Where do I begin...?

It has been an embarrassing 19 days since my last post. Nineteen!! As fellow (far more interesting) blogger Tom In Egypt stated in his post earlier today, once you stop writing, it is very hard to get back into it. So yes, I am truly sorry for the huge gap in updates, but as you will see, there are some perfectly valid reasons.

I'll get the nasty stuff out of the way first of all: many of you will already have heard, but for those of you who don't, my parents are separating and getting a divorce. I don't think it appropriate to share details on a public website, so I'll leave it at that. The last week and a half or so, therefore have been rather busy, doing numerous painting and decorating jobs on Willow Grove (my house) to get it into tip-top condition before we sell it on to some lucky family.

Away from that state of affairs, there have been some rather nice things happening of late. On October 31st St Tom's held it's first ever "Not The Light Party" in the church building, which managed to take the form of an open-mic night, and although that wasn't the initial intention, it was most enjoyable. There were also various games consoles and a friendly Fairtrade café (incidentally, Fairtrade Dairy Milk ftw). So yes, a very enjoyable evening.

Mad Cow has been keeping me busy the last few days. We had local rock quartet Yogo Kid in to demo a couple of tunes the other week, and I finally got around to mixing Tori's EP which she will be releasing very soon for a modest price to fund her year out at Mountainview International Church in Madrid next year - I'd recommend the CD, it's very good. Next week, nato are recording 8 songs in 3 hours - mission - and Joe Gosling is recording something. If you wish to be record for free like these lovely people, email me at madcowstudios@sttoms.co.uk

Steve Lee informs me that the Miracle Street Christmas Tour isn't really happening now, which is a great shame, but God is in control, so who knows what will happen. The summer tour is taking shape as far as I know, so hopefully that will, in turn, create some good reading for you faithful followers.

That's about all really. I hope I haven't bored you, but alas I probably have. I promise I'll write again sooner and therefore less. As it is now clear what God wanted me at home for this year (I think this is it; He will surely correct me if I'm wrong), I would appreciate your prayers not just for me, but for my whole family.

Do svidanya, druzya!

Another update

Not too much to say this time really. I think the biggest news of the past week is that due to licensing issues, The Light Party has been cancelled. Disappointed as we all are, it has opened doors and revealed paths that God wants us to take, and there is talk of next year being twice as big as this year's would have been. Which is mental. Like, truly berserk (which is currently my favourite word, incidentally).

Since it has been cancelled, we have had to scale down quite dramatically, but there is now going to be an event in the St Tom's church building that has been inventively named "Not The Light Party" - inspired. Despite the mildly suspect name, it's going to be proper awesome; cafe, live music of various genres, games consoles, and all for free.

So that's what's going on really. As I said, nothing much happening apart from what I just covered. If you want to book the studio, give me a shout on madcowstudios@sttoms.co.uk (it's still free - woop woop!). We have vacancies on Saturdays from November 14th onwards.

Oh, and if you haven't heard, I got a guitar for £3!

Love and blessings x x x

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Ladies and gents, I am so sorry I've kept you out of the loop for such a long time. You'll be glad to hear that not a vast amount has happened, so you haven't missed out on much.

As I may or may not have already mentioned (probably have) I've secured a job with my big sister in her ceramics business - woop woop! I left my Bible up at hers last week which is a bit of a bummer, and I'm not going up this week as the car is in for an MOT (which I would rather like it to pass).

Later today I am going to The Net which is a thing...I'm not entirely sure what it is, but my good friends Lauren and Tom say I should come, and it's something to do with my Tuesday afternoon, so why not, eh?

Tori and I, along with a gang of 5 others, have formed a band for The Light Party (where we are supporting Flawless of Britain's Got Talent fame - awesome) and we've had a couple of rather fancy practices so far. Well excited about that; you should all come, it's a superb way of spending your 31st October.

That's all I really have to say for the moment really. Thanks, as usual to your prayers and encouragements. I hope all those of you who have just started the educational part of university are enjoying it. Apparently it's not all about partying! Who knew?

Love and blessings

It's been a while...

I do apologise! I'm trying not to group these blogs too closely so that you're not inundated with my ramblings, and in the process of doing so, forgot to post anything. Fool of a Took. Fool of a Mule, if you'll pardon the rhyme

Today I am at stuck at home with a cold. I thought it was man flu a couple of days ago so fought through it, but alas it worsened this morning so I'm feeling pretty bleak. Should clear up in a day or so though. On the up side, I didn't move to Guildford on Saturday (which is when I would've been doing so) so my first weekend so that wasn't tarnished by illness.

