Michael Day's personal notebook and e-diary

As always my life away from Integra tends to largely revolve around family, friends, music and football.

2016 has been a full on year for the day family with the death of my father unfortunately being at the centre of things. My mother is coming to terms with this massive loss and I am trying to ensure that I spend as much time as possible in supporting her as she looks to the future.

My five grandchildren are growing up fast. It is unbelievable that the eldest is now ten years old – time has flown by so fast and it makes me value every precious moment I get to spend in their company.

In December we shall enjoy a night out at the illuminations at Kew Gardens and have had many dinners, BBQs and other family fun throughout the year. Of course Christmas is always special and, no doubt, we will have another super time this year. Susan the FD is already champing at the bit to get the 91 boxes of Santas (700+) and other decorations down from the loft!

Talking of Susan, we had a wonderful time in September celebrating a big birthday with a night seeing Les Miserables and having dinner in London and another evening having dinner with twenty one members of the family at the Old Orchard Restaurant in Harefield.

Les Miserables was wonderful. It has been running for 30 years but like our visit to see Phantom of the Opera earlier in the year, was the first time we had actually seen it. Having for the musical bug we enjoyed a night at Sunny Afternoon , the Kinks musical in London in late October.

Way back in August we attended CatFest run by Julian and Cat O’Dell at their splendid farm in Bedfordshire. A fabulous event saw us rock the afternoon and evening away, enjoying a string of wonderful musicians with all profits made going to Macmillan Cancer Support. Julian, Cat and family, through these efforts and the sale of dozens of Julian’s fabulous pencil drawings of rock stars plus other activities saw over £30,000 raised. An incredible effort,. In fact, in Julian’s own words – marvellous!

What was even more marvellous was news in October that Cat, having undergone another programme of intensive chemo for cancer, was given a full all clear remission – absolutely wonderful and we all pray that this time it has gone for good.

Elsewhere on the music front, I have attended gigs by Robin Bibi, Pat McManus, Trident Waters, The Mentulls, Black Top Deluxe, The Rainbreakers, Del Bromham’s Blues Devils, Doris Brendell and Never the Bride and have a Blues weekend featuring several bands set up in early December as well as gigs with Dave Kelly, Pat McManus and the Du Bellows.

Of course this end of the year would not be complete with Wishbone Ash’s UK tour and Sue and I will see the band in Basingstoke, Harpenden, Swindon and Southampton before the big event – Ashcon in Clitheroe - where I will, once again, be wowing the audience with an acoustic solo set on the Friday and possibly some more numbers on the Saturday afternoon.

Doris Brendell and the Flying Vs will be playing on the Saturday afternoon and the brilliant Xander and the Peace Pirates will be supporting Wishbone Ash in the evening.

Football has been excellent this season with Watford currently 7th in the Premier League and looking strong. The new manager is blending a team that is adaptable and can change its approach, making us far more flexible and less predictable than last season and much less reliant on one or two key players.

The last few months have been manic business wise which has been fab but I am delighted that we have arranged to go to Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg in January. This road trip has been built around five Wishbone Ash gigs and should get 2017 off to a great start!

We have also booked a trip in April to cruise around the Croatian Dalmatian islands starting from the beautiful city of Dubrovnik. I’m not a big fan of cruises but this is a small boat, never leaves site of shore and sees us in a different location or two every day.

So, as I sign off newsletter wise for 2016, I’d just like to say thank you to friends and family for their support this and here’s to the road ahead!