The older I get, the more I appreciate the connections which I've made with friends which have endured not just for years, but decades. We have a shared history, and now I understand just what a treasure each of these relationships has become. This week I've had conversations, either by video or text, with three of my dearest friends. I'm closer to these people than I am to some members of my own family.

Thanks to the whole Facebook thing, I hadn't been in contact with Roz for months but as always, our interaction picked up exactly where it left off as if our chat had only been interrupted for five minutes. I've known Roz for forty-four years, now. Well, forty-four years and one day, if you're striving for total accuracy. This photo of us was taken on the day we first met.

July 24th, 1982 at the Motörhead concert at Wrexham FC. I was 21.

Roz has seen me at my best, and she's seen me at my lowest ebb. With her mother Linda, she smoothed out a lot of the sharp edges that I had as an autistic, socially inept twentysomething and when I stayed with them in San Francisco in 1984 they helped me to change the direction that my life was taking towards one of lightness and grace. I know that I haven't always managed to stay on that path, but I wouldn't be on it at all if it wasn't for them.

I've known Leah for nearly as long; Roz introduced us. She's been going through a rough time at the moment and it's always difficult seeing a friend in pain, particularly when they're thousands of miles away and there's not a lot you can do to help other than be present (virtually, at least). Love you, Leah!

And I had a lovely video call with Helen this week as we plan how we're going to work on her book about her brother together. Two hours flew by, as they always do when we start chatting. I'm looking forwards to catching up in the real world when she visits next month. Helen is the reason why I'm friends with both Roz and Leah, and we've known each other since I was a teenager. And if you've been reading this blog over the past year or so, you'll also have realised how instrumental she's been in helping my journey of discovery and recovery from a very dark place. She's my big sister from another family, and I love her to bits.

I was delighted (and very flattered) to feature in Steve Ball's blog this week. Steve appears to encounter instances of synchronicity in his life just as regularly as I do; his tale of encountering a fellow musician in an Indian restaurant in Pershore this week was a delight that I'm not going to spoil for you (so check out that link), and of course the Uber driver who collected him from Real World was going to turn out to live at the foot of Solsbury Hill; that's simply the way that the Universe works when you pay attention to it.

After a few days of heavy reflection, processing everything that has happened over the past week, today is a day to return to the enveloping warmth of music. Right now I'm listening to the Exposure CD, and it's a delight. And after that, I have Anthony Garone's new CD (which Steve mentions in his blog) lined up for a spin, too.

This afternoon there will be practice.

The Song Sprint is over and all activity on the FAWM website has shut down. General consensus was that it was a big success, with the daily rate of posting songs much higher than it used to be in Fifty/Ninety (although I am comparing apples to oranges here, I know). The site will be going back into hibernation until the end of August, when it will reopen in readiness for the next sprint, which will start on September 5th. The challenge is going to be the same as it was last week: write five songs in nine days. Are you up for it? It is huge fun to do, honestly.

I ducked out of my moderation duties for the last few days when people could still comment and use the forums because as you could probably tell from my previous blog entry, the behaviour of some individuals was getting to me and I was becoming progressively more grumpy, irritable, and increasingly short-tempered with each passing day. I've calmed down now, but I'm leaving that rant up on the blog for posterity because I may need to remind myself of what was going on and how I felt about it at some point in the future.

But this week I am pleasantly chilled and still processing all of the magnificent experiences which I've had over the past few days, because I've been away from home on a much-needed and long anticipated break. You've probably already guessed where I've been...

On Thursday I travelled down to Box in Wiltshire once again for the third annual Real World Masterclass at Peter Gabriel's world-leading and award-winning recording studio. It has become one of my favourite places in the whole world and I am proud to call all the lovely people there my friends.

My new favourite duffel bag.

On Thursday evening before dinner, as Real World's chief engineer (and Grammy winner) Katie May introduced us all to the event in the vast, cathedral-like studio space called Control Room One but referred to by everybody simply as The Big Room, I noticed that one of the other delegates, who was wearing a very bright fluorescent yellow shirt and matching trainers, was looking at me with a curious expression on his face...

Opening introductions...

The reason for his amusement became clear when Katie got us all to introduce ourselves and he said, "My name is Steve Ball from the Seattle Guitar Circle and I did not expect to see somebody wearing artwork which I designed here today." And looked straight at me.

