More Things

Tuinhuis means Garden House in Dutch.

We’ve got one on a holiday park in the Netherlands fairly close (but not too close!) to Dutch relatives. It sold us both on the idea, the one simple idea, of trying to live a little more simply.

Yes, we’ve got a holiday home. So already very lucky and possibly over indulged. But it’s a little house of wood with a little garden and just enough of everything. Still more than most people have on a global scale. But for us “richer than we think” Westerners, it feels a little bit more minimal.

Anyway, no big point to be made, other than to say that after we’ve got past the point of not needing to worry about survival, less is almost certainly, more.

More Things really doesn’t make for a happier existence.

ps. And BTW… we didn’t actually paint the Tuinhuis red. But I did enjoy doing it, even on a hot day.
Oh dear, I think I’m coming down with something … I could be about to experience … a bout of contentedness. What’s all that about?

Paint The Tuinhuis Red

Some people come alive doing work around the house. Painting, DIY tasks, weeding the garden, cleaning the windows.

To some of us it is all a chore, getting in the way of “more important things”.

I’m one of the latter. But I would like to change my attitude.

No time like the present.

Today I’m going to paint. Today I’m going to enjoy it! I could even sing while I’m doing it. Time to Paint the Tuinhuis Red!

I feel a little bit better already.

It Doesn’t Have To Matter

The Draft.

We make one with a blog. With a book. With a song. With a play.

This isn’t IT. This is “something like it”.

The plan, usually, is to go back and edit. Improve things.

Life, of course, doesn’t have a Draft version. Each moment is “Live” the moment it has been written.

On the other hand, every day does offer the opportunity to start again at the very beginning.

It’s not that what went before was meaningless.

But It Doesn’t Have To Matter.

Brought Together

Brought Together…

- by Family
- by Celebration
- by Death
- by Passion
- by Music
- by Sport
- by Politics
- by Faith
- by Love

All the same things that can Tear Us Apart.

Are we able to hold on to it all a little less tightly?

Cloud Atlas

I would like to recommend a book, if you haven’t come across it before. It is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Simply the best novel I’ve read. I can’t remember reading a better one anyhow. And though I never tend to read a book or watch a film twice, I am going to make an exception for this one. And the same for the film, by the way, which had a similar impact on me when I watched it a few years ago.

I’m probably not clever enough to properly understand Shakespeare’s genius, though I have read him enough to see that he was clearly a master of language. It’s hard to fully appreciate writing from a completely different era though, without certain historical knowledge and insight. I don’t possess those.

But if Shakespeare is a better story teller, a better painter of people, a better wordsmith, a better commentator on life than Mitchell, then he must be pretty damn good. Coz Mitchell is bloody brilliant.

Take my recommendation with a pinch of salt by all means. As I say, my qualifications are limited, and there is always a certain amount of personal taste and subjectivity in these matters.

But as you can see, I’m not recommending it lightly.

An Ebook

I’ve intended to write An Ebook about Homesong and the possibilities of music in community for a while. I’ve had a stab at it before, but never really got a foothold.

It’s such an important topic for me and - other than friends and family and the songwriting itself - this vision for Homesong is my main passion in life. It’s my path to seeing a bit of hope for the future, and not just for me as a songwriter, and for other songwriters. It also feels like a positive way forward for rediscovering a sense of community, in an age where that particular fundamental of life seems to be lost in the midst of our global, pandemical, artificially virtual, digital, world wide web of a bit of a mess we seem to have got ourselves into.

Anyway, I feel like I started for real yesterday. I found a doorway in. Now I need to see it through to completion.

Wish me the correct dosages of resilience, persistence, and creativity. And luck. Ta.

Me And The Bean Soup

The coffee is gurgling.

I wait for the grounds to settle. For the luscious oil to seep through to the cavern. I’m anticipating the dark hit. The bitter smooth taste - no diluting milk or sugar for me. And the wee caffeine rush behind my eyes, a short while after.

Yes, I’m probably an addict. But I do sometimes take a day off just to test my mettle… just to prove that I don’t need to go to rehab quite yet. And I never use a needle!

Oh, well now…the coffee has stopped gurgling.

You’ll need to let me go.

It’s just Me And The Bean Soup for a while.

I know you’ll understand.

Needing Help

My wife is supposed to be spending a few days doing work online while we are away in the Netherlands. We’ve been on a very special journey, which you too may have experienced. It involves trying to sort out the technical problems which need to be overcome to make this sort of thing happen.

You’d think, in this day and age…….etc, etc … your call is important to us … failure to listen…. two years later… solution not found….blah, blah, blah.*

Why is it that our/your/my particular issue is the one that nobody ever in the history of anything has ever experienced before?

Or is it, as they say, just us?

It’s not just us.

But it is true that many people, even in their area of expertise, struggle when everything isn’t exactly the way they think it should be. And so we end up with customer service peeps berating you, the customer, for being wrong.

