Blow The Flame

A while ago I tried to start a fire from scratch.

I bought a fire-stick which, with a bit of technique, creates sparks. And then if you’ve got the right sort of dry tinder, you’ve got the beginning of flames.

Like a lot of things that look easy on a youtube video, it’s harder to achieve than it looks. After a lot trial and error I was managing to get good sparks happening. But those sparks were not lighting those carefully shaved bits of dry driftwood that I was attempting to ignite.

I tried for a long time. And in the end I used a small cheat. I put a small bit of cotton wool soaked in vaseline. The cotton wool lights fairly easily, and the vaseline causes it to stay alight for a good while.

So, in the end Man Make Fire.

I’d like to be able to do all of that properly. But getting a little bit of success, even with help, is what keeps us trying. We need to know that thing we’re trying to do is possible.

Impossible doesn’t have a big following, unless your name’s Tom Cruise.


Discover Fee Attempting To Displace The Most Popular Song In The World

Droom Je Al

Are you dreaming already? Or as they say in Dutch…Droom Je Al?

It was a wee lullaby I wrote in Dutch for my grandchildren. My daughter-in-law used to play it to them when they were littler than they are now. And it worked. I sent another audience to sleep!

Here’s the English translation:

The wind, she sings a song for you
So that you can fall asleep
You are tired, but she is flying
Blowing across the whole of the world
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?

And the moon is your guardian, right?
When he is sailing by your window
You’re yawning like a big cave
As he circles the planet
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?

Are you dreaming of high mountains
With snow lying on top?
Sleep without a care
Until the sun knocks upon the door.
Dream with me
Dream with me

The stars are in the heavens
A guide for seabirds and for people
And love will never leave
We will always love you

Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?
Are you sleeping already?
Are you sleeping already?
Dream with me.
Dream with me.
Are you sleeping already?
Are you dreaming already?


Discover Fee Getting Sleepy

Making Bacon

Making Bacon was the slightly odd song I wrote for the wedding of my eldest son and our daughter in law, over ten years ago. It was intended to be light hearted and funny, to those in the know

There’s a story behind it of course, but I won’t bother you with that here.

My youngest son is getting married next year. He’s vegan, and the wedding will be vegan too.

I’ve written their song.

Horses for courses though. Not even the slightest whiff or sizzle of bacon in this one.

No lentils either, to be honest.


Discover Fee Messing Around With Food
(worth a listen if only for Mr Sam Hales increasingly and amazingly fast guitar licks)

Cheer Up

It wasn’t the best start to the day.

At 7pm I took my almost daily walk along the sea front and around the beautiful cemetery we have here in Campbeltown. As good a place to be dead as you could imagine.

It lies on the edge of Bein Ghuilean, and I sometimes see deer grazing on the green grass of the graveyard in the early morning. I saw one this time, but it was not running free. This one was screeching like a banshee, and was clearly trapped in some way.

I watched to start with, from about 30 metres away, knowing that getting closer would cause it to panic more. I’d been in a similar situation before when another deer I came across managed to set itself free from some barbed wire without any assistance

But things didn’t look good for this one. It appeared to be hanging off the side of a wall. As I watched, what may have been its mother and a sibling arrived, and started pacing anxiously and then nuzzling, nose to nose, with the poor animal. They didn’t even see me to start with. When they did they inevitably ran away.

I approached cautiously, which predictably caused the young deer to start flailing about even more. And also meant that I could see the horrific situation it had got itself into. Somehow it had slipped from a wall onto the sharp pointed section of an old iron gate. One of the points had gone right through its hind leg. And it was hanging from the gate in this way, unable to support itself at all.

There was no way I could have helped it without making things worse for the deer and getting injured myself. And I didn’t have a phone on me, so starting running back towards Campbeltown. I knocked on a door of the house of somebody I knew, fortunately not too far away. They let me ring an out of hours emergency vet number, who told me they would get hold of someone immediately.