That morning I'd decided on the spur of the moment to wear my Discipline shirt because it is nice and bright, and I love the design on it. Yes, the Celtic knot was Steve's artwork. I had absolutely no idea at all that Steve was going to be at the Masterclass and I was so surprised at this that I just shouted out, "You're that Steve Ball? Dude!" and the whole room started laughing. So we hugged, and everyone burst into spontaneous applause. This, folks, is a perfect example of the weird things that the Universe throws at me from time to time (and Steve says the same thing happens to him). We are now fast friends and when we all adjourned to the pub that evening, Steve was still so amused that he called up Patricia Fripp (who has one of every single t-shirt made for her brother's band) so that I could say hello and show her what I was wearing!

Steve's enthusiasm and dedication to his craft (he invited me to sit and listen to him practise for fifteen minutes in the games room, and I wasn't going to turn down an opportunity like that; it was a humbling experience seeing how good he was) energised the whole weekend, and he facilitated more than one fascinating conversation between other people. At lunch on Friday, when he overheard me mentioning how much I'd enjoyed reading David Sonnenschein's book Sound Design, I suddenly found myself having a Facetime conversation on Steve's phone with David as he was cycling to work in sunny California. Steve knows everybody!

Chris and Steve Ball

The next three days were jam-packed with hands-on sessions, discussions, and presentations from one world-class artist after another. It was the most intense time I've ever spent there (and this was my fifth stay) as everyone involved was incredibly focused and enthusiastic about getting as much from the Masterclass as they possibly could. And oh boy, did we ever.

As a coffee junkie, I developed a habit every morning of wandering up to Toast for a latté before breakfast each morning, which was definitely the correct way to start the day—and it did wonders for my daily step count, too. But after all that walking about each day, I was very glad that my accommodation was a simple climb up the stairs from the dining room where we all had dinner. I weighed myself when I got home, and thanks to Jerome's wonderful cooking and many refreshing beverages, I'd put on three and a half pounds...

Room Four

I should have worn earplugs in bed, I think. After the first night I was asleep five minutes after my head hit the pillow (which NEVER happens to me, ever) and I slept like a baby until the first goods train of the day went through, right outside my window, at 04:30. Thankfully I did manage to fall asleep again as I listened to a Eurasian Blackcap singing its heart out in a tree in the garden below my bedroom window.

Talking of singing, it was Maisy's birthday on the Saturday, so she was ambushed on the patio in front of her Mum and Dad by all the guests and the whole Real World contingent who sang Happy Birthday to her in the sunshine, with Steve accompanying everyone on his guitar:

Happy birthday, Maisy!

I was delighted to discover a strong Motörhead connection this year. Romesh Dodangoda's extensive CV includes tracking Phil Campbell's guitars for The World is Yours as well as Phil's Bastard Sons projects and he's an absolute master of getting the best rock guitar sound you could possibly wish for. He's also a massive Aerosmith fan. His session was very hands-on and I finally got to drive the monster SSL desk in the Big Room during his demonstration, so that's another item ticked off my bucket list.

Play time!

The more I think about it, the more the keynote session on Saturday from Dave Okumu stands out as being one of those unexpectedly life-changing encounters with a truly exceptional human being which—if you're incredibly lucky—you might get to experience once or twice during your life. If I'm honest, it blindsided me. I'm still mulling over his talk about what it means to him to be a producer, coming from a place full of compassion, empathy, and unconditional love. His latest album, I Came From Love is called that for a very good reason. I've written elsewhere here about my own childhood, which was very different; seeing the results of parents getting it right gives me hope for the future. And the tale he told us of being electrocuted on stage while playing a gig with King Sunny Adé in Lagos and how that has kindled a fascination with the workings of the heart and the mind, had me so transfixed that I forgot to take any notes. I've already ordered Iain McGilchrist's book The Master and his Emissary which he recommended to us, because it sounds (unsurprisingly) right up my street.

I don't expect I will ever get to play with a classic Studer twenty-four track analogue tape recorder, but even to someone who works as resolutely in the box as I do, Ricky Damian's session on recording a live band on tape (in the Wood Room) was one of many highlights for me. The four-piece band were amazing and I would happily have just sat there listening to them jamming for the whole morning. Old-school tricks like reversing the tape in order to add some nice weird ear candy to a track tickle my brain in lovely ways, not just because of the sheer joyful inventiveness of it but also because of the physical process involved.

Ricky and Xav prepare for a bit of backwards Fender Rhodes action...

