Sharing the happiness and music

JULY 4

The happiness from a holiday can last all year, and for many people, a whole lifetime.

Two days in Blackpool and two days in Alton Towers filled all four of us with a lot of happiness and love. It was great to be away, and we did not do much work at all. Ellie and Rebecca are tall enough go on every ride now. Rebecca was so pleased.

Everything always needs set up and a lot of the time falls down, but running over 400 dates a year was never an easy lazy life plan, it was a plan to get involved with music in a big way and bring in top names to Northumberland, show the good and the great local players to music lovers and help to keep open bars and music venues as more and more close. We have a good line-up of Acoustic Magic players with Barry Hyde of The Futureheads, Kris Dollimore of Del Amitri and Adam And The Ants, Miles and Erica of The Wonderstuff, Ed Tudor Pole to name a few.

I walked two hours with Ellie today and it rained the whole walk, but the air is getting warmer so Spring is almost over.

JULY 5

Our new open mic is going well. I loved it tonight. I run it with Shaggy and we love doing it again.

It is a very relaxed and friendly night and it makes everyone involved feel good as they enjoy the music and the comfort of sharing a room with good people.

With Melanie helping I always get a lot done, and the more we get done the more I can do, so this means we can do more charity events. We are looking into more, and more people and places to help. Facebook has shown so many people that we can all help people now and more and more people are taking up running and raising money for people as they go.

It is all fantastic and makes you feel good every day knowing now that every day people are saving people.

JULY 6

I walked 10 miles with Ellie today. We can talk about so much still after all of the years of walking together. Our 65-mile walk is getting closer and more and more money is coming in for our chosen charity, Headway. The rain in the country is not welcome at the moment. A lot of the all-day music events and all of the cricket we are a part of now can suffer, changing the day and people lose money when things get cancelled, which is never nice, and people miss whatever it is they had saved for.

Ellie is doing amazing with her cricket and she loves it more and more. I am showing her how to bat, bowl and catch, as we have done for years, and it is paying off, for sure. I love to watch her play. Ellie has a wonderful heart.

JULY 7

Melanie had to post out extra posters today as sometimes venues don’t get them first time around, more albums were also posted out. The new We Steal Flyers album is doing amazingly and going all over the world, as the others have done. It is a great feeling. This is our third album together.

Today I wrote a children’s book as I waited on Melanie finishing some work. We then booked in performers for three all-day events with 10 players for each one.

I always have a lot of venues to call and hundreds of callbacks or emails. It never ends.

But today we went for a long drive as Melanie wanted to check out the charity walk by car so she had an idea of where I would be and so on.

Berwick always looks wonderful, as does the whole walk to Cresswell. It is going to be a great week. It was indeed a great day and we got chips from Berwick and they were real chips, some of the best I have had and I ate plenty on the road.