Back to School

That’s week one of the second semester done and I’m sitting on a train - my first free travel one too - much more civilised than the train I was on exactly two weeks ago - Palermo - Napoli, nine and a half hours of beautiful scenery seen through the grimiest windows.   This is a much shorter trip to Dublin where I will spend the next couple of days. While the trip is mostly to visit family, I look forward to doing a couple of hours busking at The Dublin Food Co-op where I played almost every Saturday when I last lived there.   While I miss my dog, the week in college has been a breeze without the pull of checking that she’s not too miserable every couple of hours.   It’s been a week of funerals in Limerick too with Cranberries singer, Delores O’Riordan being buried on Tuesday and, at just over twice her 46 years, my host for my time in College, Joe Neiland, two days later.   JB, RIP. The outline for the rest of the semester looks really exciting ...

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 recently heard a John Prine song, ‘ Just Waitin ’, which I'd strongly recommend giving a listen to, and it's about twenty years ago I came across Dr. Seuss'  wonderful little book, ‘ Oh, the Places You Will Go ’, in which he writes of ‘the waiting place’,    Despite my best efforts not to be, this is where I find myself right now. Waiting for that phone call. Waiting to make a lot of phone calls and send a lot of emails, press releases etc. etc.   Waiting like many for news of my college grant application, waiting to get a date from a guy who’ll check out my new to me car for it’s NCT - that’s our roadworthiness test which needs to be done annually one a car gets to the age mine is. Today too, it was waiting for the rain to stop and not much chance of going busking which, apart from buying some of the groceries, keeps me patient and sane (though some may disagree with the latter). The main hold up though is wait time for the files for m...

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...