Guitars and Life

Health is a relative term isn’t it? Are you healthy? Am I healthy? Well I feel pretty good at the moment. Firstly the problem in my upper back / neck that was giving me pain in my arms is a lot better than a few weeks back. However as regular readers will know I hurt my lower back two weeks back. It made a remarkable recovery I think given how I felt the 48 hours directly afterwards. It is still twinging a bit but not bad at all. I went back to swimming for the first time since then this morning and it was pulling a bit but was okay really. I need to do the funny exercises a physiotherapist gave me some years back. I’ll not go into detail but I look like a deranged cat in most of them – there that’s got some peoples imaginations working overtime no doubt. I had a cardiac risk assessment done recently, when I drank for years I had hypertension (high blood pressure) and was on treatment for it. As soon as I stopped drinking it came down. Now I’m “a little over weight” and my ...

This post was inspired by Aunt Jackie at Deep in the Forest . My first ambition was to be a musician – it’s so old I can’t remember where it came from. Before I was at school Mum had bought me a little play guitar and I’d stand in front of the huge stereogram we had then playing her collection of singles. Beatles, I want to hold you hand and This Boy a couple of my favourites, The Shadows who my sister like, we had an EP from the film The Young Ones with the red Fenders on the cover, Elvis – “Devil in disguise”… etc. I remember at a birthday party before I was 10 telling everyone I was going to be a guitarist – I remember they mostly laughed. Then I started to buy stuff – Ha ha said the clown by Manfred Mann was where it started and then others until Supertramp, Hendrix etc. started to take hold. Then the flood gates with Rush, Yes etc. etc. by then Mum had forked out £20 and I had a nylon strung acoustic I tried to learn on. She sent me for classical lessons which was a great way for...