And of course there was one tradition that I had to continue: I always get my picture taken while I'm sitting at the 96-channel SSL 9000 series mixing desk in The Big Room while I'm at Real World, and this trip was no exception. Just look at the joy on my face. It really doesn't get any better than this.

I have to sit here at least once every time I visit.

The keynote speech on Sunday evening was from Dr Andrew Scheps and I deeply empathised with his comment that "Stereo is cool; immersive audio is life-changing." He talked about The Echo Project which he's worked on at the University of Huddersfield, and a new immersive audio reverb plugin which features impulse responses from the legendary oil storage tanks at Inchindown ("I had to throw away every item of clothing I was wearing, including my wellingtons, and I trashed over a thousand pounds worth of audio cables. It's the best thing I've ever done.") and at this point I was pretty much shouting "Take my money now!" The Atmos mixes he'd made of the final pieces of music ever recorded by the band Low Roar which he played us were not just the best immersive audio mixes that I've ever heard (and I've heard quite a few) they were also some of the most emotionally intense compositions I've ever heard. The whole session was another life-changing experience for me (but Real World seems to specialise in making things like that happen, somehow).

Nerding out with the Atmos wizard

I'd love to describe every single session in the blog for you, because they were all fascinating and fun, but when I scanned all of my notes that I'd taken in my notebook to share with the other attendees, there were forty-seven pages of densely-packed handwriting, and this blog entry would end up being larger than most of the rest of the website.

After dinner on the Sunday evening the Big Room was turned into the world's coolest living room; out came the sofas, down came the screen, the fairy lights were switched on, drinks were distributed, and we all chilled out while watching the Spain vs. Argentina World Cup Final. The best team definitely won.

Watching the game.

But then it was Monday morning, and I had to leave—and it never gets any easier to do that. I spent Monday afternoon on the playing field at the Castle School in Thornbury, covered in factor 50 sunblock, wearing a straw hat, and doing live sound for Function 246 once again. I was glad I had something musical to do and keep my mind occupied, rather than coming home to an empty house and ending up getting maudlin about life, the Universe, and everything. Some Singapore fried rice and a couple of spring rolls from the local Chinese takeaway on Monday evening definitely soothed the transition back to my usual domestic routine. My mental wellbeing always gets a tremendous boost from a stay at Real World, and I think I'm going to be okay.

But there's going to be a lot more practising involved in my daily routine from now on, that's for sure!

The latest FAWM Song Sprint finished at lunchtime yesterday and the final tally of songs on my profile page stands at eleven. And yes, I finished off by writing an instrumental track in 11/8 that I played on my Warr Guitar, because I'm me and I love making things even more challenging. You will be able to listen to the tracks on that link until July 22nd, at which point the site will go back into hibernation until the next challenge.

And personally speaking, rather than talking in my capacity as a member of the team whose job it is to help run things, from the way people are behaving on the site, I'm glad it's going to shut back down again.

It should go without saying this, but most of the people who take part are fine, upstanding creative types. But there are a few old hands who cannot accept that Burr and the gang (including me) are no longer prepared to support the old version of the Fifty/Ninety challenge which lasted for three months and required the moderators to keep the site up and running while blocking the unending deluge of spammers and other nasty undesirables and ensuring discourse stayed civil for considerably longer than that. It's hard work, and it takes its toll.

As I wrote here on the blog after the last 50/90 finished in 2024, the blatant trolling (a.k.a. "I'm just trying to start a debate") and the endless arguments about whether or not it was acceptable to use AI for the challenge had sucked all the joy out of the experience for me. I came very close to walking away from things for good, and I know I wasn't the only member of the team who felt like that. Having the site get taken over by one endless squabble after another, the petty bickering, the ridiculous levels of entitlement that some participants clearly feel, and the sidelining of the site's main purpose—to get people devoting their energies to writing songs, and finding joy in doing so—by a pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction and unpleasant vibes spread by a minority leaves a sour taste that's proving difficult to get rid of. And when the team steps in to provide moderation and restore order, the shouty ones start giving us grief. As if we're the ones being unreasonable.

