A bit of a (long) yarn about 2019
Jan 7, 2020 20:52:16 GMT
Wild Violet, ocarolan, and 16 more like this
Post by Cams on Jan 7, 2020 20:52:16 GMT
2019 was a very good year for this bear. Some of you will recall the beginning of the year when I was in bits and was put onto medication to help with my mental health issues? It was a tough start. Really tough actually. Nevertheless, looking back now I can see that it was a really good year.
My ever-loving wife took on the post office shifts for me quite early in the year, lest I end up on more meds. That freed me up a bit to work on content, and that's precisely what I did. I also had a few guitar pupils coming to the house, as well as taking on a supply job teaching Rock School to young people for a local charity for a couple of months. That was very educational for me and I discovered that I'm actually not bad at teaching. Who knew!? Oh, and rock is fun? Hell yeah it is!
I got such a wonderful welcome at Halifax in 2018, my first gathering, and people seemed to like what I was doing with my recordings. The feedback I got was simply amazing, so I felt more confident this year and have a few more recordings ready to edit and publish soon; not to mention the gigabytes and gigabytes of performances I recorded! I'll start working through that very soon, promise. It was a real treat to get to meet Rosie of Turnstone Guitars and try her instruments after having only read about them before. And of course there was Chris Stern's collection. Boy oh boy! The first time I met Chris was at RMMGA in maybe 2005 and it was the first time I'd ever heard the Lakes of Pontchartrain. It was nice to hear him singing that again on the lovely little Olson parlor guitar. A real treat.
I also got back to RMMGA in 2019 and recorded with Tom Sands and Daisy Tempest, Dan Burne, Clive Carroll and Mike Dawes. I couldn't believe my seemingly endless courage in asking for interviews, but they all went well and were really fun. Tom and Daisy in particular are really fun to be around. And boy was it hot in mid June - that plunge pool in the grounds was wonderful!
And then there was Ullapool. I'd never been to that before and I'm not sure what took me so long. And what a welcome! It was a fantastic experience, reminding me in many ways of the vibe at Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp, which I attended once in 2005 for two weeks.
To have managed all three of these events is not the only thing that made 2019 so special though. I finally managed to get rid of the post office! I firmly believe that that job was the cause of my mental health's deteriorating to the point where I could no longer cope. I'm still not really sure that it's sunk in yet.
While my wife was working my shifts, my friend and erstwhile bandmate asked me if I would come in as a freelance consultant and do the social media for his restaurant. That was in July, so when the good news came, I had pretty much already started earning a side income and was working on skilling up to be able to start offering that service to other clients too. That hasn't happened yet, but I'm working hard at figuring it all out.
I also got hired TWICE to shoot pictures for Sofar Sounds in Glasgow and that made me so happy. Ironically, they just asked me again today and I knocked them back, because I've done two now unpaid and it actually costs me around £100 for travel and accommodation to go and shoot, so it's not really viable anymore. I sent them back a nice email explaining that and, you never know, they might offer payment? We shall see.
Oh, and there was a new guitar in the year too. Michael Watts posted a short clip of his playing his Gretsch White Falcon on Instagram and I was smitten. I finally pulled the trigger on a 55 Vintage Select model in November when the settlement came through from Post Office. Well, it would be rude not to, right!
I played a lot of solo gigs through the year; not as many as when I was in the two bands, but I put my prices up and stuck to my guns, so I get fewer gigs and roughly the same money. Don't ask me how I managed to pull that off - I guess it helps having my pal as the venue owner, ha ha!
And our daughter (15) got through the auditions to get into the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Juniors with her French horn. She travels to Glasgow every Saturday to attend classes and is loving it. It was so nice to go as a family to see her mainland shows this year without dealing with December in the post office. Last year was hellish!
We finished the year by taking our first family holiday in eight years. We never could before. We left on the 23rd, spent Christmas in Brussels then drove 'home' to Luxembourg for the first time since we left in 2008. The kids were both born there and neither remembered much, except our daughter who was almost 4 when we left. Bits and pieces came back to her. It was an amazing experience and brought up so many emotions. I even got back to my home group of Alcoholics Anonymous, the rooms where I got sober in 2005. I had a lovely lunch after the Sunday morning meeting with two of my AA pals, one of whom was my sponsor back in the day.
