Monthly Archives: December 2024

Goodbye 2024

Journal, , , ,

Here’s my year through letters of the alphabet although dreaming up a skirmish with a zebra for the ‘Z’ did prove elusive! As always it’s been a good year, but ‘A” does begin the alphabet with a fall…

Austria certainly changed the year. On a forest mountain path, near Hinterglemm, Anna stepped onto a tree root and broke her ankle in two places. From here mountain rescue retrieved her and we eventually got to York District Hospital five days later, at 4am, to start the proper treatment.  Anna has worked hard, recovered really well and is making great progress. This journey was blogged – click the link.

Books. I’ve read Slow Horses (Fiction – M Herron), A Bit Of A Stretch (Prisoner journal – C Atkins), Abroad In Japan (Living in Japan – C Broad), We Need to talk About Xi (China Politics – M Dillon), Decline & Fall: Diaries 2005 – 2010 (Politics – C Mullin), Hundred Year Marathon (China Politics – M Pillsbury), Why Can’t We All Just Get Along (Social musing – I Dale), Politics On The Edge (Politics – R Stewart) and Becoming (Biography – M Obama.)

Cousins meet up. Anna has been enthusiastic about genealogy and researched both sides of our family in. On my side an illegitimate child and a criminal have come to light but more pleasing but maybe less exotic some cousins have been found. My mother was one of six and the youngest. Anna found two cousins from my Uncle Jack who I had known albeit I think I last saw and spoke to them fifty years ago. From my Uncle Bert, a man I have no recollection of having met (and if he met me then I was a baby/toddler) came Bernice. Our meet ups have been nostalgic, educational and informative. Here’s to more relatives!

Departed. This year has been light on deaths but I recollect a call to a friend (Lyndon) in London, when beside the road on my bike leaving Mildura in Victoria, Australia at 5am, to learn the chap who introduced me to publishing album reviews had died. His website and podcast were The Americana Music Show. Calvin was 58 and lived in North Carolina. The other news came via a Facebook post. Duncan Warwick, the owner, editor and main contributor at Country Music People also succumbed to cancer after a very short illness. This is the magazine I write for. He was 63 years old. I knew he had health challenges but didn’t anticipate this.

Expedition. I loved another long bike ride from Sydney to Canberra and then onto Adelaide. This was through the Australia I liked: working folks, big distances, big skies, great campsites and unbelievable memories.  My February and March 1,100 miles are much covered elsewhere on this website. Click the link there are several blog from beginning to end.

Flight. A memorable visit was to the Duxford Air Museum. Apart from many exhibits of aircraft from bi-planes, military vehicles to Concorde there was a Spitfire and Hurricane taking off and landing on the runway. The vastness and breadth of the exhibits was engrossing. Having driven past it so many times on the M11 it was about time we popped in. Fabulous.

Gigs. There were plenty and even a couple in the USA. The list included Molly Tuttle, Tommy Emmanuel, The Average White Band, Julie Roberts (in Nashville), Lionel Richie (In Memphis), Kiki Dee, Guy Davis, Blackberry Smoke, Crowded House, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit.  Which was best? I enjoyed them all bar The Pretenders but Nathanial Rateliff and the Night Sweats bordered on astonishing.

Holidays. As retired folk then this is always on our mind and you’ll see the 2024 ones listed here. 2025 has already got Texas and France booked. France will be in the Morgan via the ferry, thanks to one of P&O’s promotions.

Isabella Isla. Our granddaughter continued to delight and she clocked up 12 months on Planet Earth in early December. A beautiful child with a lovely temperament being brilliantly brought up by her hard working parents. Her smile can melt away a number of problems although as she now becomes mobile she’s generating a few! Next year will be another interesting year.

Journey. Cycling keeps me fit, lets me see the world and provides great pleasure. Inevitably I get a number of injuries to keep the local physios busy; the main worry I always have is whether I can get back on my bike asap! Since 1994 I’ve cycled over 103,000 miles. In 2024 it was 4,200 miles.

Kangaroos. On February 23rd I truly lived the dream. It was an 84 miles ride between Temora and Narrandera in NSW, Australia and it was all through flat farm land with nothing to see. I pedalled for 8 hours listening to podcasts or music wandering what the town ahead offered? As I’m deep in my own world having not seen a car or person for what seemed like hours I spied in my peripheral vision two kangaroos bounding past me silently in a parallel field. (They can move at speed!) After they got past me they crossed the road and disappeared into a wood. That’s why I do it.

