And I did it all again.

There's a lot of firsts for Me. Well not really firsts, I suppose you could call them agains, but they're firsts since I started feeling unwell. There was My first steps and the first meal that I fed myself, the first time I managed to walk up a stairs, which My daughter got on video, and the first time I could play my guitar.

The other night was another one, I went to Bennis's Pub in Ballyagran and played music all night, well at least until the barmaid said it's time to go. It was a big landmark first for me because I didn't know how long I could keep going for until my hands or fingers give up, or if my lungs could push out enough air to be audible when I sang, and now I know so I plan on doing a lot more of it. The next morning I felt like I'd done ten rounds with Tyson, and that's a lot of golf, but as the day went on I recovered well enough to be able to make coffee and eat buns so that's a result to Me.

I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing that knocking out a bunch of songs with friends and good people around, it's my little escape from the world. A simple three minute song can stay with you for life and bring out emotions and feelings that you might have thought were long gone. I have loads runing around my head most of the day. If somebody hears a track on the radio that was a hit when they were at school more often than not they're snapped back to a school disco for a split second, or maybe a memory of a first dance.

I'm always looking for new songs to sing and play, I'm not too keen on playing the same old sing-alongs that a some musicians rely on time and time again, there's nothing wrong with those songs, in fact they served Me very well when I was a gigging musician, but these days I like a bit more of a challange. I like to reach out to an audience and offer them something that they might not have heard before. Another thing I do is not to use a playlist and this drives other musicians mad. I just shoot from the hip and hope everything works out, and mostly I believe it does.

I write this blog the same way, I don't plan what I'm going to write and I never edit before posting, sometimes I even forget to spellcheck it, I just type and post and hope it doesn't come across as a pointless ramble. I started this blog to let people know what it's like living with CIDP and because it camn be such an unpredictable condition I don't think I could plan a blog, because in the time it takes to plan something then my condition could have changed and I'd have to start over. In saying all that I've never been one to plan anything really, because when I have then there always something or somebody who I trip over and my well planed plan ends up being a 'what if?' memory, so I just keep going with a vague idea of where I want to end up and hope it all works out. In the words of a great songwriter, Seasick Steve, "I started out with nothing and still got most of it left".

I was talking to the greatest bass player in the world, Pete, this morning and we want to do some recording soon, and the phonecall ended with the idea we'll either record in England or Ireland or Wales at some time in March or April or some other time that sort of suites us both, and there would be some fishing involved if we end up antwhere near a river, lake, stream, or the sea. I have every confidence that the recording will happen and we'll have a ball, so worrying about trivial things like times and dates would only cause a distraction to the end product. I've often gone on stage with Pete and him not know what on earth I'm going to do next but he never gets phased and can rely on a massive amount of experience and talent to get him through the gig, while all I have to rely on is the solid bass player standing beside me and a drummer, also called Pete, who is ice cool and brilliant. If it wasn't for them I'd probably sink like a stove overboard.

So to conclude this little piece, I will more than likely, if everybody concerned can make it, if it's at all possible, maybe be able to try and be more definate in the things I'm sort of planing in a sort of a vague kind of way, play a bit more music more often than I have been as long as my battered body holds out and I have at least one person that wants to hear me.