'Some Beautiful Hand Crafted Christmas Cards & More!'

I seem to be in a 'state of denial' this year regarding Christmas! Aside from sorting out the recipients of my, 'A Nod To Mr. Dickens' CD I have only bought two Christmas presents and written out one Christmas card!
In my defence, I have been pretty busy of late and time always sails past when you have a lot on, doesn't it? I've only managed to attend one Christmas Fair as well this time but thankfully that was my FAVOURITE event at St Clements Church! It was there that I picked up these really lovely hand crafted Christmas cards.

 I LOVE cards with blank insides because then I can put what I really want to say rather than have to 'work around' one of those generic type cards. A lot of those words are Christmassy and nice but they aren't very personal and I always like to make sure that people know it is THEM I am thinking of at Christmas time.

It is a shame how the act of sending physical Christmas cards seems to be dying out now in favour of 'e' cards. I did receive a BRILLIANT present the other day though in the shape of an interactive Jacqui Lawson Advent Calendar from my friends, Ro & Sally Gardner. Not only do you get to 'live' in an imaginary cartoon town for a month and access a new part of it or story cartoon each day you can design things that appear in the town as well. I am having such a lot of fun dressing Snowmen and Christmas Trees as well as reading some interesting Christmas trivia and solving puzzles. The only bad thing about this kind of present being that you can't hold on to it forever unlike real toys and gifts. Still, Ro & Sally both know what a BIG kid I am and I am HUGELY chuffed to have lots of innocent fun to tide me over this December. I might even try to video some of the animation from off my Laptop screen to remember it by and/or write some stories based on my cartoon village and the character that walk across the screen from time to time!

Finally, I also got a FAB 5 CD set of Christmas songs called 'An Old Fashioned Christmas' from a charity shop in Hastings the other day for £2.99. Its one of those 'bulky' Readers Digest sets that used to be commonplace - are Readers Digest still about? I used to subscribe for a short time in the 1990's but found that the magazines just kept piling up unread. That's the worst thing about life - there just isn't enough time to take an interest in everything, is there!

I wanted the CD mainly because it includes a few of the 1950's/60's Christmas hits that I haven't got including, 'Must Be Santa' by Tommy Steele. The first couple of CD's are GREAT and set a lovely, old fashioned Christmas mood! We haven't got a tree up yet or any decorations but I can imagine sitting in front of one with a glass of wine and relaxing listening to both CD's. So enraptured was I, in fact, I even listened to the tracks featuring choirs and tenor singers!

'The BIG D Is Here!'

By jove! It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas outside now, isn't it? I think we are in for a chilly festive season this year and there might even be a chance of a truly 'White Christmas'!

The very beautiful Church-in-the-Wood

Now, you might think that we get a lot of White Christmases in this country but in actual fact in the South East of England its pretty rare to see a single snowflake fall on Christmas Day. There have been 10 official white Christmases in my area since 1960 and the last was back in 2004. According my search on the Internet it is odds on that 2017 will be a white Christmas with Ladbrokes so I might get my 'magical carpet of fun' to scrunch around in on the big day again this year!

Sadly, I don't have too many candidates to throw snowballs at though now so any White Christmas would most likely be spend out with my camera making LOVELY films and taking pictures. As I habitually love to make a fresh Christmas video single each year I can eventually use all the footage of snowy scenes and festive places I can get...

Hopefully the bus service will be better than 2004!

On that front I am due back in the studio with my mate, Harvey Summers on the 4th of this month to try and put the finishing touches to this year's song, 'Heart Full Of Joy'. I like the song very much and find it a jolly one to sing so am hoping to learn it properly in time to be able to perform it at a few social gatherings over the Christmas season. We are nearly there with the bulk of the song so I'm hopeful that the 4th will give us enough time to complete work on the track to my satisfaction. I have also been invited to be a guest on the Jeff Belton Conquest Hospital Radio Breakfast Show on the 6th of December to 'have a laugh' and play some selections from, 'A Nod To Mr.Dickens'. If you like you can tune in to that from 9am -11am here...http://www.conquesthospitalradio.co.uk

I went up to meet Jeff at his home last week to discuss the album and his plans for the show and we got on like a house on fire! Talk about a 'big kid' like me! Jeff has his own 'man cave' full of CD's, musical equipment, records and the like that looks suspiciously like my bedroom upstairs and I am looking forward to being a part of his 'full english' breakfast show!

Finally, I have had a GREAT day today with my friend, Yvonne at the R.O.A.R. Christmas meal at Pevensey Bay. A three course meal for a £10, good company and a few drinks with  plenty of festive chat and memories was the perfect way to start the 'D month' and I have a lovely warm glow inside me writing this!

