Saturday 01/01/2005 - Happy New Year to one and all!Linda, Marion and I were at a neighbour's house last night to bring in the New Year and I am feeling slightly the worse for it!! I don't think I'll be doing much today apart from lazing around, so have a great first day of 2005 and I'll catch you tomorrow!

Sunday 02/01/2005 - Spent the day trying to organise the code for the Wimpy player for the sounds page (to get rid of the need for browsers to require an additional mp3 player) although it's not as easy as it should be and I'm having difficulties.....oh to be a web designer!).

Monday 03/01/2005 - Completed Dancing on the Bow-wave today and I'm happy with the mix, although a few more listens over the next few days will probably result in me making small tweaks. The strange thing is that I know there will come a point where you are not actually making corrections, but only changes that are dependent on the day's mood and it's hard to distinguish between the two....does that make sense?I'm now off to spend some time watching tele and 'stuffing my face'! Oh, incidentally, I watched the live American football match on channel5 between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys this morning between 01:10 and 04:50 so will probably be requiring an early night!I intend to get St Giorgios worked on tomorrow (hopefully adding the much needed huge snare drum sound from the Stormdrum plugin). I'll keep you posted and speak to you tomorrow.

Tuesday 04/01/2005 - Spent the day sorting a problem with Outlook that was preventing me from receiving emails so no work done musically today tomorrow.

Wednesday 05/01/2005 - Did a load of work on St Gorgios today and should have it completed tomorrow (or at least very close!) I didn't use the huge drums from Stormdrum, instead settling for the Lucite drum kit from BFD Superior, along with percussion from DFH Superior Percussionist! You'll be able to hear a sample soon.

Thursday 06/01/2005 - I may start working on Isle of Dreams (Coming Home) tomorrow (but then again, you know what my plans are like).

Friday 07/01/2005 - Didn't work on Isle of Dreams (Coming Home) today but spent the day putting extras to St Gorgios. I started by adding some tidal sounds for an intro and outro before writing a faded drum and percussion intro. I then lastly constructed an ethereal ghost mandolin part to sit on top of the intro and outro and I say constructed because it is an EQ 'ed Ethnospere mandolin patch through (in chronological order) Waves Trueverb, Waves Enigma, Waves Morphoder followed by Spektral Delay. That is a serious audio building site and the audio is well mangled but creates what I needed!!!! It certainly succeeds in the ethereal department, being downright spooky!The result is I think rather good, although you'll have to buy the album at release time to hear the finished item wot I am talking about! Catch ya tomorrow.

Saturday 08/01/2005 - Horror of horrors, I thought I would do as I suggested and continue with the Isle of Dreams (Coming Home) track today and I can't find it. It looks like I've deleted it from my hard drive although I'll have a crack at recovering it. Before I found this out though wrote the lyrics for Coming Home.

Sunday 09/01/2005 - Did an attempted recovery of deleted files but didn't find it today using search and recover. Went to see parents today so nothing additional done musically. Speak to you tomorrow with hopefully better news!

Monday 10/01/2005 - First day back to work today after the holidays so that was untold joy and fun..........not! I started an attempted file recovery today using Get Data Back and I'll let you know tomorrow how successful I've been.

Tuesday 11/01/2005 - Found Isle of Dreams (Coming Home) and all associated parts masquerading in a lyrics folder...what a relief to find it as it means I can now spend time on refining and mixing instead of starting from scratch again.I'm of on a short impromptu hol for a little while so I'll bring you up to date shortly. Catch you soon!

Wednesday 12/01/2005 - 19/01/2005 - Holidayed on Fuerteventura and had a wonderful time! Although the wind was as strong at times as the Scottish wind we left, it was certainly far less cold (although it did contain a lot of dust from the island, as witnessed from the amount that blew under the door). There is a large amount of live music available in the Corralejo (pronounced coral echo) area that we were staying in and Linda and I spent two nights in the Rock Cafe and a further two at the Gordon Blue restaurant. The Rock Cafe house band were more than competent, but the highlight for me was firstly singing and then duetting (or I suppose trading) a blues with the absolutely amazing Eric Sijpestijn. He is an amazingly talented musician and made me feel that breaking up the guitar for firewood was the logical thing to do! You can find out more about him here. I sang The Eagles' Desperado before doing the impromptu blues jam featuring a similar 'on the spot lyric a-la Symi Blues. We then had an amazing chat about our backgrounds and musical likes, dislikes, influences et seq. I'd I'd personally like to thank you Eric for such a great eye-opener of the Flamenco (as well as classical, blues, rock, jazz, soul) guitar that you have such an apparently effortless grasp of! Here's to the hopeful next time that I will have my own guitar available! Linda took a rather bad abdominal pain with accompanying top (and bottom) looseness in the early hours of Wednesday morning (our day of departure) and braved it to the coach and subsequent journey to the airport. It then looked like we might not fly (as the doctor at the airport suggested that Linda get checked at the local hospital). After he learned that the flight time was only 4 hrs 20 mins, he agreed to allow Linda (who really now just wanted to get home) to brave the journey and so it was large sighs of relief (although Linda looked ghastly). Linda was given two tablets at the airport and the doctor gave me a further four for the flight. I'm pleased to say that Linda's pains subsided during the flight although they never totally abated so we'll have to see what tonight and tomorrow brings. I also received a call from my mother (after getting home five minutes earlier) to say that my father is also unwell again and was admitted to hospital today primarily because of an unstoppable nose-bleed and subsequent problems related to his drug regime for his angina. I trust the medical profession will use their expertise and get him re-stabilised and home as soon as possible. I clearly therefore hope that everyone gets very well very soon!

