’re great. There’s always a good few people there and this week there were lots of people, all of whom appeared to be happy to listen to Simon and I play the same set we did on Thursday (Impatience, Perfect, Friends, Manual, Select and Hidden), not that they knew it. The songs are coming together nicely with the new bass lines and it was definitely the best of the three gigs we’ve done together. If I hadn’t stuttered badly at the end of Manual it might have appeared to those not in the know to have been an error-free performance.

I’m still working on my positioning on the stage now that Simon’s there as well. I’ve got used to playing on my own and haven’t remembered to arrange myself during the sound checks so that we can see each other and the audience. Consequently I’ve played three gigs with my back to him, which I imagine must be fairly unpleasant. Tomorrow life really does begin (apparently) and we’ll be at my ‘home’ gig in The Green Dragon so I’m going to try and remember to arrange myself properly onstage. I’ll report back on Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll write about today, the day after that I’ll write about tomorrow. I hope that makes things clear.

Friday was another travel day. Train-tube-train-bus from Croydon to Witney including the marvellously named Stagecoach GOLD for the final leg of the journey. They have wireless on a BUS. Weird.

I was in Witney for a work meeting that had the potential to be difficult, but turned out to be very easy. It’s not often that you have a meeting where there’s no tension or disagreement. Lovely.

After work: fish and chips with the wonderful Phil Levermore and then back to East Croydon to find people actually queueing under the sign that says “Queue here for taxis” instead of hanging around on the corner and making it take longer for everyone, which is what usually happens. A very positive day all round. Can I have more like this please?

Hmmm… my idea was to try and keep this blog relentlessly positive throughout my 41st year, I’ll use the excuse that I’m still in my 40th to explain away the last posting. Thursday was much better. It’s always going to be better becasue it starts with Playgroup. I can’t think of many things that I’d rather be doing than singing songs to, playing with toys with and reading books to very small children. If you find something then please do tell me.

Next up was a trip to North London (passports please!) to do some work for a client there. I was worried that it might take longer than I had and that it might be more complicated than I anticipated (so an average visit, to be honest) but it all went smoothly and I finished with enough time to get on my way to the evening’s gig. I even remembered to leave every train and tube with my guitar. I regularly have to jump back on to rescue it.

In the evening I met Simon at The White Hart in Whitechapel and interrupting discussions about George Orwell we did a successful sound check, apologised to Dave Jackson of Bedsprings Acoustic for not bringing more people to his gigs (again) and played Impatience, Perfect, Friends, Manual, Select and Hidden. It was a better performance than Birmingham last week, and pretty good for only our second gig together.

CDs sold: none. New people on the mailing list: none. Oh well. Next stop: The Fox in Lewisham on Sunday.

Wednesday felt like a wasted day, but I’m not sure that it was. I’d be interested to know whether other people have days like this:

I didn’t do the things that I felt I ought to have and I’ve managed to let that be more important than considering the things that I did get done. I didn’t sit around doing nothing. I did do things that helped people, and I did some things for myself, but there’s nothing wrong with that. So why am I so fixated on the idea that I didn’t do what I should have.

Luckily, I’d already arranged to rehearse in the evening and rehearsals with the mighty Simon Jones are nothing other than a pleasure. I arrived an hour and a half late (because I’d been trying to catch up on the things that I should have done: see?) but there was no complaint and food and cider was provided by Simon and the mythical missus. I’d like to publically state my gratitude to all of those of you, who hopefully know who you are, that have provided this service over the years and rescued many many days from the depths of my mental state. Cheers.

I thought I was gradually getting over my general forgetfullness: I haven’t left my guitar on a train for a good few months, but yesterday I left my phone in Kenilworth (a great name for an album, possibly replacing “I left my toothbrush in San Francisco”, which my friend Tom did a few years ago). I’ve got out of the habit of checking what the one thing I’ve forgotten is before I travel - there’s always something. Maybe the one thing I’ve been forgetting is remembering to check what the one thing I’ve forgotten is.

I managed to assume a fairly sanguine attitude on the trip back despite not really feeling that way, not realising that losing your phone isn’t much to worry about these days. The phone company have replaced my SIM for free and I’ve put the new one into my previous phone, so there’s no rush to get the new phone back (apart from the fact that I really like it!) I had a senior moment as I thought “maybe I could call Lisa and ask her to come back to the station and we could go back to her house and get the phone, we’ve got plenty of time before the train comes” before realising that I had no way to contact her, because I’d left my phone at her house.

Back in Croydon we had a great edition of Freedom of Expression at The Green Dragon with Liz Crawford and Cellar Door doing extended sets after a couple of withdrawls. Then Jenny and I went home and watched the new Doctor Who episode. Brilliant. How do they manage it. Thoughtful and exciting, although not quite as scary as the trailers and publicity had led us to believe.