What's going on.

It's been quite literally days since my last post so I thought it might be nice to tell you, my reader, what I've been up to lately.

I got back from my week's sojourn in the land of my ancestors (and their relatives) and was thrown into a busy world of work, family, music and London traffic. The summer quiet period at work is well and truly over, which is good when you work for yourself, but it also means things are very busy. All positive stuff but it was / is hard to dive straight back in after Colombo. I got home at about 11PM on the Sunday night and was at work at 7.30 on Monday morning. Then I spent most of the evening stuck in traffic on the M4 on the way to a band practice. Reading were playing Manchester City and our rehearsal studios just happen to be nearby. Damn!

The music side of things has been good and busy too. I've been learning new songs for The Kix, the covers band. We've got a gig this Saturday and another one 2 weeks after that. I have a mental transition to make with these guys. They are happy to go out and play songs before I think we are fully ready to murder them in front of our public. I need to just chill out and relax over this. Most people don't analyse the ins and outs of a pub covers band unless they are musos themselves.

Mimosa, the funk band, have been busy writing. We put the finishing touches on a spanking new song the other day. It will definitely be my favourite of all our material, full of brass stabs and some gorgeous vocals from our Debby. Even if I say it myself it's got a mean a funky groove going on too!

We've got a weekend in a studio in 10 day's time and will be putting down a decent 3, or maybe 4 track, demo. Being in a recording studio is always a good time for band bonding so I think that'll be fun. Or we could have "musical differences" and all go our separate ways. As the drummer it will take me a mere 20 minutes to storm out of the place in a huff. I can't very well just throw my plectrum down and stomp off into the sunset, never to return. I may just throw some sticks somewhere, them carefully take down my kit, making sure not to scratch any of the drums. Then they have to be put in their fur lined cases and carefully loaded into the car in the correct order. All in all it's a job that I could probably just do in 20 minutes. And that's why you never hear about drummers having a hissy fit and walking out on the band. If it ever did happen the chap, or chapess, would have calmed down and forgotten all by the time the car was loaded and ready to go.

Mimosa have also got another gig 3 days after our studio date. Should be good.

On the domestic side I spent most of Monday and Tuesday this week at home with the 10 year old daughter, who was doing a fine job of pretending to be sick. The highlight of the 2 days for me was laughing heartily to Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther strikes again". Pure slapstick and sheer genius.

"Does your dog bite?"

"You want a reeeerrm?"

Whilst I cracking up to all of this the 10 year old was staring at me and trying to figure out what the hell was so, so funny. She'll learn. Spongebob Squarepants is all well and good but these kids should also absorb some culture.

I was chuffed to read some nice things about me and my blog from Mr 1truecoolguy here:

http://the1truecoolguy.blogspot.com/2006/09/new-additions-to-sites-i-visit-section.html

Thanks again Ian. I hope we get to meet someday.

I opened my flickr account and have been uploading photographs as much as I can. Naturally all this has meant that I need to buy a new camera and so the new Canon EOS400D will be taking pride of place in my camera bag very shortly.

And that really is about it for now.

What have you been up to?