A cute little guy, isn't he!

Let's hope that the rest of this month turn out to be as happy, eh?

'Tom's Midnight Garden'

I have lined up a night out for myself at The Stables Theatre in Hastings on the 22nd of December this year! I'm going to see 'Tom's Midnight Garden' - the film version of I have on DVD and cherish. For some reason I find this romantic ghost story a really emotional watch and I have found myself in floods of tears the couple of times I've seen it...
There is something about the story of how when the old Grandfather clock strikes thirteen that a lonely boy gets to meet an orphan girl called 'Hatty' in a different time period via a garden that no longer exists that really taps into who I am and reminds me of my own life story. Sadly, I have never managed to quite find my 'Hatty' and relationships have been a no-go area for me so 'Tom's Midnight Garden' is I guess for me a chance to be Tom...

I also have a good cry if I watch 'Casper' - especially at the end where he comes back to life as a real boy just for a while. Life is not just about making records, having fun, working or going on holidays to see the world its about forming close, loving relationships, sharing and caring and one way and another I have missed out on HUGE parts of that - in spite of how lucky I have been in other ways.

It might seem an odd thing to do near Christmas to go to a show pretty much guaranteed to upset me but sometimes you have to 'live the dream' even if the consequences are pretty harsh, you know?

If I come away that night having felt something thats no bad thing! Christmas should all be about feeling and I only wish there were more people in the world these days unafraid to try feeling rather than choosing to be scared of everyone and everything! I see conversations on the Internet about what is socially acceptable now and hang my head in despair!

"Is it sexist if a Woman asks for a female taxi driver" being one of the latest. By gum, in the 'bad old 70's' the sex of a taxi driver would not even have entered anyones head! You wanted to go somewhere so you called a cab and a taxi driver turned up at your door and took you there - end of! Have we REALLY slid so far down the ladder these days to even be scared to death of getting into a taxi with (potentially) a member of the opposite sex? Well, if we have give me Christmas (MY way), Tom's Midnight Garden, a lovely romantic ghost story and a HUGE box of tissues any day!

'Heart Full Of Joy'

Because of financial constraints I have not been able to continue with my 'recording career' for most of this year but was determined to at least try and come up with my annual 'Christmas Video Single' for Youtube and was prepared therefore to 'raid my piggy bank' one last time to fund a couple of sessions in the studio to try and produce something.

Having written and been pleased with the idea of 'Heart Full Of Joy' I teamed up earlier this week with 'my old sparring partner', Harvey Summers to see what we could make of the song. My plan was to just produce something fairly basic revolving around him playing an acoustic guitar and me singing but as usual things didn't work out that way!

Harvey Summers Last Single

For those of you unaware of Harvey, he is a bona-fide GENIUS and if you are lucky enough to 'dial him in' to an idea of yours and get his creative juices going then you are well on the road to creating something special! My plan therefore to record something 'stripped back' and acoustic flew out the window in the first minute or so as Harvey LOVED my idea and 'the muttering' started.

Now, when Harvey starts muttering (to himself) about the ideas flying into his brain about how to compose the music for a song the best thing you can do is sit back and let him get on with the task in hand! I NEVER cease to be amazed at how brilliant he is and am always confident with 'Harv' at the helm that the end product is going to be AWESOME.

As with all recording sessions, however there are 'challenges' that crop up along the way and so I do 'chip in' my thoughts and ideas if and when I think they might be helpful or when I feel strongly about something. I do get Harv a bit 'ratty' sometimes if he is 'in the moment' but I understand why that happens and don't take anything to heart. The great thing with Harvey and I is that we both know what the other one 'brings to the party' and also have great faith in the fact that anything critical said either way is intended only to help. I don't understand any of the computer programs that Harvey uses to build the basics of the musical arrangements and that occasionally causes a few problems but I'd rather get my old mate cross occasionally that see him sit there without an idea in his head after listening to my demo!

Anyway, after two long-ish sessions we now have about 90% of the work done and I am hopeful that I will have a Christmas Video Single to upload to Youtube again this year. The video may not end up that marvellous though due to the time factor but I am always thinking of things and on the look out for great pictures so I might yet surprise myself!

Santa LOVES the idea for 'Heart Full Of Joy'!

Sadly, we are not allowed as Bloggers to add links to videos on Youtube here anymore (boo!) so you will have to keep an eye on my Youtube channel, Maybrick44 if you want to see and hear 'Heart Full Of Joy' when its finished. I will of course post a note here to let you all know when I have uploaded it and it is available. One more session should complete the song and the current plan is to try and fit that in within the next week -fingers crossed!

