Back to School

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...