I started to head back, but not knowing what else I could do (the cemetery workmen weren’t around yet, nor was anybody else) I turned and headed home. Thirty minutes later I got a phone call from the vet who, despite my fairly clear description, hadn’t been able to find the deer. It is a big graveyard.

So I drove over to meet up with her. We found it still hanging. As suspected there was nothing she could do, and she was visibly upset. The young deer was a lot weaker, forty minutes after I’d first seen it, but still very much alive.

We managed to put a towel over its head, which calmed it a little. And as I supported its weight the vet gave it a lethal injection to the heart. Seconds later the struggle and the pain was over.

I was just glad it was beyond suffering. After removing the sad victim from its cruel instrument of death, I carried it back to the vet’s car. She told me that it would not be buried but cremated, as the injection could endanger other animals that might potentially feed on it.

Covered in blood I returned home again.

Sometimes, “Cheer Up” isn’t the right song for the occasion. But that’s the title that came up today. I won’t link to it on this occasion.

Hey Jean

Jean Tear is a lady who lives in a home for “adults with learning difficulties” that I used to work at. That’s one of the ways we can fit her into her own little box. She is also deaf and mute. That’s the box getting a wee bit more defined.

Not that we haven’t needed these labels and generalisations to get by in life. To make everything work. It’s how we humans operate. We aren’t where we are without any of that. Without all of that.

Where we are? Where are we?

We’re in a universe, in a life, that is beyond any remotely comprehensive comprehension. And I like it when my own walls and definitions and understanding become, if not broken down completely, then at least revealed for what they are. It’s liberating. The more it happens, the more liberated I feel, even if everything stays the same otherwise.

In a life without walls, it starts to become harder to imprison anybody.

The song, Hey Jean, was an imperfect attempt to see past the walls in my own mind.


Discover Fee Dancing With The Jean

A Cord Of Three Strands

A Cord Of Three Strands, interwoven, is not easily broken. That’s from a bible verse, so it must be true. It was the theme of the sermon that the preacher gave at our wedding.

I’ve been trying to think of the three strands that give my own life overall expression and strength these days. But to be honest I can’t think of any suitable summing up words, that don’t sound simplistic at best, or misleading at worst.

My eldest son, who was eight or nine at the time, said to me, many years ago … “I think the three most important things for you are God, then mummy, then us”.

It’s amazing what children see and how they perceive things. But in fact, at that time, I was towards the very end of my highly committed dalliance with faith and religion. So God was about to drop right off the list.

And resulting from that, I have gradually stopped looking for any easy, answers, solutions, or catch-all phrases to glue everything together. It’s probably because of the cliche that “the more we learn, the more we realise how little we know”.

Words are we all have to describe anything. And “This” is all there ever is.

And that about sums things up.

It’s become enough for me.


Discover Fee Singing With And About Mrs. Fee

Dancing At The Disco

A song is an attempt to put a story to words and music.

The way we do this is personal to each songwriter. But it’s also a skill that we’re learning on the job.

Listening dispassionately just now, I realise that I didn’t quite pull if off in Dancing At The Disco, from a few years back. The main protagonist in the song has a happy ending. The song itself is more of a near miss.

Still, you got be out on the dance floor, to get a dance.

Listen To Fee Overstretching On The Songwriting Dance Floor

All The Freaks

We’re All The Freaks now.

Though perhaps I should only speak for myself. But, really …would anybody like to step forward as the representative of Normal? The archetype of Average? The one who stands at the very Middle of the fulcrum.

So, yeah, we’re all on a spectrum of Freak. Because nobody actually is normal.

It would help, I suspect, if there was a little bit more acknowledgement of that. It’s a blessing, not a curse.

Discover Fee Going Back To Freakland

I Don’t Like You

Do you remember Jack and Vera off Corrie? They were at each other’s throats like rabid dogs. Yet they stuck together like a coral reef. It was a true love story.