We’re not wrong. We’re just ignorant in this particular area, and we need help.

And when the boot is on the other foot, this may be true of people looking for help from us.

Not wrong. Just Needing Help.



* This song is definitely “hammering the hook home”. 600 million views suggests we shouldn’t knock it. And maybe this isn’t the kind of song we want to write…but the primary lesson it offers…keeping things as simple as possible … should generally be on the list of songwriting “Things To Do”.

The Jigsaw Puzzler

Not everything is significant.

Some things, like dust, just exist. And some things we do fall into that category too. They have no impact on the world. We all shed a lot of dead skin during a lifetime.

I’m going to blow the songwriters trumpet here though. A song is significant. It matters. It adds something of substance to the universe. It has an effect.

And now to snatch that trumpet away (hopefully to be returned) before it has barely parped a parp…

…because writing a song is like producing a single piece of a universal jigsaw. On it’s own it is clearly “something”. It is clearly significant, and has a place in the Big Picture. But it is very hard to say what part that is. And the songwriter (none of us) is putting the jigsaw together anyway.

Some pieces of the jigsaw, some of our songs, might merely represent another piece of the endless blue sky. Good luck with THOSE pieces Mrs Jigsaw Puzzler! They are all, never-the-less, a necessary part of the whole.

Other pieces might have more recognisable features. Pieces that She will know straight away where to place. Perhaps the head and wings of a soaring eagle that fits nicely onto the backend of another piece. Those are the songs we really want to write, of course. Those are the significant actions we want (or possibly our egos want) to add to the world.

Anyway, these acts of significance, whether they be songs, or moments of kindness, a job well done, or anything that matters … though they be tiny … well, they really do matter.

We are obviously not even going to see the final jigsaw. If it ever is final. But, heavens above and hell below, these sometimes feeble attempts to make or do something beautiful are each, in their own way, a definitive part of the whole.

So why not choose, and carry on choosing, as far as we are able, to produce pieces of significance in our lives. Pieces that The Jigsaw Puzzler can use.

I Didn’t Want To

We’ve discovered some photos of my step-father-law, Gerrit, who recently died, climbing Lion Mountain - Singha-gi-ri - in Sri Lanka. He did this a few years ago on a travelling adventure with my wife’s mum, Gerrie, while they were in their early seventies.

The reason those pictures of Gerrit are of particular interest, is that I turned down the opportunity to climb that same mountain when we were visiting Sri Lanka last year, to celebrate my son Joel’s marriage to Tharushi.

I’ve not got a great head for heights, and even though I do try to face challenges that scare me, at the time I didn’t feel the inclination. More specifically, I Didn’t Want To feel the inclination.

But seeing Gerrit, who I’ve written a yet unrecorded song about, being completely the incredible guy he was (and effortlessly making local people laugh in the process, despite the language divides) has encouraged me to give it a go, should I get the chance again.

Which is quite likely at some point, as we’ve got an ongoing invitation to visit.

That is all.

New Life

It wasn’t just Romie’s birthday yesterday was it?

It was also her mums. Her mum gave birth to her on that day, 3 years ago. It’s a shared Birth Day. More memorable for her mum in fact, than for Romie herself.

There are many of us who have never given birth to new life. Some of us because we can’t, some of us because we choose not to, and some because the time hasn’t come yet.

Having witnessed the experience on several occasions, from the outside looking in, it appears both magical and mysterious and, at the end, almost savage. Of all the imaginings that can be imagined, to be pregnant and give birth is one of the hardest to imagine.

But we can all bear New Life in our own ways. And we will need a lot of the same qualities which a mother needs -patience, love, endurance, and hope.

New life is both inevitable and it is a choice.

But when that new life is finally born, it will be out of our control.

Even if we try to persuade ourselves otherwise.

Too Much Inside

It’s my granddaughter Romie’s birthday today. She’s three, and a beautiful little lady, who takes her duties of care for her young sister Caya very seriously.

And she knows her own mind.

Which is a useful knowledge to have, but also a knowledge that we can somehow manage to lose.

Maybe there is just Too Much Inside of there to know, after a certain point in time. An ever increasing life time of memories and experience.

Which is perhaps why our subconscious mind pushes forward all sorts of things that we might need to address, right here and now.

We get into the habit of avoiding that knowledge though, through distractions and the next activity, because it doesn’t always make sense, or seem important, or is simply too painful or shameful to look at.

I think I’ve been doing that for years, and I’m learning to spend more time studying the library that has always been there, and has always been mine. My own mind.

What’s happening in there?

I know, it’s a scary thought.

But hey, you’re reading this blog, so kudos to you for your bravery and sense of adventure.

A Fresh Start

Beneath the skin.

There’s something there for sure. There is a reason you did that and not this. There is something causing that feeling of…expectation, or guilt, or pleasure, or sadness, or worry, or restlessness, or boredom.