So, from an utterly sh1te beginning to rather a spectacular finish.
I'm super grateful to you all for the amazing friendship and support I've got from you all on the forum and at the Halifax bash. There really is something quite special here and I'm very proud to be a member.
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
Cams
My ever-loving wife took on the post office shifts for me quite early in the year, lest I end up on more meds. That freed me up a bit to work on content, and that's precisely what I did. I also had a few guitar pupils coming to the house, as well as taking on a supply job teaching Rock School to young people for a local charity for a couple of months. That was very educational for me and I discovered that I'm actually not bad at teaching. Who knew!? Oh, and rock is fun? Hell yeah it is!
I got such a wonderful welcome at Halifax in 2018, my first gathering, and people seemed to like what I was doing with my recordings. The feedback I got was simply amazing, so I felt more confident this year and have a few more recordings ready to edit and publish soon; not to mention the gigabytes and gigabytes of performances I recorded! I'll start working through that very soon, promise. It was a real treat to get to meet Rosie of Turnstone Guitars and try her instruments after having only read about them before. And of course there was Chris Stern's collection. Boy oh boy! The first time I met Chris was at RMMGA in maybe 2005 and it was the first time I'd ever heard the Lakes of Pontchartrain. It was nice to hear him singing that again on the lovely little Olson parlor guitar. A real treat.
I also got back to RMMGA in 2019 and recorded with Tom Sands and Daisy Tempest, Dan Burne, Clive Carroll and Mike Dawes. I couldn't believe my seemingly endless courage in asking for interviews, but they all went well and were really fun. Tom and Daisy in particular are really fun to be around. And boy was it hot in mid June - that plunge pool in the grounds was wonderful!
And then there was Ullapool. I'd never been to that before and I'm not sure what took me so long. And what a welcome! It was a fantastic experience, reminding me in many ways of the vibe at Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp, which I attended once in 2005 for two weeks.
To have managed all three of these events is not the only thing that made 2019 so special though. I finally managed to get rid of the post office! I firmly believe that that job was the cause of my mental health's deteriorating to the point where I could no longer cope. I'm still not really sure that it's sunk in yet.
While my wife was working my shifts, my friend and erstwhile bandmate asked me if I would come in as a freelance consultant and do the social media for his restaurant. That was in July, so when the good news came, I had pretty much already started earning a side income and was working on skilling up to be able to start offering that service to other clients too. That hasn't happened yet, but I'm working hard at figuring it all out.
I also got hired TWICE to shoot pictures for Sofar Sounds in Glasgow and that made me so happy. Ironically, they just asked me again today and I knocked them back, because I've done two now unpaid and it actually costs me around £100 for travel and accommodation to go and shoot, so it's not really viable anymore. I sent them back a nice email explaining that and, you never know, they might offer payment? We shall see.
Oh, and there was a new guitar in the year too. Michael Watts posted a short clip of his playing his Gretsch White Falcon on Instagram and I was smitten. I finally pulled the trigger on a 55 Vintage Select model in November when the settlement came through from Post Office. Well, it would be rude not to, right!
I played a lot of solo gigs through the year; not as many as when I was in the two bands, but I put my prices up and stuck to my guns, so I get fewer gigs and roughly the same money. Don't ask me how I managed to pull that off - I guess it helps having my pal as the venue owner, ha ha!
And our daughter (15) got through the auditions to get into the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Juniors with her French horn. She travels to Glasgow every Saturday to attend classes and is loving it. It was so nice to go as a family to see her mainland shows this year without dealing with December in the post office. Last year was hellish!
We finished the year by taking our first family holiday in eight years. We never could before. We left on the 23rd, spent Christmas in Brussels then drove 'home' to Luxembourg for the first time since we left in 2008. The kids were both born there and neither remembered much, except our daughter who was almost 4 when we left. Bits and pieces came back to her. It was an amazing experience and brought up so many emotions. I even got back to my home group of Alcoholics Anonymous, the rooms where I got sober in 2005. I had a lovely lunch after the Sunday morning meeting with two of my AA pals, one of whom was my sponsor back in the day.
So, from an utterly sh1te beginning to rather a spectacular finish.
I'm super grateful to you all for the amazing friendship and support I've got from you all on the forum and at the Halifax bash. There really is something quite special here and I'm very proud to be a member.
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
Cams