One of my favourite lyrics is the song I wrote with them in mind. And to be honest, them and anybody else who has been in a long term relationship and stuck together, somehow, through thick and thin.

In those kind of relationships, love has many different manifestations. And not all of them look very much like love.

We all get by in different ways. I Don’t Like You is a love song for the Jack and Vera’s of the world. They should be a beacon of hope for us all.

Discover Fee Expressing Dislike

The Phone’s Ringing

I’m hooked on my devices. Not hooked enough to stop me feeling superior to those folk who walk down the street with their eyes locked onto their phone screens. I can hold a conversation without the need to check my phone.

But still, like almost everyone, I’m hooked to a degree. I can feel a little restless sometimes, without some screen or other to provide me with that instant hit of entertainment or distraction.

But a problem recognised is a step towards a solution. And I have learnt to appreciate, if nothing else, going for a walk without the possibility of The Phone’s Ringing, or beeping, or beckoning to contend with.

I’d like to limit it further. It’s helped that my computer is still on the blink. Mainly because it’s made me think about my own addiction to these strange modern machines a little bit more.

The truth is that I know I’m happier and more at peace when I’m reading a book (for instance) than when I’m technologising.

So it’s not rocket science to know the direction I should be heading. Having said that, I do expect I’ll need to return to the subject here in my bloggy self therapy sessions, at some point.

Discover Fee Listening In On Somebody Else’s Phone Call

Radium

Um.

A word we use to fill the empty space while our brain kicks into gear.

RadiUM.

A heavy metal discovered by Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and G. Bémont in 1898.

They were clever people, no doubt. But I bet even they blurted out a regular, “Um”, on occasion, and not just when they were naming their scientific babies.

Because empty spaces are a vital part of life and nothing to be scared of. It’s where all the potentially exciting stuff starts to ferment.

Discover Fee Going Nuclear

Bone Dry

A Haiku

Bone Dry tears you cried

Raised impossible life forms

On lonely planets

Discover Fee On A Mountain High

Fix Me Up

“Fix me up” said someone to me this morning.

“I’ll try“ said I.

In the meantime several of my things have decided to break. Which is one of the reasons why I am back to dictating this blog on my phone.

Like before, it feels awkward.

That is why it’s now time to say goodbye.

For the moment.

Discover Fee Reading The Writing On The Wall (actually don’t. I can’t seem to add links on my phone … it’s possible the final apocalypse is starting today … good luck everybody!)

What We’re Here For

What We’re Here For? It really doesn’t matter.

We could spend a whole lifetime chasing the moon and the stars … or travelling along possible pathways to the gods or GOD … or climbing the mountain of status in the general direction of the peaks of fame and riches … or building walls that “protect” us from all the pain and suffering

…. to find that the conclusive answer to the journey towards “Meaning” and “Success” and “Contentment” and “Safety” is … ?????

Well, one thing is for sure … all that striving, and thinking, and searching, and exercising, and praying, and meditating and hoping …

THAT definitely wasn’t it.

Never the less IT all happened. But still … what we’re here for … remained elusive.

In the meantime a little blue tit is flitting around, pecking for insects on an apple tree in the back garden, as the sun peaks from behind a cloud on one of those late summer days that can’t decide whether it’s this, that, or the other.

Discover Fee Coming Fourth For The One Hundred and Forty Eighth Time

Cover Me

It’s great when someone’s got your back. Honestly, it’s one of the most uplifting experiences in life.

In the past I felt alone, even when I wasn’t.

These days I’m far more appreciative and aware of the people that have got me covered. The ones who I know will be there when the going gets tough. Thinking of them brings a tear to my eye. You know how it is.

”Cover Me” isn’t even a request you often need to make with people like that. They do it automatically. And I like to think I would do the same for them.

So thank you to all. I hope you know who you are, and that I appreciate you. And if not, I will certainly try and make you aware when the opportunities arise.


