Life Begins

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.

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.

Yesterday was a fairly standard Thursday really. In the morning I diagnosed the vicar’s computer, played the guitar to small chilren, played with small children, cleared up the toys after small children and had some lunch in Today’s Café near my office.

In the afternoon I bought a spare part for the vicar’s computer, followed up some work in the office while Jenny used the spare computer to get some things done (including catching up on Neighbours and finding one of my favourite bits of television: Cindy Lauper on Graham Norton last year) and tried to book someone for next Tuesday’s Freedom of Expression after a second person cancelled.

In the evening it was back to the vicarage to fix the computer, have a quick chat with the vicar’s wife and off for a curry at the magnificent Royal Asia in Addiscombe. It’s starting to look like my life revolves around the vicar. Maybe he should take up IT support and I could take up saving souls (or whatever it is he does on a Sunday).