Copyright © 2005 Martin Newell Pepys 0.1 Blogware © Steve Dix
The quality papers very often have a feature detailing what various people do in a week. I myself mostly don't remember. Here just for the record, I'll put down what I do remember.
Monday. Fuzzy. Answer e-mails, and finish article on Morris Dancing v Salsa Dancing for the East Anglian. 10.30 Run round the corner to Fiona's house, with a bad cough and a bit of a hangover to record four new songs on four-track for demos. These involve just acoustic guitar, vocals and backing vocals. Tracks are Scarecrow Hair and Saucer -Eyed , Chocolate Vauxhall, Julia Blue (both of these only written last week) and My Back Yard. To the pub for a couple of glasses and then cook Fiona her tea for all her sterling work, the results of which, she calls 'chocolaty' and I call 'crunchy granola'. Both of these expressions mean that the sounds on tape (and it is tape) are honest and un-polished...in a good way.
Tuesday Clear-ish.Answer e-mails, File copy. Ring Sunday Express editor and get commissioned to do 32-line (pertinent and rhyming poem) commemorating 50 years of the miniskirt. Most of the day is spent on this. End of the day is spent writing a new song: Will I Do? which spills out all in one lump, as the best songs often do. With songwriting it's a well. You leave the well for a while and while you do so, it fills up so that in a binge of a few short weeks, you can pretty much write an album. It's what I do, anyway. At nine p.m., round to the pub to play bass for the weekly busk. The landlady and partner from another pub come in and invite us to play a gig there sometime soon.
Wednesday Tired. Answer e-mails, correct miniskirt poem and file. Send some invoices and file poem to newspaper. Diddle around with guitars and piano. Clean fireplace out and bring up coal and wood. Do a month's worth of receipts for accounts book. Realise I'm absolutely knackered. Pub. Two drinks. Cook. Bed.
Thursday. Clear. Correspond with various people I'm doing gigs for. Rehearse for tonight's gig. Just about to start writing when Sunday Express features Ed. rings to commission 900 word piece on Patrick McGoohan. Hooray. 12.15 commence writing, researching as I go. 5.15. First draft more or less there, but gig looming. Down tools, get changed, check intruments and set-list. Make a light high-power meal. Go and do gig. During break meet regional editor for brief discussion on the state of the industry. Forecast, gloomy. Back upstairs for second set. Use up drinks tab and go home alone.
Friday Fuzzy Up early and doing e-mails, blogs and tidying up 2nd draft of McGoohan article. Send article in before 11a.m. and hope to God there aren't too many inaccuracies. Order more coal from coal merchant and go shopping in the Co-op. Run back round to Fiona's where Monday's demoes have been transferred to digital format, to listen to results. Come home for quick lunch and tidy up debris left from the week's work. More filing. Pub. Not really in the mood, so home mid-evening for food and early night.
Saturday; Clearish but tired.To the farmer's market to talk to stall-holders and research the subject for forthcoming article for the East Anglian. Home. Afternoon spent hoovering, dusting, washing floors, polishing windows and furniture and playing the piano. Dark. Prepare evening meal. Pub. Two wines. Home. Cook and eat evening meal with daughter and daughter's friend. Pub. Two wines, with sundry musicians, poets and others. Home. Bed.
Things to do next week: More accounts and invoices. Answer e-mails. Rustle up more work. Do an inventory of various merchandise for forthcoming online shop. Write article for East Anglian and poem for Sunday Express. Commence poem for well-loved villager who is leaving village soon. Write at least one more song for next batch of four demoes. Contact record company to see if and when I start the new album. Exhume book started last year and recommence work on it, a thing I've been attempting to do for two weeks now. Fix hairline crack in bath (on good advice) with clear nail-varnish. Get more sleep. Drink less wine.