Back to School

Wow!    Back in college after seven weeks away - and at 66 and a half today too. I’m happy to say that all is now familiar here now and I have some idea of what’s ahead for the next three months or so.    This is in contrast to the first semester where, for the first two months I floated about the place, enjoying every minute though not realising that I should be relying on more than just my memory for assignments that seemed to sneak up on me. If it wasn’t for the fact that I make up half of the cohort on the course - and that our course director, Carl Corcoran, is such a fine and supportive gentleman - I might well have baled out in mid-November.    I just felt that I wasn’t cut out to be an academic.    After a very dark weekend, I rearranged my thinking and decided that I could only do my best and that regardless of whether or not I end up with a certificate at the end of the year, there was a lot to be gained. Last week, when I to...

My year in college began on the 4th of September and my busking in Limerick got off to a very slow start, mainly for two reasons.  Firstly, finding suitable places for me to play - quiet streets with a reasonable footfall and a good acoustic, and with parking not too far away - takes a bit of research.  I don’t mind walking but nowadays Clara’s hip problem is much worse and anything more than a few hundred yards is out of the question.  Secondly, while September in Ireland is often among the best months of the year weather-wise, somebody must have forgotten to remind it this year and we’ve had a phenomenal amount of rain. I’m hoping that October through to next July will be better. Today was one of the sunniest days since I arrived and around noon, I went to a small shopping centre where, since finding it - only about a kilometre out from my Limerick accommodation - I’ve been welcomed by the shop-keepers and their customers, with smiles, positive comments as we...

How on earth does a person decide to go back to school at 66, rather than reach for the pipe and slippers and sit watching the world go by? My songwriting career didn't start until a few weeks after I went busking on my 47th birthday to overcome a lifelong fear of singing within earshot of another human being.  I would have been content with just one song that I could call my own but, once I wrote the first, it was like taking out a stopper and the others just fell out.  By my 48th birthday, I'd written over 50 more. Having left school, just short of my sixteenth birthday, I was happy to put that bad experience as far behind me as I could.  I had an interest in photography and, while I managed to make it a career for almost 30 years, pay my mortgage and support my family, I had no love for the business and felt that I still hadn't found the right path for me. They say that when you find what you love and can earn a living doing it, then you'll never have t...

I can remember summers like this. The sun is shining and there’s nothing urgently needs to be done and there’s almost two whole months stretching out before me until the school year begins. It’s a familiar feeling but now it’s different. My memory goes back to a time, 51 years ago - and to earlier summers - and the start of a new school term was one that filled me with dread and was something I could put out of my mind for most of the holiday until, for the last couple of weeks when I’d begin the countdown and hope it wouldn’t be as miserable as the last year and the one before etc., etc. Fifty years ago, at 16, I left on a Friday and began my working life the following Monday. Things change. A friend told me that University of Limerick were beginning a Masters of Arts in Songwriting and thought that this sounded like a course ‘made for me’. The day I googled it was also the day after the application deadline but a couple of emails back and forth got me an interview/audition an...