It’s helpful to look closer, and more clearly, at what makes us who we are. Then maybe we can be kinder to ourselves. Because there is, whisper it, a sort of inevitability to where and who we are right now. A path that brought us here. One which we cannot change, and perhaps never could.

That thought might, but shouldn’t, lead to a sense of helplessness - “If ME is inevitable, why bother?”

But why not choose instead to have a wee bit of compassion for this person, YOU, who has developed into…well, THIS. Give them a bit of leeway and suggest, very simply, that whatever has happened, now there is an opportunity for a new beginning.

Nothing to stop them moving in a better direction. Nothing tying them down to the ticks, and triggers, and habits, that came before.

A Fresh Start isn’t just another nice idea. It’s a fact to be embraced, no matter how many times we “mess up”. Or “succeed”.

Good Culture

Creators value freedom. The freedom to wander away from the path. To plot our own route to the destination.

But no one likes to be lost. Or, more accurately, to feel lost.

One of the wonders of the Netherlands are the cycle routes. The Dutch do routes in general very well. And not just the routes, but the rules about how to use those routes. If you know and follow the routes and the rules, it is very difficult to get lost in the Netherlands. It’s a fabric of the culture.

Ineke and I got told off by a horse rider once, because we had wandered off the “walkers path” on to the “horse riders path”. And in fact it is a common experience to be frowned at or berated for breaking a particular rule when walking or cycling or driving.

However good the rules are though, it can be a little bit tough if you don’t know them as well as other people do. And even tougher if you value the possession of an artistic license which allows you to mess with the rules a little sometimes.

It’s a conundrum. I value both the presence of good rules and routes and the freedom to ignore them occasionally.

This is the fine line we walk as humans who are still in the early stages of trying to create a Good Culture that both constrains us, when helpful to do so, but also provide us with the soul food of liberty which we hunger for, and that leads to so much innovation.

There aren’t any easy solutions. It’s a work in progress.

My Thang

Four great spotted woodpeckers, seven ticks, and a red deer.

Some of the highlights of my first morning walk back at our wee wooden house in the Netherlands. Ideally I would have spotted a Tickpecker too, but in its absence, Ineke got the tweezers out and dealt with that problem. So hopefully Lymes avoided this time, but a warning to be careful. Coz, as I have previously discovered, these Dutch ticks seem to carry more of that particular bloody cocktail than the friendlier Scottish variety.

In other unrelated news, I am not a guitar geek. Unlike some of my good songwriting friends. I’ve only had two “proper” guitars. And the very first of them is now left over here on a permanent basis. So it’s nice to be back with Simon and Patrick. He (They?) is different to Taylor… but does the main thing just fine: I have a music making instrument to hand.

It’s a bit of a necessity really. Though a little bit harder to do My Thang without disturbing family and neighbours.

Oh, well. Sometimes you’ve just got to be disturbing.

They Had A Point

It’s a very, very, mad world.

So said Tears For Fears.

They Had A Point.

And so did The Pointer Sisters.

I’m so excited.

In The Middle

Nihilism is mainly the belief that life is meaningless.

But does it really matter?

What is, is.

Our definitions are, in fact, more….”Is”.

And if this all sounds like codswollap, then we can enjoy that particularly view of things too. Even more “Is”.

So much to see, and think, and feel from every direction.

When we unravel the onion then we find that there is, in fact, nothing In The Middle. The good news is that there is so much joy to be found in the unravelling. And it all takes precisely the length of a lifetime to achieve the task.

I think life is full to the gunnels with meaning.

Are We There Yet?

Gone on the gun.
Pedal to the metal.
Zoom Zoom.
Boy racers.


Are We There Yet?

”No, we’re here”.

Always here.

Did it pass us by?

A Gut Feeling

I have a funny feeling that we (us, not you!) are going to be swept away over the next few days, to a land that is not this one, with a lot fewer hills, and a people who are very direct in their communications with other people.

It’s just A Gut Feeling.

Maybe I should ask my wife. See if she’s got the same inkling. She’s usually quite direct too. It’s probably a coincidence that she shares that directness with the people of this land I feel that we may well be visiting.

Anyway, wherever it is we might be swept away to, we (you and I!) can still stay in touch. That’s the wonder of The Interweb.

But what if The Interweb collapsed you ask?

Well…then we couldn’t stay in touch. I don’t know how we ever managed before to be honest.

Of course you and your existence, might also be merely a gut feeling. In actual fact, the reality is, I’m sitting here all alone, typing and, quite sadly, speaking some of the words aloud, as I write.

But even if all of this, even if YOU, are only happening in my imagination, I like it. It’s a strange magic.

Things That Don’t Exist

Did someone take something the wrong way and get a bad impression of Petit Moi?

Imagining they did only takes up unnecessary space, time and energy in my pea-wee brain. And unless and until they tell me, then there is nothing to be said, done…or thought… about it.

It’s nice not to be getting in a tiz about Things That Don’t Exist.

I wish I’d learnt that lesson a long time ago.