Last Guide Tour. I enjoyed my time as a tour guide. It got the adrenalin flowing and I’ve seen much of Yorkshire, Northumberland and The Cotswolds. Most of the guests were interesting and fun to be with. The company I worked for veered between supportive and kind to disorganised and deceptive. This is why I ended the work, however, I learned a lot and have some great memories.

Madeira. We were there for a few nights in April. What a lovely island. I’d thought it may be very similar to the Canary Islands but it was quite different with more to see. A super break. Highly recommended.

Narrandera. This small town in New South Wales was a stopover  as I headed from Sydney to Adelaide. With the use of the Talksport App I was able to listen to Leeds United vs Leicester City as I cycled the next morning. I listened to live commentary of an evening match. We won this table top clash but from here our season drifted into disappointment. If there was one addiction I could kick then supporting this damn team would be the one!

Peeved. So many of these entries are significant events but one thing that stuck with me from the year was a testy conversation with a bar owner in Rome. With Neil and Paul I entered a bar close to our accommodation and ordered drinks. The barmaid who took the order didn’t pour our drinks but, behind the bar, washed glasses, moved things around and then disappeared! After some time I got frustrated and suggested we leave. So we ambled down a narrow street home when a short woman appeared asking why we’d left the bar after ordering the drinks? Here was a small woman facing up to three men in the dark; it seemed unusually brave. We told her clearly about the lousy service and she countered that it was being sorted but in an adjacent room! I was impressed by her ‘front’ if not their service and so we wandered back to have a drink.

Older. As I clocked up 69 years in March I was now older than both my father and paternal grandfather when they died. It seemed profound. Let’s hope I can stretch the gap!

Qatar Airways. The bastards stopped me boarding a flight to Doha, and then onto Sydney. The reason was the condition of my passport. Anna had washed it in Queensland but despite being a little weary it’d since got me in and out of New Zealand, through Australia and in and out of Spain and Portugal since it’s ‘wash’. To find that you’re bounced at Check In was devastating. I had to reschedule and rebook at considerable cost.

Records. I never threw away my vinyl records when from the 1980s they went out of fashion. Viva the CD! However, they’re back and riffling through racks in second hand stores is a joy whether in Yorkshire, Australia or the USA. This year I acquired a further 47 discs. I think I will do a blog on this next year.

Sightseeing. A trip in October to Rome with Paul and Neil was to see the Vatican, Colosseum, Pantheon, Tiber etc. As very old friends we’d started meeting up in London for a meal and then progressed to a few nights in Malaga. This year it was Rome. See the blog on the website – click the link.

Tennessee – In late May Anna and I flew to Nashville. Here we saw the sights and heard a little music before driving to Memphis to do the same. I was last here in 2015. Later we flew out to Georgia to see my niece and family before driving back to Nashville via the Smoky Mountains. It was good to get my regular dose of America. This is written up elsewhere on the website – click this link.

Victoria. Amongst my annual highlights was to ride a bike in Savannah, Georgia and then back in Yorkshire later in the year with my niece. The first time. The USA ride was on the flat at pace on a titanium framed bike her husband, Ben, provided. The UK trip was around our house. Such a memory. Oh yes, she’s a lot better than me!

Writing. My monthly album reviews keep me sharp and working to deadlines. I write at least three reviews a month. Most of the artists I’ve, frankly, never heard of before which means lots of research to knock out c350 words per record. All this is for Country Music People. It’s part of my life.

X Factor. A surprising but complete delight was a visit to Leeds Playhouse to see Opera North’s My Fair Lady. Lerner and Loewe’s adaptation of a George Bernard Shaw play hit Broadway in 1956 and was one of the golden age of musicals. This cast did a wonderful job and re-ignited my enthusiasm for live theatre.

Bring on 2025.

Record Of The Week # 162

Music

Liv Greene – Deep Feeler

Nashville based singer songwriter, Liv Greene, possesses a siren of a voice that she puts to good use on introspective, sentimental and revealing songs; accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Whilst still in her mid-twenties she’s created a career and been on a journey of discovery and developed growing confidence about herself, her sexuality and as a musician.

What we have here are ten tender melodies mainly about her feelings on romance and nascent relationships. In Deep Feeler she tells of her own emotional proclivities and the effect it can have on others. However, for all the interesting words it’s a stunning musical start. You’re introduced to her beautiful voice that can tug you in various directions depending on the story. She says she wanted to create an album that showed her as vulnerable in a sparse landscape. It’s certainly all that and whilst the acoustic instrumentation is light her voice is a seductive sound that you’ll want the opportunity to concentrate on.

