Yesterday was the first Open Mic of the year at the Sanctuary Bar. I was told variously it was on/not on. And only got told it was definitely on near the start time. By then I'd arranged to watch the Liverpool league match against Wolves in the Head of Steam. I was a little disappointed, as originally I'd said I'd miss the football to go to Open Mic, but once it was arranged it was too late to change things. In any case, I don't like missing games on the telly when they are on. Had a nice couple of pints in the HoS with Ste - watching Liverpool win again. Woohoo!

As it happened we went down to the Sanctuary and I got a slot to go and play. After a few beers I'm usually not great remembering all the lyrics (at least not in the correct order) so it was a risk. However I ended up playing four songs and did pretty well. So all was good: I saw the game and played some tunes and listened to some too. Win, win, win.

Went for four of my most usual songs:

• Somewhere Down the Road
• Couldn't Get Arrested
• Sweet Carolina
• Splendid Isolation (with a wee segue from Knockin' on Heaven's Door)

Ste hadn't seen me for ages and commented he was surprised how good I was now. Which basically means I was shit when he first saw me.

Onwards and upwards. I need to get some songs written and learn some new ones too. Here's to many more Open Mics throughout 2020!

Not going to put the gubbins of my plans here but here are the very broad outlines. Needless to say there's a lot to do.


This year’s plans to include:

• Writing
• Finish story for anthology I’m working on
• Finish at least first draft of one novel length book
• Start another novel or novella
• Keep an eye out for other submission options
• Aim: get Published a minimum of FOUR times (eek!)
• Write for local website
• Keep my website and blog up to date
• Work changes
• Look for other work opportunities
• Consider re-training if appropriate
• AND GET ANOTHER JOB
• Guitar
• Fix the Takamine
• Continue with Sanctuary Open Mic
• Expand repertoire
• Write own songs
• Take some lessons to identify best way forward to improve - esp. strumming
• Reading
• Same as last year a minimum of 40 books (tracked on GoodReads)
• Food & Fitness
• Eat better (more cooking/fewer take outs)
• Run and/or walk
• Consider other options eg cycling
• Activities
• More gigs than last year (shouldn’t be difficult) to include at least one festival
• Walking (I’ll put it here as well as the food/fitness as it’s for photo/story opps too
• House
• Needs a lot of work chucking and some repair/maintenance
• Basically turning it from A house to my HOME.
• Lot's more (and similar) shelving for all me books (and CDs)
• Priority is to turn spare room into an office/music room.
• Would clear things from downstairs, whilst being a better environment for writing and strumming the geetar.
• Transport
• Need to consider a lot here too. Re: car/bike/motorbike et al.

All in all a lot to consider and move on.

Some of these, including the food/fitness, guitar and writing may well result in a weekly update on my blog (a fine reason to keep the website ticking over whilst also acting as a prod to do better at some things).

Next thing is to firm up some/all of these and more importantly act on them. Eek!

The last few months - and longer - have been difficult one way or another. And I have not bothered with New Year's Resolutions. Then again, there shouldn't be a time for resolutions. If you decide you need to do something don't wait til January 1st to get it into motion. Anyway, it's the well into the second half of January and I ain't doing resolutions, but I am doing planning. In that I am planning on planning with respect to all sorts including; work, writing, reading, guitar, and fitness.

Will put some of the planning up here and then track progress as the year goes on.

But now I've got to get some of these plans down. Catch yer later…

You may have noticed that I have been a bit quieter on the blog recently - usually I write 7-9 blogs per month. But I've had good reason for disappearing a little as my dad died in the second half of December. He hadn't been ill and it was a shock. There's never a good time I know but coming up to Christmas it is a complete bugger on multiple levels. It is doubly difficult for us as mum died in the same week of the year 4 years ago. Christmas is going to be a bummer going forward. I nearly hid from Christmas this year - we were to have it at my dad's - but in the end I did go to my sister's family and I am glad I did.

One of the other problems around Christmas is if an autopsy is required then you can't arrange the funeral for weeks as the coroners office is closed over Christmas and New Year. In our case the funeral, which was yesterday, was over four weeks after he passed. It is frustrating and extends many of the immediate issues (you can't contact anyone important to cancel things (or claim for funeral)) without a Death Certificate. Anyway, we are there now.



The funeral went as well as such a day can go. Lots of family and friends turned up, apparently with some people not even able to get in the room. Dad was a respected man and will be missed. Many came back for a drink and a sandwich later at the Fleetwood Hesketh, where my dad used to go every week. The service itself was nicely presented by the chaplain from Southport Hospital and the music choices went down well. I still can't get Flower of Scotland out of my head.

Will probably write a couple of follow up blogs on this and dad. I'm always a bit unsure about how much personal stuff to say and how much to keep to one's self: my dad would say nothing I know. We'll see, after time, where I get to on thinking about that.

In the meantime it was a nice goodbye with everybody. Like mum, he has gone too early.

Tags: family

I made it to my goal of reading 40 books in 2019 and just got to 42 before the year was up. Life sometimes got in the way but in the main I made steady progress through the year. Usual suspects in terms of style and types of reads (lots of SF & F with some non-fiction) with a few new authors too. My last book was 'Embers of War' a SF saga from Gareth L. Powell, which was a nice easy read. I am in danger of mixing all my SF reads up though with reading that so close to reading books from James A. Corey's 'Expanse' series and Stephen Donaldson's 'Gap' series. Reckon I'm going to have to refresh my head between each SF book by resetting with another style else my head will explode.









I have set my goal for 2020 for another 40 reads and I can but hope they are as good as last year's. Bring them on. I'm not going to plan what I'm reading in advance as I always seem to veer off and just go with the flow.