A fantastic evening celebrating my pal Jim’s 70th in Perth…a wee impromptu jam on Homesick & Blue with Jim on harp on the left, Ian McLaren, Alan Sutherland on bass and Hacko on drums….
UP early to get out for a paddle. I wanna go out on a Santa suit and get some pix with a guitar.
I get dressed up and take to the water in Balmaha – Margaret takes a camera and a guitar up to Milarrochy and I meet here there.
All goes to plan and I don’t fall in the water with the guitar. Then it’s back home for a quick shower and ready just in time for midday online guitar student.
Back at the house my usual 4pm guitar student arrives – rescheduled for 1pm as we’re off to Perth mid-afternoon. Her mum and step dad come along to and we have a grand wee session.
Then it’s off to Perth for my pal – and Radiotones’ compadre – Jim’s 70th birthday celebrations at the Abbotsford. I’ve been away from Perth for more than 20 years but it feels like yesterday and it’s great to catch up with so man y old pals…and, of course, Jim and Hazel.
There’s a revolving line-up of local musos playing and later on I get summoned to the stage to play a song or two with the guys. It’s fun 🙂
STILL no break in the weather and the wind has wreaked havoc in the garden.
After breakfast we brave the elements and try and fix things up a bit and weatherproof the stuff that isn’t wrecked.
There’s a lot of updates to be done to my socials – new cover/banner images and posts with the fist shows of 2025. Once they’re all done I start working on a landing page for my website. Then there’s a power cut.
Oh well, looks like that’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow. We light the stove and I play some guitar….
MARGARET heads to Catriona’s first thing…they’re taking the kids to Edinburgh to meet Lesley and go to a panto.
I have a load of stuff to do here and spend the morning dotting between the studio, office and house then heat up some leftover pizza in the air fryer for lunch.
Main job of the day is topping and tailing my accounts and getting my tax return finished and submitted. It’s quite a weight off my mind once I hit that ‘submit’ button.
Back in the house I prep some Italian sausage sugo for tonight’s pasta then spend some time running through a bunch of songs in the studio before Margaret gets back.
Haven’t made pizza for a week or two…long overdue!
AFTER breakfast I have a few invoices to send out and Margaret goes off to a hospital appointment.
Once she’s been to the hospital she’s going into Glasgow to get all the Christmas food and other shopping so I do an inventory check of the freezers, fridges and cupboards and make up a shopping list to send her.
Suddenly it’s lunch time.Salt and pepper tofu, then into the office to finish off a couple of Christmas presents I’m making.
A break in the rain entices me out for a walk up the lochside where I do a quick livestream into my Wildcats’ Facebook group – I realised there’s won’t be a weekly livestream on Monday as we’ll be away in Perth. I need to let the ‘cats know!
As well as doing the livestream I bump into a couple of folks for a chat on the way back and end up trying to find my way home in the dark.
There’s a bunch of emails and admin stuff to be dealt with, a eNewsletter to put out then I have a nap for ten minutes before Margaret’s ret gets home and we put all the shopping away.
IT WAS after midnight when I got the merch orders finally packed and postage labels sorted…so. too late to have the parcels collected today.
I take them to our nearest post office which is about eight miles away..so a 16-mile round trip! I’d hoped Margaret would drive and I could walk part of the way home and get some fresh air but I’m outta time as I’ve to be in Gartmore early afternoon.
In Gartmore I sit down with some of the team from the Black Bull to show them how to make minor changes to the website. For some reason the wifi/router in the Black Bull won’t let us access the back end of the website…it has me scratching my head until I realise I can log in with my phone using data – so I suspect there’s something with the network.
We move next door to the village hall and everything works fine and everyone gets logged in.
Back home I pack the car with some stuff for the dump which we drop off en route to a new office/Christmas ‘do’ with friends in Balfron.
MARGARET’S off to Edinburgh early to get her hair done and have lunch with. Lesley and Catriona.
My regular Thursday morning guitar student arrives on time and once we’re through I do some finishing work on a custom brass gift I’ve been busy with.
There’s some last minute merch orders for both my own music stuff and personalised West Highland Way Gifts‘ items. I need two get them started so they can get posted off tomorrow to arrive before Christmas.
After lunch I want to swap out the defunct fluorescent light in the shed with a new LED fixture. I need to switch of the electricity to be sure it’s not live, but there’s a big job processing. on one of the lasers in the. office. I take the oppoortunityto go for a walk.
Of course it; ls getting dark when I get back so I have two use a head torch to disconnect and remove the. old light fitting and get the new one up.it works!
A couple more merch orders have come in, including a couple for my ‘blues comes in many colours’ mugs. I;ll get onto them once the other stuff is all done.
We take a wander along to Betty’s to put up a picture then back home for dinner and off for a local meeting.
When e get back Margaret does all the sewing on the leather orders and I pack stuff up and do the mugs, They turn out pretty weird tho’ and it seems the printer I use for dye sublimation has a blocked nozzle. Finding the fix and carrying it out takes me ’til after midnight, so it’s a late one….
Starting to demo songs for a 2025 acoustic album….
MY USUAL Monday morning routine starts by getting the sourdough in the oven…it takes the best part of an hour for the oven to heat up and the baking…then another hour for the loaf to cool before cutting.
I have session with my regular Monday morning Zoom guitar student then sort some merch orders and have to order more insulated tumblers. I messed a couple up and there’s still some orders to be fulfilled.
After lunch I have another Zoom session then I start setting up to make a demo/video of how Still Friends might sound if re-recorded for next year’s planned acoustic album. I’ll spin out into tonight’s Wildcats’ Facebook live-stream.
An online supplier has offered to make some custom ‘blanks’ for future merch projects and we strike a deal. Watch this space!
My late afternoon guitar stent rolls up with her mum and we have a good we session. She’s coming on great 🙂
I prep some ribs for the smoker – trying them in the electric smoker as a bit off an experiment. They only take a couple of hours as opposed to six hours in the ‘proper’ smoker.
Then it’s back to the studio to make the demo video and get sorted for my Wildcats’ livestream.
All goes fine and the ribs work out pretty good too…not quite as good as the kamado smoker, but still passable….
THERE’S a few orders in for Wildcats’ insulated tumblers so I get busy in the office. Engraving the tumblers is still a bit of a learning process and I’m still screwing some of them up.
Margaret’s busy tidying up the garden. I nip out every so often to help as needed.
I also spend some time in the studio finishing off my accounts so I can get on with the rest of my tax return.
I’m still messing with the tumblers and packing orders when Margaret has the dinner ready. We enjoy dinner while watching our pal Bill’s livestream..this time from Hawaii’s Big island.
ONCE I get all the routine stuff out the way I head out for a quick paddle.
I don’t have a lot of time, but I get some fresh air, exercise and manage a wee livestream too.
By the time I’m back and out the shower it’s lunchtime. I find I’m tagged in a ‘after movie’ from BluesAlive in Czech which is kinda cool (see here..or below) and gets some more bits and bobs sorted in the studio before it’s time to head to Doune.
We’re babysitting this evening and tomorrow ’til early afternoon as Catrioan and Will both have work nights out.
I spend some time playing with he kids then embark on my accounts. A fair bit of online work to do in the accounts package provided by the bank….