So the playground will be closed down for the summer. The malcontents are not happy about this at all, and they've been making their feelings known at great length. Over and over again. They refuse to accept that Fifty/Ninety is over and not coming back, no matter how many times the message is repeated. Quite frankly the behaviour of one or two of them has got to the point where they just appear to be completely unhinged. The lack of self-awareness that's been demonstrated in a lot of their posts in the forums is staggering. What saddens me is that the people behaving like this and complaining about how badly they're being done by on the site are never going to realise that what they're doing right now is exactly the reason why they can't have the nice thing that they enjoyed so much any more. They took it for granted that Fifty/Ninety was rightfully theirs rather than a privilege which could be taken away, and they assumed that they could abuse that privilege and still have everything continue unchanged. Surprise! The grown-ups thought otherwise!

And oh boy, woe betide anyone who tries pointing that out to them. So we end up with a person who likes to argue loudly arguing about it being unfair to be described as a person who likes to argue in a thread that at this point is entirely being sustained by people arguing...

Last year we added functionality to the website that stops any thread which is in danger of going off the rails from being bumped to the top of the forums page every time someone adds a new comment to it (this works remarkably well at calming things down, because the thing that trolls love most is a captive audience. It's also very effective at reining in the folks who want to remind us every six hours or so about their upcoming listening party on Bandcamp).

The team can now also "lock" a thread. This is mainly used to shut down duplicate threads where the original poster hasn't noticed that the same conversation was already taking place somewhere else. It has also been used on discussions that have started to escalate out of control. Like, for example, the person (who is not involved with running the site in any way, and who has been told over and over again that Fifty/Ninety is done for good) starting a thread with the deliberately inflammatory title of "HOW TO BRING BACK 50/90" (typed in all caps, of course) and yes, this is the level of petty childishness and entitlement that the worst offenders exhibit ("How hard can it be? You can just get Claude to write the code for you.") Rather than letting this silliness degenerate into point-scoring and name calling (specially in cases like this where where someone is just out and out being a dick) the mods will take a vote (any response made is never a unilateral decision) on whether it's better to lock the thread. Locking it doesn't remove the thread from the site, or stop people reading it in any way; it just stops further comments from being added and puts what's already been written right at the bottom of the last page of the topic listing on the forum. It's still there if anyone wants to read it and see why it was locked. But apparently this is censorship, at least according to the person who had their pet hobby horse moved off the front page. The way that they complain on their profile about how unfair this is, with their mates commenting "Yeah, I read your censored post" would be hilarious were it not for the realisation that none of them will ever figure out that if their post had been censored, it would not be possible for anyone to read it, but when emotions get heated (despite the team's best efforts, and believe me, we try really hard to keep things civil) logic or reason fly out of the window. And yes, I'm ranting at this point. Behaviour like this is annoying and depressing and it undermines my faith in the inherent goodness of people.

They've demonstrated that they don't deserve to have the nice thing any more. Fifty/Ninety is not coming back. It's as simple as that.

Yesterday was gardening day, because the weather forecast suggested that things weren't going to get any cooler for the next ten days or so and the garden looked like a crazy person lives here (which is not entirely inaccurate, I'll admit, but even so...) I spent the morning pruning the Boston Ivy on the house then made further inroads on the brambles that are taking over the back garden, did some weeding, and got the front and back lawns cut (and judging by the recordings on my trailcam I played back this morning, the hedgehogs were very appreciative of that).

And then I collapsed in a heap.

Waving a ladder around is quite a workout, and by the time I went to bed I knew my shoulders were going to give me a hard time for it. They did. Ibuprofen and Voltarol didn't help things in the slightest and each time I moved around in bed, the pain brought me instantly awake. I've had the worst night's sleep I've had in weeks. But the garden looks lovely this morning, so it was worth it. Maybe I'll sleep better tonight.

At least the temperature is expected to stay below 30°C for the rest of this week. It's still uncomfortably warm at night, and that hasn't helped ease how disturbed my sleep is at the moment, but the house is a good six degrees cooler indoors today compared to what it was like last week. I've got all the windows open and that's helping matters too.

And my plans for today? Absolutely nothing. Bugger all. That's all I can cope with today, thank you very much.

It's still stupidly hot here. Yesterday, the highest temperature that I recorded in the back garden was 37°C (99°F). But I've noticed that the solar panels on the roof and the Boston ivy on the west-facing side of the house have definitely taken the edge off the temperatures indoors by a couple of degrees compared with previous summers. All the same, once the sun goes down, I open all the windows and provided that the outside temperature has dropped sufficiently (which it didn't do in the last heatwave, sadly) that cools the house off quite a bit; it worked rather well last night and the bedroom was 25°C (77°F) when I got up today—much better than the 31°C (88°F) that it was when I went to bed. Getting to sleep was still a struggle but I eventually drifted off at about half-past one. I was awake at 04:30 to close the upstairs windows again before the heat started to build back, but I managed to fall asleep again after about half an hour (I'm still in a lot of pain, and getting comfortable enough to fall asleep is a challenge).

