Pressure Drop

The first full day of the holiday in Ampleforth , staying at the same place sadly for the last time. This is it here.

That's the only slight cloud, but got here , had a meal at The White Horse, then put the radio on and the first song on was Toots and The Maytals - Pressure Drop, sort of an appropriate sentiment for a holiday.

One of the things about going holiday is you take various things to entertain you , and to save space and for convenience I packed my Sumvision Cyclone media player to watch Breaking Bad and The Wire which I stuck onto a memory stick. Got here and found I'd forgor the remote control. Hoped ther would be a smartphone app, but can't find one , but I can play them on the laptop and connect it to the TV via HDMI cable so all is good. It's amazing that no matter how well you plan a momntary lapse can stick a spanner in the works, although a little thought can then provide a solution.

As I got out of the car I saw this sign on a lamp post over the road. It's good

Found Cat

to see people looking out for other's pets. It restores your faith in people if only a little bit.

One thing about Ampleforth is that everyone is friiendly, and you have everything you need to hand, even if you don't have a car.

There's great places within a couple of miles walk and the countryside is lovely. Whether I'd think the same if the weather was bad , or I lived here permanently is a different matter, because you start to take things for granted and the familiar becomes mundane, but I am hoping to get back here one more time before October.

Anyway it's the last day of May 2014, and will soon be time for bed. Have a wonderful weekend.

Monday Morning , Tony , Walt , Journey and Badfinger

Most Monday mornings are a pain. Today's, for me , is different. First of all its sunny after a grey and drab weekend weather wise (although that was the only downer so to speak) , Then I should be on the radio this afternoon in about nine and a half hours on the Steve Lamacq Show ( BBC Radio 6 at 4 PM GMT) and because it's a Bank Holiday I have the day to myself, and at the end of the week I'm off on holiday to Ampleforth for a week.

So for a change it's not a Stormy Monday or Blue Monday , but for me it's a good Monday. I have sympathy for everyone who has had to work today and am thinking about some friends who are having to deal with not good situations which I know they will come through so really, I am feeling positive today and everything is pointing towards a good day and a good week.

Tony

Walt

Yesterday I got some albums including a Badfinger compilation that contains the final song from the Breaking Bad TV series. I'm not sure whether it can match up to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"  in the closing scene of the Sopranos but  I shall see, the album is full of great song , and I shall be working through Breaking Bad when on holiday next week, I'm half way through series two at the moment , so a way to go before I get to hear "Baby Blue". I am tempted to put it on here as I know, for me it will be out of context to hardly a spoiler for me.








OK I just watched , and it is good and I will now purge it from mind...... Have a great Bank Holiday Monday Everyone

Here Comes The Weekend

Well the skies are grey but it's a three day weekend with lots of things happening , including me doing Good Day / Bad Day on Steve Lamacq's show on Radio 6 on Monday.

Also I've finally got my guitar , iPad and Alesis dock working so hope to be able to put some more music down assuming Garageband wants to play.

The rain is well and truly here with a vengeance but that just means that the garden is getting watered.

I've got my ticket to see the Eagulls in October at the Cluny with my friend Gillian. But even better, last night saw my mate Tom Tierney for the first time in ages who was effusing about the new Wolfenstein game and on absolutely top form. He told me about the version of The House Of The rising Sun in the game which I've included here, what if the Nazis had won?

Anyway enjoy the rest of the weekend fmy friends

Sunny With A Forecast Of Rain

The great weather is continuing but they're forecasting heavy showers. The thing is we need rain to keep things growing. Last year a lot of the rain fell at night in my area, followed by clear days. This year we have had some torrential downpours but mainly during the working week, while weekends , especially holiday weekend have been sunny, so it's a case of so far so good.

So essentially I'm going to enjoy this weather and not going to consider it breaking. I carry an umbrella sometimes if I'm going somewhere wearing a suit whatever the weather, it's a bit like a spare tire, you hope to don't need it , but it's great to have if you do need it.

This morning the sky is looking grey so we may get rain today but I'm fine with that.

We have another Bank Holiday Weekend coming up and I could easily get used to a four day week. I thought the TED talk above was appropriate , and think we need to action this sort of thing to make our living areas a much better place.

Anyway I hope you all have a brilliant day, I certainly will do.

Sun Daze, Madchester and The Heed

A Corner Of The Garden

Well it's Sunday, eight ante meridian or thereabouts and its another gorgeous day. The garden has been done so today can be fairly relaxed , just to enjoy the weather. It's May and it looks like summer is here. Who knows it may even be party time.

Madchester

I always find that sunny weather does uplift you , although if it was like that all the time would I really appreciate it? May thats why my friends in New Zealand and Australia are always so upbeat generally, while people form Manchester (where always rains) tend to be miserable (only joking , though Oasis, Happy Mondays and Joy Division while producing some great music are not the sort of people you would want to spend any time with, although John Cooper Clarke is great fun but he's from Salford). Though it's funny how a simple thought on what a nice day it is can digress into thoughts on the Madchester phenomenon.

Oh the other good news is that Gateshead are in the Conference Play Off Final against Cambridge, so that's one team that the whole of the North East will be behind today, hopefully they will be back in the league after an absence of 50 years. Theres a big do on at The Black Bull and the scenes will be incredible when Gateshead do the business. OK so I now got sidetracked into football, as you may realise I can get easily led astray! But here's a song for The Heed from the magnificent Rezillos.



   

Anyway I hope everyone is having a great weekend and taking advantage of this lovely weather. Enjoy the rest of your weekend

What A Perfect Waste Of Time

I know I've not been exactly proliferate and profligate with my posts recently , mainly because I've been very busy with things, but I needed a reason to post this beauty from Elbow's latest album , and took the refrain from it as the title of the post.

Yes it is a perfect waste of time , four minutes or so  orf a lovely song that everyone should love.

It is Friday again, and the weather here is beautiful, so I will hopefully have a totally relaxing weekend.

Telstar

This week has been spent working , traveling , including London yesterday and doing some catch up TV including the excellent Telstar: The Joe Meek story , which was funny and tragic.

Anyway I feel I'm outstaying my welcome here , as I really don't have much to say today, not because there's anything amiss , but it's just been one of those weeks. I suppose May is going to be the first month this year in which the number of posts I do drops from last year, although it should be about quality not quantity.

It's easy to let the words just flow at times , but other times there's a bit of a brick wall. But anyway I'll include the trailer for Telstar, as it is and excellent film. So have a great weekend everybody, I certainly will.

Happy Mothers Day

Well I hope all the mums out there have had a brilliant day and been treated and pampered by their children. Lots of my friends are mums and it seems a lot have been spending the day doing housework and like.

It's quite amusing that the image was uploading was in jfif format so it said , and the blogger wouldn't upload it, so I just renamed it and it happily uploaded the file, so it seems like it's just the naming convention that stops it from being uploaded.






Weatherwise we have had grey skies , blue skies , sunshine , hailstorms and monsoon like rain , all in the same day. I was out without an umbrella but managed to dodge the showers by just waiting for the next five minute spell of sunshine  So anyway this is just a very short post and I'm sure you have all got your Mother's Day Presents, so have a fantastic rest of the day every one. There's only one song I can think of for this post originally by Crowded House , but this version performed by Neil Finn and Paul Kelly.