My lovely lovely church just kidnapped me for a long weekend away in beautiful Northumbria, really near the coast. So I got to go to the beach for the first time in a few years, and it was stunning. I had to let go of doing work stuff – there was a blog post that I couldn’t finish as my drafts wouldn’t load – and open myself up to being more spiritual than I normally get from day-to-day.  Aaah, it was lovely to have everyone’s company and to unwind. I was very well taken care of and ate lots of puddingy things!
I did take some photos and video down on the beach, though, and some of it should be useable for music-related stuff later…  when you are in such a stunning place, it would be a waste not to get some photos.

Thought I’d share another shot or two from my time away. Two different beaches on different days, but the sea is ever-feisty.  Northumbria Rocks!

I was planning to do Tune A Day again this year, but the album release date ended up being later than I had originally thought it would be, and pretty close to the start of June. No chance for proper time off afterwards. Work was really intense getting the album completed and I was completely burned out afterwards. But I wanted to stick to the plan, because that was what I’d decided I was going to do in June.

I start the 30 day challenge, still feeling really tired. First day is a drag. Second day goes pretty well. Phew! I can still do this. The third day is a drag and I barely write a half tune. Fourth day – doesn’t even happen. I think I’ll catch up on the fifth day. Nope!

I thought it all through and realised the reason for my lack of motivation (and stress about the challenge) was that I already have quite a large backlog of material that hasn’t been released and that I know will take time to get ready. There are also other important things that I haven’t attended to in a long time, like all those jobs around the house and garden that I have been neglecting. I also want to collaborate more with other artists and make some changes to my website which will need a substantial amount of time, too.  (You can’t really see how bad the garden is from the photo, because the buddleia at the front of the picture has taken over! This photo was taken after I’d already started on it, too…).

I realised I needed to stop trying to be superwoman – at least for a while, there was only so much I could do, and it’s better to do fewer things well. So, this year, Tune A Day June has not happened, although I want to do another 30 day challenge because I got so much out of it the last few years.

I don’t think I should really be surprised by how I’ve been feeling this last week or so – I worked extremely hard over a sustained period of several weeks in order to reach my self-imposed deadline to finish the Survival album and finally be able to move on to working on other projects. (It turns out I do need real deadlines even if I am not going to be 100% rigid about applying them – the release date for Survival was moved back by a week after I’d committed to it. Deadlines are motivating for me and oddly quite liberating – they force you to focus on the immediate priorities.).

After weeks of being full of adrenaline, by the time the album hit the online shelves, I was cream-crackered. Putting all my energies into finishing the music, I’d been neglecting my diet and my sleep routines – if you can call them that – had flipped over to Aussie time.  Again!  A week ago, I looked like a ghost in the mirror, and was having trouble staying awake. Zero motivation to get stuck into the to-do list that I’d been saving for after the album release.

Rather than have a big fight with myself and a major guilt trip about how much I wasn’t getting done, I’ve had to be sensible and accept a certain level of defeat, recognising that I had been burning more energy than was in the bank for a few weeks there and that I needed a bit of time off for my body to recover.  Out with the vitamins! I’ve still done some productive things the last week, but have also slept a lot, letting my body call the shots apart from the couple of days when I had to be somewhere – a hospital appointment with Dad and a carboot sale with a friend. I’ve now got some colour back and am feeling motivated to do some song-writing collaborations with other artists. That wasn’t strictly part of the do-list, and has appeared somewhat out of the blue, but it is a nice treat to work with other musicians after months of being quite isolated. Plus, if it gets me fired up again about making music, I’m in.

Thanks to W.Wang’s World Commentary for interviewing me! I thought it would be cool to share it on my blog, too 🙂

As I write this, I’m at my parents’ house, waiting for a delivery. It’s to replace a mobility aid which was already delivered for Dad, but my sister tried to demonstrate how it would fold down to fit in the car and one of the plastic levers broke off in her hand. Dad’s still in hospital but could be home by the time you read this, it’s that close.

The last week or so has been chaotic, including Dad having an operation and then a false alarm late last week when the hospital staff briefly forgot that they hadn’t finished the job off. Dad was looking too well to still be in hospital a couple of days after going under the knife and they were so pleased with his recovery they told him he could go home later that day. I got a somewhat jumbled message which sounded like Dad might be taking French leave and trying to make his own way home (with no money or house key), and had to make an unexpected hospital dash to track him down because his phone was going straight through to voicemail every time. By the time I got there, he’d been told it was an error and everything looked normal apart from the bed looking like it had been made up already for the next patient.

There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but moves are now underway to sort out the final details after Dad escapes. I’m half expecting him to do a little dance when he gets here; he has had his bags packed and ready to go for several days already after last week’s near-miss.

The plan earlier this afternoon was that when the replacement kit arrived, I would phone someone from the hospital, and that would be the trigger to finally allow Dad’s escape from the hospital. I’m still waiting, but the goalposts have moved and they are going to allow Dad to go home this evening, as soon as his meds have been dispensed. Sensible decision: it’s only a lever for folding the mobility aid down that broke off.

It seems like every time Dad has been moved to a new place during the 4 months+ that he’s been in hospital, it has snowed this winter.  So it’s fitting that today we’ve had a few blasts of heavy snow – interspersed with bright sunny weather.