Thursday 20/01/2005 - Linda was at the doctor's today and has been referred to the hospital to fully find out the source of her abdominal problems and my father is also improved although they are still trying to change his tablets so we'll have to wait and see.It's back to secular work tomorrow, with musical work hopefully recommencing on Saturday.

Friday 21/01/2005 - Didn't make work today and stayed in bed until 15.10 before getting up and doing absolutely nothing as I've now come down with sickness and diarrhea, that started last night just after I updated the web page. I didn't even have the wish to do anything involving thought and this entry has been made at 09:30 on Saturday morning (when I must say I feel a whole lot better although still well below 100%).

Saturday 22/01/2005 - Saturday saw me getting up around two hours later than usual and although feeling a lot better, still no appetite, although I did expect its return during the day. I sat down and commenced this entry before Linda rose and said she wasn't feeling bad, although still feeling slight niggles and twinges. The day wore on (as clearly did the email!!) and at lunchtime Linda told me that her mum had had a touch of diarrhea. Linda cleaned up her mum's room and suggested that we make a brief journey into town which we did. On returning from town we both settled down to totally relax and watch television and we channel hopped our way around the evening. At about twenty five past ten Marion came down to say she had now been sick. Linda helped Marion to clean herself up, before reassuring her and preparing her room for what (looked like) may be a long night. Marion went to bed while Linda and I watched television in bed until around one o' clock.

Sunday 23/01/2005 - I got up this morning only one hour later than usual and checked Marion who told me she had been up three times during the night. I gave her some water and advised her to sip it and she went back to bed. I only hope that the time-scale she is unwell is no longer than the twenty four to thirty six hours of both Linda and I although she is now looking and sounding a lot better. Meanwhile, my mother phoned to tell me that my father's nosebleed has recommenced, resulting in his blood pressure again dropping. She assures me that although his sense of humour remains, he is getting progressively disheartened (as he had to wait four hours while his nose bled in the casualty alone, plus the time prior to this at the house and the journey through to hospital). It's very frustrating that none of my household can risk going to visit him when I'm sure he'd be glad of the new faces and additional moral support. He is on a surgical ward and there is the very clear and present danger that we may carry infection into the ward (as it looks like infection is what we all either have or may have had). I'm hopeful things will change sooner, rather than later.

Monday 24/01/2005 - Wednesday 26/01/2005- Marion is at last feeling a lot better (as are Linda and I) and my dad also got home tonight so finally things look to be on the up!

Thursday 27/01/2005- My dad's nose started bleeding again today so he has been re-admitted back into hospital. Linda got a letter to make an appointment at the doctor's (reason given is slight inflammation but inflammation of what?) So much for last night's comment about things being on the way up.

Friday 28/01/2005 - Linda's no further forward in her quest to find out what the test points to being inflamed (nor which of the samples she provided that has given rise to the diagnosis in the first place). My father has been transferred to Dundee Ninewells hospital over the weekend due to a lack of Ear, Nose and Throat medical cover at Kirkcaldy which substantially increases the distance away from home. I'm sorry to feel the need to express my feeling of being a country mile beyond a little p*ssed off with the National (un)Health Service.

Saturday 29/01/2005 -Linda was working this morning and I managed to get another song idea written entitled Where Does the Time Go. My dad's definitely in Dundee over the weekend and so we are going to go see him tomorrow. They have packed his nose and are going to remove the packing tomorrow so here's hoping that the bleeding has stopped. Marion is still feeling a lot better although she feels slightly unsteady on her feet. She doesn't seem to realise just how debilitating sickness and diarrhea can be (and all the more so if your 86 years old!)

Sunday 30/01/2005 - Went to see dad today and he seems fine and may be allowed home tomorrow (as long as there are no further nose-bleeds). Did nothing much else....motivation quite low.

Monday 31/01/2005 - Reasonable day at work. Father did get home and phoned me at night sounding very very happy! Linda phoned the doctor and has to get further blood tests so we'll wait and see. Again nothing additional musically.