My life away from Integra revolves largely around family, music, football and travel and the early months of 2025 have seen all of these feature strongly.
My family continues to fill the FD and myself with joy (most of the time!) – our six grandchildren are growing up fast.
Our eldest (Georgia) was 19 in January and is a beautiful and confident young woman, Ellie is 17 and doesn’t take any nonsense from her grand-dad, being sharp witted and quick to take the Mickey! Tia-Rose is 13 and capable of being sweet and angelic one minute yet turn into a monster just seconds later! Jack is 12 and seems to have settled into his secondary school well. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of anything to do with football. James is 10 and is becoming his own man having been dominated a little by his three older sisters! We have some interesting chats in the car on the way back from the football. I am trying to increase his vocabulary from “Grand-dad – can I have a hot dog? to something more wide ranging! Last but by no means least is Taylor. At 7 she is the youngest but could well turn out to be the sharpest knife in the box. She never stops talking or asking questions and her vocabulary is extensive. She started questioning anything and everything I say to her a while back and it has become increasingly difficult to pull the wool over her eyes!
We are definitely blessed and love every minute we get to spend with them.
We now have five season tickets at Watford and so myself, my son Tom and three of the kids are there cheering on the mighty Hornets.
It has been a “nothing” season – lurching from great hope and expectation to disappointment and frustration. The Championship has been a poor division this season, apart from the top three clubs, and with a little more depth in the squad, particularly in the offensive third, the Hornets could certainly have made the play-offs.
We’ll see what happens in the summer transfer window and whether we can build for next year.
One good thing about this season is that, as I write, it looks odds on that Luton Town will get relegated for the second year in succession!
Music wise, I continue to play regularly. Mainly at local open mic gigs (I’ve already done eight this year) but I did step up in stature recently by playing at The Tropic at Ruislip club supporting a young guitar wizard called Jack-Austin Despy – thank God I went on first and didn’t have to follow such talent!
On May 9th I am appearing on Moz Copstake’s Radio Dacorum show (Hemel Hempstead) and will play a few songs live and talk music and life for an hour.
It is an internet radio station and you can “tune in” here at 3pm
https://player.broadcast.radio/radio-dacorum
I am also running the open mic tent and playing at the Chalfont St Peter Feast Day on Saturday June 28th. I shall kick off proceedings at 11am and there are around ten artists playing throughout the day. The open mic tent is perfectly positioned opposite the beer tent and hot food outlets!
There have been a few gigs to attend in recent weeks and a few booked for the weeks ahead.
I have seen the Marshall Couzens Band, The Cinelli Brothers, Buddy King and the Moondogs, The Gary Fletcher Band, Ian Parker and Nigel Bagge and have gigs with Pat McManus, Nigel Bagge and Laurence Jones in the diary in the next few weeks.
February saw the FD and myself undertake a 2300 mile road trip in France.
We stayed in Fontainebleu, Limoges, Carcassonne (2 nights), Albi, La Rochelle, Le Croisic, Brest, Honfleur and Cleon with some incredible hotels, restaurants and sights along the way.
Going just “out of season”, our hotels were upgraded in Fontainebleu, Carcassonne, Le Croisic and Honfleur. Our hotel in Carcassonne in the heart of the medieval citadel was incredible. Our upgrade gave us a room with a huge private outside terrace overlooking the castle and walls. We felt like royalty and celebrated that night in the Michelin starred Le Barbicane restaurant!
We also organised our trip to coincide with the Wishbone Ash French tour and took in gigs at Le Garric (near Albi), La Rochelle, Brest and Cleon.
The gigs were great and it was good to catch up with everyone. The gig at Le Garric was memorable as we gave Andy, Mark and Mike a lift back to their hotel after the gig only for Andy to realise that he had the keys to the band’s van in his pocket. I took them and drove back to the venue to rescue Bob, Lorna and the crew who were waiting somewhat frustratedly back at the venue!
Our next trip will be in May when we visit Latvia, staying in the heart of Riga old town at a wonderful looking hotel (The Dome) very close to the cathedral.
