It's been a while since I took the opportunity to update my blog. I guess I've been trying to avoid thinking as much recently and therefore, the need to write has subsided.

Over the course of the last months, things have changed a lot. Settled into my new job and enjoying it, cut ties with my previous employer and the only two people I care about are either leaving or looking to leave.

I've learnt a lot about myself in the last year and more so, a lot about attachment theory. Here we all are, writing our thoughts down and wondering what other people with think of our lives when reading what we've constructed. Attachment theory is interesting shit. It denotes everyone's preference for how we interact as a species and how and why we become attached to certain attachment figures.

The older I get, the more attached I become to people. I'm intrigued to know how other people feel about those they are attached to and why they are attached.

Anyone got any thoughts?

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY CHRISTMAS SINGLE & VIDEO.......

Hi all. Merry Christmas.

I've not blogged for a while and to be honest it's because I've not had that much going on in my mind to allow me to do my blog justice.

I wasn't looking forward to Christmas at all, but so far it's been really good and I've been very relaxed.

I hope you are all well and please take the time to watch my Christmas video recorded earlier in December.

So, I would have written a load more stuff in my blog from the studios, however, the internet connection was absolutely shite.

The studio however was awesome. We ended up getting 5 tracks done , all of which were a little amusing...... Of course now the hard work begins, the mix!

Made me realise that I rely on music to get stuff out of my head. It's a long time since I managed to really make something I'm proud of.

Miracle was a song I wrote and recorded with the band a while ago. Whilst we get the other stuff mixed, maybe the land of blog can judge whether I should just shut up before I even start.......

It's Sunday evening and we've been recording for two days. So far, we've managed to record almost a whole of an old tune called Chimp and written a new one.

The strange thing about going back in time and reuniting with the old band members is quite how easy it has been to get straight back into the mindset I left behind in 2000. Everything we've ever done has a quirk to it that is unique to the characters of all four of us.

Having spent the last 18 months exorcising demons in myself - being back in the past is an interesting experience.

Half way through. Lets see what the rest brings.

So, here we are, Matt, Baker and I sat in the studio in Scotland having set everything up last night and got out of the studio at 12am.

Back in the studio this morning, we're starting to record Chimp. So, hold on , tune in and cop out to this blog as I continue the updates. You're all going to need to protect your ears soon.....

So, I've arrived just outside Inverness for 4 days in the studio recording new material.

I have literally no idea what I will come back with. All I know is that this will be the longest period of time in my life I will have been without female company of any type. I'm already twitching.

9.5 hour journey was astonishingly quick in real terms. I'm tired, it's wet and we're setting up now. I'm just hoping that all goes smoothly. Keep your eye on the blog of the next few days to see the progress.

It's the 1st Dec and it will soon be Christmas. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I've always found celebrating Christmas difficult, it brings back too many memories of times that cannot be returned to me. Things change and people change. Someone said to me this week that everyone needs reminding that people 'retain the right to change their mind in life'. With Christmas approaching, I wish I had enough control of my mind to stop it changing. It changes every minute and never ends up back where it was the minute before.

I took the photograph above in Salisbury today and it reminded me of a good friend who's out of the country this weekend. It's been a long weekend so far and I'm only half way through. Hopefully her long weekend is going ok too.....

Had lunch with someone today and we discussed compromise. We decided to both put our thoughts into words.

Her view was: there should be no such thing in compromise in a relationship and that 1 + 1 = 2.

My view is the 'or' or 'and' debate. In a relationship with no compromise, its and 'or' relationship. It's either you or me, my way or your way, my dreams or your dreams. 'And' is a compromise, me and you, your dreams and my dreams, your way and my way combining to make to. Infact, what I believe my friend has failed to realise in her description is that her sum is the sum of a compromise that 1 and 1 should make 2. They don't make 11, they are not two individual 1's.

Discuss.

But I'm right.

During the last year, some days have passed me by without incident and others have smacked me full in the face. Today, I felt I had a pretty good day.

However, in the way that always happens, I've been waiting for a text from someone all evening to know that they are safe and well. In my book, there is nothing more upsetting than planning to receive a bit of information and then be powerless to receive it - and that is what is currently happening. For some unknown reason, just at the moment I needed my phone to work - it's died. Completely void of use for the one thing it's for. It's on, and every feature is working it just won't connect.

So I'm without signal. Literally. I don't know how that person is or how they are feeling. Worst of all, I can't send my support and wishes. It's all very strange. I guess that sometimes it's good to be silent. Alone without connection to anyone else. It makes you wonder if we're now all too reliant on connection and whether being permanently connected means that actually you're never truly connected at all.

What does it mean to lose signal with other people. How do you know when you've dropped your connection and can't dial into them anymore. Texting, blogging, instant messaging, phoning, emailing, facebooking.....I'm more connected than I've ever been to my friends and family, yet more of them feel lonely, troubled, misunderstood, misrepresented than every before.

Long ago, the only way I knew had to communicate was through songs. Makes me wonder if I should go back to that and quit communicating without saying anything at all.........

Take 20 seconds and really look at this painting.

The painting above is by Cornish primitive artist, Alfred Wallis (1855-1942). Wallis lived in St Ives and was a fisherman and 'marine stores' dealer. He lived a very simple life, marrying a widow 20 years his senior and inherited a family from her first marriage. When his wife died, he took up painting for company in his 70's using bits of scrap card and board, old boat paint from his scrap merchant days and used the primitive paintings as payment for bread, meals and other essentials.

Living in a tiny fishermans cottage in the fisherman's quarters, Wallis painted every day on anything he could find as he got older until one day he was discovered by Ben Nicolson and Christopher Wood (British Artists) who took his work to London and latterly to James Ede at University of Cambridge. Ede then bought paintings from Wallis by the bundle for many years for a shilling a bundle, preserving over 120 of his paintings at Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge.

Wallis was taken to the Madron Institute (poorhouse) where he died aged 87.

So why have a blogged all this. Well, the answer is simple. Wallis knew nothing about painting. He'd never been taught and hardly schooled. He painted because he wanted to and painted scenes from his own life. The picture above shows four fishing boats in the wake of a large fish (possibly a whale). The men look so weathered, so cold - the water so real. The sea is animated, the waves so true and alive. This was his reality. He saw this scene, felt the wind, tasted the sea - all before the first plane had flown, before the world had first fought its two wars and when sails were only just being replaced by engines.

Wallis died recalling his life on scraps of card, alone in a backstreet with people thinking his paintings were worthless. He would have been buried in a paupers grave had some of Londons most famous artists not rescued him and bought him a plot at St Ives cemetery where he now lays.

Alfred was my great, great, Uncle. His portrait was hung on my childhood stairwell wall and I thought nothing of him until I started looking at my family history a few years ago. At 30, I look back at my life and wish that i could so openly share with people images of the things that I have seen, the things and experiences that have shaped me. I can't draw or paint and I believe that there is a social commentary in Alfred's work that is lost on our time.

With boat paint and card, I've seen into Alfred's life. I've smelt his sea and breathed his air.

I wonder how I will be remembered if I live to 87. What will my legacy be? If I can be remembered by people for simply telling the story of my life for little reward - I will die a happy man.