I might not have air conditioning, but I've been sitting in front of a fan a lot. I have one in my home studio that's pointed straight at my chair, and it was providing much-needed relief yesterday as I worked on yet another piece of music for this month's FAWM Song Sprint. And I had a productive day writing something which was initially inspired by Count Binface which meant that my profile page this morning now has ten songs listed, which is double the challenge target of writing five songs in nine days. I think I'm going to write another song today, and then that will be it for me. I've already got half an hour of new material recorded, and that's a pretty good showing by my standards.

Apart from anything else, the sense of achievement I'm feeling at the moment as a result of both being prolific and (IMHO) doing some quality work has been very welcome. It's noticeably boosted my self-confidence and thanks to the therapy I'm having, for the first time ever I have actually been able to accept the nice things that people are saying about my work without a little voice at the back of my head telling me that they don't know what they're talking about and it'll all change when they find out what a massive impostor I am. One of the nicest moments (which left me completely gobsmacked) was when Richard H recommended the book I wrote about writing more than 100 songs in ninety days for 2022's Fifty/Ninety challenge in the forum thread about useful resources to read about songwriting and home recording. Yeah; it's been a good week.

I see that the Sainsbury's supermarket chain are insisting that they will be using facial recognition cameras to track their customers in an attempt to combat shoplifting.

Well fuck that; I'm out. Sainsbury's, you just lost a customer. For life.

Last night I was lying in bed, ruminating and worrying about things that have been playing on my mind. I've always done this to some degree (it's probably because of the complex PTSD that I'm certain I suffer from) but it's been making my life particularly miserable for the past six months or so. It's a habit I've been trying hard to break, because it's a waste of energy and apart from anything else I simply don't have enough spoons to devote to something so pointless any more. I've discussed this a lot with my therapist, which might be why shortly after midnight, I found myself thinking, "Why am I putting all this mental energy into grieving for the normal life that I'm never going to have, or wishing I had the sort of mind that would let me live like that? It makes no sense, because I'd hate to be normal. It would be deathly dull and, quite frankly, incredibly boring."

At that moment I realised I would loathe becoming someone like that, because while they might have a traditional nuclear family with 2.4 kids, a couple of dogs and the usual crippling debt, they also wouldn't be me any more. That same inner voice went on to point out that I haven't lost any of the interesting aspects of who I am just because I've discovered that I'm neurodivergent. And they're right; I haven't, have I? Do I feel diminished in any way? Do I believe that I'm a lesser human being as a result of finding out I'm not the person I thought I was? No! If anything, the joy which I've always taken in standing out from the crowd and just being weird has been validated. "So why are you being miserable about it?" I asked myself.

And just like that, the heavy depression that I've been suffering from for months lifted. It happened in seconds, like the sun coming out. It felt very strange, like my mind had suddenly shifted gears and was now running at a more appropriate speed. Even more bizarrely, I fell asleep just a few minutes later.

I don't know if this change of mood will stick, but the reasoning that triggered it still seems pretty solid to me, and I've been mulling it over all day. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I feel happy today, but I feel content with being me, and I haven't felt like that for a very long time. It feels good.

My creative mojo has decided to reappear, too. This morning I realised I was actually looking forward to seeing what I was going to come up with in my home studio. And despite the fact that it's ridiculously hot here today (at teatime, it's still 34°C (93°F) outside) I spent most of the day in there, having completely lost track of time.

So I now have eight songs listed on my profile page for this month's song sprint. The target, remember, is to write five by noon UTC on Monday. And I don't think I've run out of steam yet.

I wish I could shake off this bout of depression because I'm really not having much fun at the moment.

The last couple of days have been really tough. I don't know why. I've been struggling to find any joy in anything at all and yesterday was about as bad as it's been all year. Pushing myself to sit down and work on some new music was the only way I managed to get through the day without breaking down in tears again. I need a hug. But I'm still here.

