We got back last night from a couple of days in Nottingham. The first part went really wrong as P was fixing the toilet for his daughter and a plumbing disaster ensued see PLUMBING!!

We attended a great African evening there on Thursday called Africajana organised by a friend of ours and had a briliant night out – I was in good dancing mood so had a real party.

Yesterday there was a series of taster sessions in djembe, sabar drumming and dance, Mandinka song accompanied by Kora etc. Needless to say we did the drumming (surprise, surprise).

Afterwards we went back to P’s daughter to finish off the plumbing to find chaos and the leak much worse but thankfully it was sorted out eventually.

After a quick goodbye to our Nottingham drumming friends I drove the couple of hours back home in time for bed. Tonight we have friends coming round to dinner – should be a quiet Halloween evening.

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Well I’ve decided to take some action to try and get my music mojo going again. I know I can’t force anything but I can hopefully help it along and try and re-inspire it at least.

If it means driving to Bristol  a bit more often – well so be it. Tonight I’m going to the open mic I used to go to – it’s its second birthday and there’s a special bash. And I’ve enrolled on a once a week Vocalisation course with someone I know. It’s a freestyling, improvisational fun one evening a week thing for just four weeks.

I’d hoped to find local things here (near Banbury) and who knows, maybe I will – but in the meantime I’ve got to do something creative or I’ll go barmy.

I love my new life out here in the country but I’m finding it harder than I expected to find people to do music with locally so till I do I’ll have to bite the bullet and do some driving!

This was the sight I saw this evening as the sun went down – the view from the back of the house we rent. It couldn’t have been more lovely.

We had a great weekend – two parties – completely different. The first was an outside affair with performances such as a slack rope artist and bicycle pianist – a bonfire, great company. I drank too much red wine and had a hideous hangover in the morning but felt well enough for the Saturday night party – my cousin’s 50th. This was staged in her farm warehouse and they’d brought in two great bands – one of them fronted by Ray Wilson who briefly was the lead singer of Genesis when Phil Collins first left.

Back home now and this Wednesday’s my birthday and we’re going to see Seckou Keita in Nottingham then next weekend’s my stepmother’s 70th party down near Arundel!!! Phew!!!

We’re thinking of going to the Gambia for 3 weeks before Christmas to suss out a few meetings in preparation for next years’ festivals and happenings so all in all a busy time.

Here’s a link to the photos of the two parties!

TWO PARTIES

I’m not sure what to write today – I seem to have got out of the habit of regular blogging for a while and then when I do it’s not really about my feelings as such but about what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been and some nice photos!

Nothing wrong with that of course and I’ve been to some beautiful places and done loads of wonderful things this year.

In fact I’m just back from nearly a week in France on a dutch barge while P was doing some work on the engine I just mainly lazed about and enjoyed the water and the views, good food, good company and card playing. Without wishing to boast – I did keep winning ha ha.

I’m now spending a few days in Bristol catching up with friends.

My problem is that I seem to have lost my musical inspiration at the moment – it’s a year since I wrote a decent song and where we live now I don’t know any local musicians to get together and play with. I know this will change and that it takes time but my confidence (musically) is seeping away a bit at the moment. I find it hard to promote my album  – I need someone to help me sell it – it’s hard work trying to promote oneself and very difficult to get anywhere with it.

Anyway – just wanted to get that off my chest – I know I can turn it around and I’m very happy in my day to day life but I don’t want to lose my music mojo – there must be an answer *scratches head*…………..