The mood throughout is mainly reflective as she strums and the upright bass pulses behind her, however, on Katie the voice delivers the tune but some blue tinged picked notes show her musicality on six strings to give this real warmth and some sparse violin waits in the shadows to enhance the sweetness. Given she produced this then evident is a real talent, not least as an arranger. I’ve Got My Work To Do is straight country with a little electric guitar and it possesses a lot more verve. Here she’s joined by Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and harmony vocals. Jarosz is also found on You Were Never Mine,another song of angst with a chorus that delights.

This second album should provide a platform for her to get a bigger audience. There are many women singer songwriters over the last 50 years who’ve provided a template for Greene but Olive Klug, Jaimee Harris and Courtney Marie Andrews come to mind as talented contemporaries. I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of her and hopefully on our shores before too long.

Tractors, Pies & Music – Week 49 : 2024

Journal

For those tracking Anna’s rehabilitation after breaking her ankle on an Austrian mountain side in August then she’s been signed off by her consultant and is doing well. Her independence has returned i.e. can drive. Predictably, her ankle still needs physiotherapy and dedication to a regime to continue the improvement in flexibility and strength. She’s been stoic and patient and her rewards are now plain to see. Hopefully this will enable us to plan a little more and get some holidays booked.

An important visitor came to Chateau Ives and is now becoming highly mobile!

Son-in-law, Harry, received his Master’s degree in Engineering in the wonderful setting of The Bridgewater Hall in central Manchester last month. He’s worked hard and gained another qualification, well done! He’s musing about a doctorate now.

Sadly, a man who played an important part in my monthly schedule died after a short illness at the age of 63. The editor at Country Music People magazine, Duncan Warwick,  passed away after a short illness. In 2017 I made a speculative call to him and after he checked my writing I was reviewing for the magazine and on the news stand. I enjoy the monthly work with its need for research and deadline requirements. It also kept me nicely abreast of what was happening in Country music and Americana. Given that Duncan was the editor, owner and main contributor there is a large gap to fill.

Next magazine cover

My last post was an article I wrote for my first company’s (Aveling Marshall)  magazine. This prompted me to travel to Newark in early November to look around a heritage tractor show. Not only were there Marshall tractors on display but Ford ones as well. After I left Aveling Marshall I went directly to Ford Tractor Operations and spent six years there. It was fascinating to look at tractors that still had components on them that I bought from the UK, Germany and Spain back in the day. Very nostalgic.

Over the last few weeks there has been plenty of live music to report. Crowded House at the O2 in London were exceptional. The songs, including new ones, were fabulous and the banter fun. The Pretenders in Nottingham was plain disappointing. Chrissie Hynde was fully intact and arsy at the majestic age of 73. She bashed through lots of newer thrashy stuff and was parsimonious with the ‘hits’. I wasn’t the only disappointed attendee. Guy Davis an old black bluesman played Selby Town Hall. On acoustic guitar he worked through a catalogue of his own tunes and some blues standards. He had lots of personality and managed an obligatory pre-election rant about Trump. (I’ve heard several from the stage over the years.) Needless to say that went well didn’t it! Savannah Gardner, an aspiring country singer at a small venue in York was terrific and then we drove up to Stockton to see Jason Isbell. Maybe a name not known to many outside of Americana and Country circles, however, a major star who delivered a fabulous rock fuelled collection of observations about America and relationships. I will be knocking up my Top 10 shortly.

Lastly, I am not a foodie but we had a delicious lunch in North Yorkshire at the Abbey Inn at Byland Abbey. I do like a nice meal with the first wife but we seldom push the boat out. Given the festive time of year it was truly time to propel the vessel toward the water and in biblically wet and gale force weather we drove up the country lanes north of York. It’s a Tommy Banks’ establishment and after smoked mackerel pâté on sourdough, as a starter, I chose one of his famous pies. (He recently had a van stolen with 2,500 of them in it. The loss was terrible but the publicity priceless on TV and radio.) Mine was a sumptuous braised beef and blue cheese one with vegetables. Needless to say this would have got stuck in my throat without a little lubrication. This was overcome with a draught pint of blonde ale from Helmsley Brewing Co. Still finding room I couldn’t resist a dessert, a chocolate delice. This outing won’t cheer the daughters. Paying for it meant denting their inheritance with a hefty clout. But hey, you only live once!