I've been keeping myself busy (and distracted) working on this month's FAWM Song Sprint and I've already blown past the challenge's objective of writing five songs in nine days. Yesterday I uploaded my sixth song in four days, so I made sure that it was a prog rock instrumental in 6/4 time, because that's how my brain works. Despite feeling awful, I managed to make something that I was happy with, and I've already been given some nice feedback about it which compared it favourably to Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery's latest album (which was recorded at Real World, of course). I need to remind myself more often (or even better, be told by my peers) that I'm actually pretty good at what I do these days.

I plan on working on another track or two today, at least until the back bedroom gets too hot. Yesterday I dropped into hyperfocus so hard that I didn't even notice how warm it was getting in there, which might explain why I was two pounds lighter when I weighed myself this morning...

Even after a really big mug of coffee this morning, I just can't seem to pierce the brain fog. It's lying particularly heavy today. Every time I drop out of hyperfocus or creative fusion or flow or whatever you want to call it, I wonder if I'll ever be able to attain that state again. Although it seems absolutely effortless at the time (and believe me, it's a powerfully addictive feeling), I know from how drained I feel afterwards that I'm actually doing a lot of cognitive heavy lifting. Thanks to the mess I'm in at the moment I've been desperately pushing myself to get into that state all week in order to leave my feelings behind and escape for a few hours, and each time it happens it feels miraculous. It's difficult to describe how intense the whole experience is to anyone who's never had it happen to them. I know it's a privilege to be able to work like that, and I worry that one day it simply won't happen any more.

I've learned that stressing out about this is counterproductive. I'll just get on with what I planned to do and hope that the creative guy eventually shows up and starts telling me what I should be doing.

And if he doesn't, and I spend the next hour just staring out of the studio window watching the neighbourhood squadron of swifts hurtling about, that's fine too.

The summer's next heatwave began to build yesterday and I was already sitting here at my "office" desk downstairs and sweating profusely by half-past nine this morning, although that might have been because of the home-made chilli oil which I put in my breakfast coffee (which really hits the spot, believe me). Whatever the reason, I'm really not looking forward to another few days where the outside temperature here is expected to exceed 30°C (86°F) even if the Met Office are saying it won't be getting quite as humid as it was during last month's record-breaking spell. Things are supposed to peak on Friday before gradually cooling off.

I've been making sure to leave plenty of fresh water out for the local wildlife. It's not just the starlings and the local cats who have been having a drink, either...

Someone was VERY thirsty.

Unlike last year when the camera picked up four hogs together on the back lawn several times, the hedgehogs have been keeping to themselves this summer. There are several different ones which visit regularly and they're easily distinguishable by the different patterns of light and dark spines on their backs, but they've been distinctly antisocial so far this year. I do like watching the trailcam footage every morning and seeing what's been happening out there while I was asleep. It's become a welcome part of my daily ritual.

In case recent posts have left you feeling worried about me, I just want to say that while I'm clearly not okay, I have absolutely no intention of doing anything silly. I've seen the damage that does to the people left behind, and I couldn't inflict that on anyone. I get through each day more or less intact, and I'm trying my best to be kinder to myself. I managed to get through yesterday without needing to retreat under the duvet, I got some exercise, and I was able to keep my mind busily focused on nice things rather than the bad stuff. As a result, I fell asleep remarkably quickly last night and I even managed to remain asleep for the duration. It's amazing how much a simple thing like a good night's sleep helps to improve my perspective on life.

I had another therapy session this morning. Once again, I ended up in tears after breaking down trying to explain something. But as I said to my therapist, I now think that's a good thing because a year ago I would have grimly pushed all those emotions back out of sight and left them where I've kept them for the last thirty-five years, festering away quietly in the depths of my subconscious—where they were free to cause further damage. Pretending I'm fine has never helped, so I'm not doing that any more. I feel drained right now, but I also feel better having talked about what I'm going through. I think these blog entries are part of the fallout from that, too. My parents are both dead and I don't expect to ever hear from the other people involved again, but if any of them ever stumble across any of this, maybe they'll finally be able to appreciate the amount of damage they did and the pain that they caused. I've kept it all bottled up, together with the grief and the shame and the guilt, for long enough. It's no use to me and I want to be rid of it.

Wait, what? It's July already? Where did the last six months go?

