Well... Where to start? I hope we're all in fine fettle, at the moment.
Hopefully, Julian's ailments are on the mend now. Goodness knows he's plenty of time to recover, anyway. No venue will be putting his rescheduled gigs on anytime soon. In fact, no gigs are happening anywhere. So all those folk who rely on this for a living are... well, screwed. Of course, it's a grey and vague area to have as a source of income. I've many friends and acquaintances who live very hand-to-mouth as crew member in the live music and entertainment 'industry'. Sound engineers, stage hands lighting techs etc. It's mainly a self employed, gig economy, zero-hours arrangement. They all have rents or even mortgages to maintain. I'm really feeling for them. Pension funds are dissolving, if you're lucky to have had one, in the first place.
So, 2020 - the terrible weather events are pretty much a distant memory, already! This would've been a year we'd have looked back on as the the years of the storms, but the coronavirus has superseded that a hundredfold.
Personally, I was kinda entering a new 'semi-retirement' phase; working in dribs and drabs in the garden shed we had built a few years ago. This was where Lady Calamity and I started a little business that now operates from bigger premises in town. I was getting a lower wage, but some pension contributions etc. The shed's nice to have though. In here I've my pooter, an easel and my drums. Self isolation is kinda what I was already doing unwittingly.
Getting out every once in a while to rehearse, jam and generally connect with my musical cohorts was a lovely thing to look forward to - as was the weekly life drawing sessions I attended. Still, in here I'm mixing new tracks that were already started during the regular jam sessions we'd hooked up for up til last month - and I've a new canvas on the go too, so I can lose myself in these pursuits for a while.
How are you lot coping and dealing with things? Are you managing to divert yourselves from the dawning realisation that the shops are running out of food and all that?
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