Discover Fee’s Roof Blowing Off In A Storm

Cleaning Out The Shed

Letting the light in.

Sometimes it’s just a case of getting out a dust pan and brush, and Cleaning Out The Shed.

Cobwebs and dust build up slowly, but they aren’t as overwhelming as we think. They can disappear quickly, like a morning mist, once we realise and change something. Doesn’t have to be much.

Could be as simple as, for instance, bringing someone else to mind, and doing something to put a smile on their face.


Discover Fee Dusting Away

Life Is Difficult

A lower back problem has surfaced. Nothing major. Like a little submarine that was there all along, but just popped up the periscope to say “hi” to the world.

Whatever I was expecting tends to not be what happens. It’s always something else. That’s what I’m finding anyway.

Life Is Difficult at the best of times, in the sense that there are always “problems” to be overcome. But it becomes all the more so when we place expectations upon it, don’t you find?

Could go the way of the pessimist, and always expect the worse. Except that even in a pessimistic state, hope, and positive expectation, tends to be lurking in the background. And pessimism just means we get to be miserable, before, during and after!

My philosophical take on all of this, Chris (;-), is to attempt to leave aside the expectations of any kind, positive or negative. Let it all become the surprise that it inevitably will be anyway. Like a tyre puncture followed by a fun gig on a beautiful hill. As may have happened to some of us recently.

So I’m not expecting the back ache to disappear anytime soon. I’m not expecting it to stay. Of course I’ll take steps to see it on its way. To get to the root of the issue. I’m not a masochist.

But nor am I the commander of SS Lower Back Ache.

I’m just the observer, who saw it rise. And may possibly notice it submerge once again at some point. You never know.


Discover Fee Stealing The Opening Line Of A Book For A Song Title

Crossing The Wild Lands

We make our own rules out here.

When we’re Crossing The Wild Lands there is never really any firm ground to stand on. There is never really a completely reliable map. There are never really any past experiences or skills that provide the perfect tools to deal with the situation.

So if we walk on the ground with care, as though for the first time. And if we use the map cautiously, keeping our eyes upon the actual terrain. And if we hold any tools we do have flexibly and with a view to adaptation, then we should be alright.

Of course we might try to avoid the “wild lands” altogether. Safer that way perhaps.

Except that we can’t. Every second of our life counts as wild land territory. Every moment completely new. Every experience and sensation different from anything we might have known previously.

It’s either a freedom we can revel in, or one that we can sleep through. Mostly I’ve done a bit of both. But far more of the latter.

My eyes are a little bit wider to the reality now.

I’m making my own rules up out here.


Discover Fee Out There

Sometimes I Cry

Like pretty much everybody, I want the good feelings, not the bad feelings.

It’s natural to try and escape from, alleviate, dissipate, positivitize, apply therapy to, drink to forget, take pills for …. the sadness.

But if it’s there, it’s there. Sometimes I Cry.

I don’t wish it away, run away anymore, when it surfaces. Never far from the surface I would say, and hasn’t been for a long while. But it helps (I mean it helps) to acknowledge it, no more or less than any other feeling, sensation, or experience.

It needs to be acknowledged. And somehow that’s enough.

It passes, and something else will surface soon. It always does.

nb. This kind of “solution” can look depressing, to anyone who suffers from depression. No answer at all. “I don’t want this pain”. But don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. And keep on trying it. I think you’ll be happier, if you do.


Discover Fee Sometimes

Tartan And Lace

Broad, brave strokes. Intricate and delicate patterns.

Tartan and Lace.

I have my preferences. You have yours. And our preferences are the mixing pot of life. They lead us to making love and waging war. And everything in between.

Words can’t do this justice. They always dilute the experience. But we are who we are. And accepting that of ourselves and in others, might just lead to more love and less war.


Discover Fee Embracing His Past And Present