I have no plans for the rest of this week, and very few plans in place for the rest of the year. If you've been reading the blog regularly you probably already know that I've been suffering with a number of mental health issues for the past year, and although things are better than they were back in March when I was shocked to find myself categorised as being severely at risk, I'm not in a good way. For decades I've always told people that I'm fine when they ask me how I'm doing, but that's always been a lie. This year I finally managed to break that habit and ask for the help that I need, which I should have got a long time ago. I've started having therapy, and it's helping me to gain a healthier and more realistic perspective about my life than the one I've been relying on for the last twenty or thirty years, but all it takes is one bad night and I feel like I have crashed right back to where I started. Making any plans—even if they're something as simple as buying a ticket for a concert by a band that I like—feels like too much of a commitment right now. At the moment I can barely cope with leaving the house.

Avoidant behaviour is a classic symptom of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and since I stopped working, it has gradually taken control of more and more of my life. If something bad happened once when I did a thing, it means I just don't do that thing any more. If that involves driving on a particular stretch of road, or visiting a particular place, it starts to become a big problem. It's bad enough now that it's having significant effects on my quality of life and that's one of the reasons why I've been having therapy for the past couple of months.

And yes, I know on an intellectual level that avoidant behaviour is not only bad for me, it's also ridiculous and irrational, but as I have learned to my cost lately, mental illness doesn't follow the rules of logic. I need to build my resilience back up, because it's pretty much disappeared.

So I've been setting myself little tasks each day that I can count as a win; that I can use to show myself that I'm not as worthless as the voice inside my head (which sounds suspiciously like my father's) keeps telling me I am. Yesterday that meant firing up GIMP and creating enough banners for the Blog to last me until Christmas. Twenty years ago, I had enough of them in hand to last the Blog several years, but lately—since I became ill, in fact—I've ended up making each one on the day that I needed it, and just doing that would leave me so exhausted I couldn't keep going to add a few more in reserve. Having half a year's worth of banners in the bag is highly unusual.

And yes, that's trivial and you may well find it pathetic but at the risk of labouring the point: that's what I'm reduced to, not because I'm making it up to avoid work, or because I'm lazy (and I can hear my father's voice telling me exactly that as I type this). It's because I'm seriously ill. I really didn't want to accept that, but it's the truth.

One thing I do have planned for this month is a new challenge that will kick off later today when the FAWM website reopens for it: "Song Sprint" sets participants the new goal of writing five songs in the nine days beginning on July 4th, so that is exactly what I plan to be doing for the next week and a bit. As it doesn't involve leaving the house at all, I'm totally fine with taking part. Each track I make will count as one of my daily wins, and each spammer that I catch signing up to the site and block will make me feel better, too.

I realised today that I'm genuinely looking forward to taking part, and that's a nice realisation to have. It's been a while since I felt that way about something.

I'm glad there's a FAWM challenge coming up. Making music helps me to switch focus away from all the gloomy ruminating thoughts rattling around in my head, and after I sat on the sofa playing the new bass for an hour last night (using my Boss Katana Go through my IEMs) I could tell that my mood had lifted a little bit.

After writing yesterday's extremely bleak blog entry I retreated under the duvet and fell asleep again in the afternoon for a couple of hours. I'm definitely very under the weather at the moment and I've learned that whenever things get this bad, all I can do is rest up and hope that my mojo eventually decides to come back. I had a slightly better night's sleep last night, which is a good sign. I think that figuring out why everything hurts so much at the moment has helped matters, because I'm an inveterate worrier and finding a mundane explanation for how rough I'm feeling (that I'm not as young or as fit as I used to be, and I should act accordingly) was reassuring, in an odd sort of way. The pain seems to have eased off slightly this morning and I'm profoundly grateful for that, but complex PTSD is not an easy thing to recover from and it's been giving me a thorough going over recently, as you can no doubt tell.

Another reason why I've been feeling so miserable is that I'm being clobbered by hay fever at the moment, although I think the effects might finally be tailing off because my eyes aren't quite as itchy today and I haven't had to wash my face with a cold cloth every half hour. I haven't had a single sneezing fit yet this morning either, although my sinuses still feel like someone's been hitting them with a brick. When I looked through back issues of the blog this week I noticed that it's usually late June when I mention how much I'm suffering from it, and it took me exactly one day to start complaining about the fact after I first started the blog, twenty-three years ago, so I'm not just consistent, I'm bang on schedule.

But I feel shattered again now; I think the coffee I had for breakfast has worn off, so I'm going to have a glass of cranberry juice and then do the ironing that's been sitting on a chair in the living room for the past fortnight (which will be another small win), and then fire up the studio and prepare for next week's Song Sprint shenanigans.