Anyway, putting my immune system aside now: last week was another busy one, and things are really starting to shape up. I had a meeting with Steve Lee last Monday, and it is now official that I will be going on a couple of Miracle Street tours with the stages, one around the UK at Christmas time and a European one next summer. I'm also on his radar for stage-hiring and other bits and pieces, so hopefully we will be mutually blessing each other as the year goes on.

Work-wise, I went up to Liphook last week to help my lovely big sister with super-duper pottery business, in the clay-preparation (you haven't lived until you've put clay into a blender) and leaf-making departments. I jest, there are no departments, it's literally a room in her house. I'm going to be going up there to help her out every week or so in the coming months, so life is good. I get the added bonus of seeing Harry and Bryony (my nephew and niece who rock my socks). Incidentally, Sally has a stand at the Winchester Christmas Fair thing (round the back of the cathedral) this year, so if you're around, you should all go and buy her stuff - they'll make great presents for your rents!

So many of you have been blessing me hugely with your encouragements and prayers, so once again, thank you, I really appreciate it. That was a lot of commas. But really, thank you.

Once again I have rambled far more than I intended to, so I will leave you all to get back to your lives for another few days.

God bless, love love love!

The past and the future

So, this past week has been fairly mundane, despite a few bits and pieces. After my little request for prayer on Monday, I not only had some wonderful encouragements from a few people (I won't name you, but you know who you are - thank you) but also a couple of job opportunities. One was up in Reading and would require me moving up there, which would stop everything I am doing around here, so I declined that offer.

The other offer was from my lovely big sister who is super-duper at making pretty things with pottery (take a look here). What with her being a one-woman clay-producing machine (and a mum), she is very busy and needs an extra pair of hands. So next week I am moseying up to Liphook to hang out with her and the kids for a couple of days to beat some clay into submission/leaf shapes :D Should be pretty fun.

In the nearer future, it is my birthday in a little over 1 day (as I am writing this just a little before midnight), so that's nice and exciting. Tomorrow (Saturday), I am recording Nathan Kelly at Mad Cow, which will be a nice chilled-out way of testing out the new operating system on the computer (Jim and I - mostly Jim - killed Vista and put XP on it, if you're interested).

However, the event I am most excited about by a long long long way is Monday lunchtime, when I am meeting up with Steve Lee of Miracle Street to discuss touring the country/continent as a roadie on their stage. No doubt I will have my work cut out for me, but if that's what God wants me to do, I'm well up for it...actually, I'm well up for it anyway.

This is a much longer blog than I intended to write, so I will leave it at this. Thank you all once again for your continual prayer and support. God bless xx

[[P.S. email madcowstudios@sttoms.co.uk if you're interested in recording for free]]

The Hunt

Alas, this title sounds far more epic than it actually is. The Hunt is just a rather pretentious shortening of job-hunt, which I am in the midst of getting nowhere with. I'm trying to get a part-time job to get me some money in to help support my parents, seeing as I am no longer getting them any government allowance and they are still housing and feeding me.

I am still teaching drums, so if you know anyone who wants to learn, please send them my way. I have some funky little business-card-type-things that you can take a few of if you wish to.

I would really appreciate it if you could keep praying for me, and I know a lot of you are already, so thank you for that. Thank you also for your encouragements, it's great to know that I'm not the only person excited about this year as a concept.

Lastly, and this really is a long shot, if anybody has the Rosetta Stone CD-ROM for Russian, I would love to borrow it. I would buy my own, but it's £380 I just don't think I can stretch to. I doubt anyone has it, but as I said, it's a long shot.

In summary, please keep praying that I don't get stressed about this job hunt. God bless, and much love to all of you

I'm excited

Not least of all because it's my birthday this month, and Porcupine Tree's new album is coming out on the 14th (practically weeing myself in anticipation about that), but because I can tell you at least some of what I'm up to this year.

I had a nice chat with Matt and Jono on Wednesday while Matt and I (with Tom Berry's help) were clearing out and reorganising the PA cupboard in the Stables - it is now no longer full of 4-year-old leaflets, and all the flightcases are now beautifully labelled for convenience. Anyway, there are still fine details to iron out, but the plan at the moment is that I will be running Mad Cow Studios for the coming year. Obviously this is far from full-time, but it'll get me some much-needed work experience and it will hopefully bless the community as well.

So that's one aspect of what I'm up to at the moment. Another thing I'd love to do more of is teaching drums; if any of you know anybody who would like to start learning, please give them my details (if you don't have them, ask me for them on Facebook; I'm not posting them up here).

That's my lot for today I think. God bless you all, and thank you for your ongoing encouragement