Life Begins

Another relaxing and exciting day on Sunday. Another lie-in helped, as always, and then a lovely dinner with Jenny and my parents. Rhubarb Crumble always wins. Jenny and I then started back towards Weybridge for the evening’s radio session at Brooklands FM.

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We started off along the M4 but soon got bored with that and headed off to look for white horses, of which there were many marked on the map north of Salisbury Plain. We drove past two, but we only saw one and it was grey, which was somewhat disappointing. We saw this lovely sunset instead and i managed to get a couple of half-decent snaps of it.

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In Weybridge I was the guest of David Durant on his Surrey Unsgned show. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t nervous and this increased rapidly when David said “right, what are we going to do then, it’s your show”. I was hoping he’d be asking the questions. I was wrong to be worried, of course, because David is a great professional and put me at my ease immediately. I played Manual, Select and Hidden live and talked about myself too much as well as playing (recorded) Bruce Cockburn - Look How far, U2 - Who’s Going To Ride Your Wild Horses, Kate Bush - This Woman’s Work, Peter Gabriel - San Jacinto, Polly Paulusma - Godgrudge and Where I’m Coming From, Andy Thornton - Safely Home, Iain Archer - Pressure Drop and Bruce Springsteen - Valentine’s Day. I’ve got the whole thing on MP3 and if there’s anything interesting or listenable on it I’ll get it online soon.

David Durant in the Studio at Brooklands FM

I’ve hopefully caught up on sleep now. I didn’t wake up until gone midday yesterday and the first thing I achieved was to blow the fuse for the whole of my parents house and deprive them of electricity for the afternoon by trying to have a shower. Initially we thought it was a power cut (they have them around here apparently: I started to get nostalgic for the seventies) so Jenny and I went to the shops and when we came back all the houses around my parents’ had their lights on and Mum and Dad had candles out.

They’d called the power company with no expectation of help so we contacted a local electrician but before he could arrive two vans and a jeep turned up from the power company. I’m not sure why so many people were required to effectively change a fuse but it was certainly exciting. They came to the door with mining helmets on and it was reminiscent of that bit in ET where the government turns up mod-handed to aprehend the wrinked little blighter.

In the evening Mum, Dad, Jenny and I went to the Pindrop Club to see the marvellous Polly Paulusma. It’s been a long time since I last has a chance to see Polly but that was made up for by the fantastic setting and the marvellous atmosphere that the Pindrop guys create. In addition to that the gig was in an old Sawmill at Tyntesfield, a National Trust place. A wonderful end to the week.

Friday started off looking dodgy but by half time it was going reasonably and finished well. I was proper tired in the morning but got myself up to London to alter an email system for a client (thrilling, I know).

Back at the office I managed to do some urgent things, plan for the less-urgent things, collect my mobile charger and some CDs that might come in handy for the Radio session tomorrow evening and still had time to replace my leaky shoes and meet Jenny in Epsom at the agreed time.

We drove through the wind and the rain up the M3, 4 and 5 to Clevedon for an early brithday meal with my Mum and Dad, older and younger brothers and my older brothers’ eldest son at the Little Harp next to the Severn. Not the world’s most exciting blog entry but a great end to the day.