The distinct possibility of a swim

Good day to you,

Now, before you start, YES - I know I'm on holiday; YES - I know I should be putting all my inner workings to one side and "de-compressing" or whatever they call it; and NO - I evidently don't have a life.  But I live to serve you nice people, and so seeing as how I shan't be broadcasting to you via YouTube today, and that I don't have my guitar with me (this is KILLING me by the way, more on that later, assuming I don't start bawling my eyes out and forlornly air-guitaring), I am going to give you the gift of words.

So, as I say, I'm on holiday.  I am at Elveden Forest Center Parcs with my family, and I have not been on a big family holiday for YEARS.  I haven't been to Center Parcs for about four years, and the last BIG family outing was a while before even that, so I can see myself regressing significantly.  Especially with the addition of my little nephew, who is almost 8 months old and has just mastered crawling.  My parents, uncle & I arrived after a five-hour car journey to find the little fella excitedly clambering across the floor in chase of a plastic ball.  It's amazing and funny and scary all at once.  I last saw him at the start of August and he had mastered being on all fours, but could not progress to moving himself about, which he really wanted to do.

We also witnessed a first this morning - my brother-in-law put one of his spoons in his hand, to see what he would do with it, and after a moment's deliberation he held it properly and placed the spoon end in his mouth, prompting a round of applause.  He seems to like applause, so perhaps I should get him on a musical instrument early?  Not drums, my sister would never forgive me. [evil chuckle...]

It makes me think of when I started becoming musically inclined.  I was about 16/17 and had started listening to Crowded House (when their best of came out & they broke up, incidentally - my timing was impeccable, I had the same effect on Ben Folds Five, so if you wish to blame me, go right ahead), and the first instrument I tried was drums.  I loved my drum kit.  Especially when I had the skins replaced with Remo drum skins and got some Paiste cymbals.  Magic.  If I could have kept them and used them for recordings, I absolutely would have.  I used to drum along to Crowded house albums, and Fleetwood Mac too.  A friend of the family visited for a weekend once, and brought with him a copy of the Fleetwood Mac live video ("The Dance" - it is excellent, and you haven't seen it, I urge you to), and watching Mick Fleetwood drum was one of those inspiring moments that I remember.  Except I don't pull as many silly face as he does.  Hopefully.

Sadly, my drums were eventually sold.  I had long since started playing guitar by this point, and we needed not only the space, but I bought a drum machine to aid & facilitate my recording exploits.  A substantial amount of recordings on my website/soundcloud/Facebook pages were recorded with my programmed drums, and Sea Glass is the only one that involves my electric drum kit and is, ergo, ACTUALLY me drumming.  It's nice to be able to do that again, I have missed it.  The reason i now have electric drums is that they are easy to move about and are not as neighbourhood-angering as an actual drum kit (although the noise of me banging them must sound like hammering to next door, and as such I still feel guilty about playing them).

My current living circumstances are that I have neighbours and very thin walls, which I think is inhibiting me and my recording a little, and I am terrified to make too much noise too often, therefore I am getting very little done.  I am thinking a way round this.  (It also occurs to me that I have, at this house, never had that moment where my blood runs cold because I realise I can clearly hear next door bonking - evidently they too are scared stiff, if you'll pardon the phrasing)  I may have said this before, but coming in and eating on a weeknight leaves little time to do anything much, so I have weeknight blues, followed by YouTube weekends, so once I get this block of six out of the way, my weekends will be a bit more recordingy and when I start John Macleod Speaks To The Internet again, I will record them on weeknights, as I will hopefully not be relying on daylight for a decent picture!

In the meantime, as mentioned earlier, I do not have my guitar on this holiday.  I appreciate how long I can spend strumming, and I was worried that all of us in this villa (there are eight of us, plus my nephew) being at close quarters, my guitar would be an irritant.  I now crave a strum on my guitar, and I worry that I will get an idea for a song and now way of pinning it to a chord structure.  I do have my lyric book with me, so I can at least write things down.  That said, my frame of mind has moved from "writing" to "recording", which is an odd feeling, because it's as if I have noticed this shift, like a flicked switch.  I want to apply ideas and processes to existing songs now, instead of creating them.

Still.  Today is nice.  It is sunny, and I have been lent The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by a lovely lovely friend, so I think I will tuck into that.  And there is the distinct possibility of a swim later.  Enjoy what you are doing, hope your weekends are full of goodness.

Speak soon chuckleheads,
John.xxx

P.S:  This week there has been a significant surge in very lovely people taking an interest in my scribblings, songs and the like, for which I would like to say THANK YOU SO MUCH.  The reason I do this is because I want people to hear my songs and without people passing on words of encouragement and being generally ace, this would feel a lot more like an uphill battle.  And it gives me more of a drive to do stuff that you will like, so please do keep sticking with me and I will do likewise.  Your support means a hell of a lot to me, and if you like it, please spread the word.  I really am very grateful and it has made this week magical.  Keep listening! :-P