Regular readers will know that I have often mentioned that since quitting full-time teaching, somehow, my life has become busier. This is, for the most part, a good thing. There’s no ossification or relentless routine as I see in some people who ‘retire’ but it does mean that life is quite noisy as I charge from one thing to another often with not much time in-between. This has led to some… ahem… tension as retirement was meant to be a, perhaps, slower pace of life and a, God save us, more measured one. Therefore written into the chaos is the cast iron activity of walking for at least an hour every day just for walking’s sake (that and to make sure the dog doesn’t sh*t in the house obviously). We normally try to do this near water, it seems to make it even nicer.
But there can be no soundtrack. No music. Nothing.
And it’s great. A moment in time. Clocks stopped and all that.
I usually leave the phone in the car and we just walk, occasionally talk but often just walk. There’s no destination, it’s all about the moment and often the sounds of footsteps or birds, water or distant machinery that rolls off the hills. It’s not rocket science but it is bloody lovely knowing that every day there will be this period of calm and indeed quiet. I’m probably very late to this but hey better late than never, eh?
As predicted my picks for award winners at the AMAUK Awards were woeful you can see the results and my shame here. My only correct pick was Kieron Marshall. To compensate here’s a photo of your correspondent with the team from Black Deer Radio.
Back to the music – I came across possibly the most life-affirming song I’ve heard in a long while Jeffrey Lewis‘ new one is fantastic and brilliantly sweary. Play it loud! My ears have also been tickled by the new Matt James, again play it loud! The radio show features the aforementioned James as well as new ones from Brown Horse, Icarus Pheonix, Jack Browning, My Morning Jacket amongst other brilliant songs. As ever….
