Sunday 31 January 2021

Anywhere/ New Musik (1981): Albums of my Life: An A-Z


 
 ...being young, six or seven maybe, and my parents always played music loud. Mum would play music whilst ironing, or just to let off steam herself-- having two small children around the house and all the chaos we entailed was probably no picnic at times! My mum played New Musik quite a bit and I although at that age it was just backdrop, it was the type of music that made me want to spin around in the middle of the carpet until I was dizzy and had to crash land on the sofa (Lionel Ritchie's 'Dancing on the Ceiling' had, heck, still has, the same effect-- in a good way!) It is music like this that laid dormant in my psyche for years, only for a craving for it to emerge years later as an adult. It's only as time passes that you reflect on the music your parents listened to and how it has impacted your own taste. My parents' choices, that were once, at best, catchy, and at worst, 'annoying', are in hindsight, pretty damn cool. Not least because they span a few genres and niches. I'm grateful for the passion for music they instilled in us by osmosis.

Saturday 2 January 2021

December: A Roundup

2020 is over and for some it's as if we're purging ourselves of some devious foe who's been loitering around for far too long. 2020 was just another year, but instead of potentially being filled with personal grievances, it was (and still is) a shared grievance. Granted, I have been extremely fortunate personally, so I can talk about it from the point of view of being relatively unscathed, but unless Covid has touched our lives in the form of death, extreme ill health or job loss, we've done ok. People metaphorically high-fiving each other for surviving 2020 is, to my taste, rather nauseating if they have actually just not been able to go to the pub for a few months of the year.

December was dark and wet and bleak. There was no family celebration, drinks or food with friends or other festivities. There was not a Christmas tree at home. But that was ok. It needed to be that way, and Christmas is what you make it. We had lovely food and presents and company within our little unit, some didn't have that.

I'm not ready to reflect on the year because it feels that until we find out what is happening with work and vaccines and tier systems, it is just a continuation of 2020's situation. We must buckle up and just get on with it. Mentally, shutting down and watching Netflix is a good option. Twitter, less so. 

December brought illness (again, probably not Covid related-- miraculously seeing as I've been in a room with coughing and sneezing teenagers all day); exercise (then not, due to gym closures); and eating, lots of eating. Now it's just more of that maybe (trying to get out for walks and maybe runs if it's not too slippery). Who knows.

But the 'Photo a Day' challenge is completed once again. It has been a pain to say the least, but a constant-- and with constancy comes comfort. So maybe for the new year, something else will come to fill its place. We'll see.