'St Clements Provides Plenty Of Christmas Cheer!'

St Clements Church

I had a lovely time today at my favourite Christmas Fair of the whole year!  The St Clements Church congregation always make a great effort to present something that is full of fun, colour and atmosphere and my Christmas pretty much starts with their Christmas Fair!

This year was no exception and I bumped into Amber Rudd while examining the home made Christmas decorations, cards and gifts stall. She said hello to me (we have met before) so I’m not sure if she recognised me (my Cowboy hat is memorable even if I’m not!) or was just being polite. Now, I know The Conservative Party are not perfect and I can’t say that I am happy with all of their policies either but I do feel very sorry for Amber as she has been the subject of a lot of very personal attacks of late and I don’t think that shows a good side to politics. Because of that I did my best to make her feel welcome, smiled and told her that it was “lovely to see her here”. I wanted to ask for a photo for this blog but decided to let the poor girl have some 'quality time away from the cameras’ in the end…

Anyway, I spent the best part of two hours browsing the stalls and FARMING the £1 a go - win every time stall, as ever! The people on that stall all know me and welcome me each year and so I always do my best to help them sell out! 

The one thing I did find troubling this year though was the fact that most of the people running the event and manning the stalls this year were elderly. Its a worrying trait that these kind of community events, fates, fairs and indeed Christmas itself all seem to be kept alive more than ever these days by the older generations. Even the people I chatted to over a cup of tea and mince pie were a fair bit older than me. Now you know why I try to do all I can each year to spread Christmas spirit and thus ( hopefully) continue to re-inforce it and the wonderful traditions that go with it. Not being a religious person myself there’s a certain irony in me ‘leading the charge’ on that front I suppose but no-one can say a bad word about any of the volunteers at St Clements - that’s for sure!

Oh, and I even won a 'star prize’ on the bottle stall! After telling the lady running the stall that I was going to ‘invoke the spirit of Tommy Cooper’ in order to try and win something this year and that knowing Tommy if I managed it I'd probably pull out a ticket that said ‘Drinking is bad for you’, I went and won a star prize with the first ticket I chose! Good on you Tommy! I suppose you could say that it all fell into place ‘just like that!'

Well, I don’t know what the rest of the festive season will hold for me this year but at least I can now say that I LOVED one part of it!

'Chestnut Tree House Children's Hospice Christmas Appeal'

Christmas can be a stressful time for all of us but imagine for a moment how you might feel if you had a small son or a daughter with a terminal illness. It doesn't bear thinking about does it but sadly there are a number of parents each year who have to face up to dealing with a Christmas with a child for whom that Christmas is likely to be their last.

I really don't like to campaign for 'Good causes' these days because I feel we all have ENORMOUS pressure put upon us these days already. Money is invariably tight and at this time of year things can get very stressful - all of which do nothing to aid the reputation of Christmas and continue to spread the festive spirt - both things I am passionate about, as you know...

This said, I try to send at least a small donation to this wonderful Charity based in Arundel each year and would therefore ask if you are already thinking of doing something for Charity this year that you choose to support Chestnut Tree House and help them ( and me) make a success of their Christmas appeal this year.

 The theme this year revolves around the enchanting story of 'The Snowman' and its Author, Raymond Briggs is personally endorsing the whole thing (THANK YOU, Raymond!). If you would like to find out more about Chestnut Tree House you can do so here http://www.chestnut-tree-house.org.uk/

If you like you can also support the Chestnut Tree lottery - details of which you can find here http://www.chestnutlottery.org.uk/

Whatever, THANK YOU for reading this x

'It's Creeping Up On Me Again!'

"There HAS to be an easier way of NOT making a living" is a phrase I have repeating to quite a few people of late!

What with FINALLY getting all of my 'A Nod To Mr.Dickens' CD's off to friends and family around the world, WORKING MY SOCKS OFF writing and researching a VERY ambitious article for 'Hastings Town' to do with my 'Festive 50' local music records that 'define Hastings musical history so far' AND continuing my voluntary work as 'The Clean Up Man' the time has just disappeared of late!

I have had some GOOD news though as 'The Clean Up Man' has been nominated for an award! I'm up for the 'Against All Odds' award from HVA (Hastings Voluntary Action) having been put forward by Pete Shoesmith M.B.E., who is involved with the Hollington Youth Centre across the road from where I live. I regularly clean up the Youth Centre car park and grass verges and have done now for almost 6 years. Whether I actually win the award or not, its lovely to get some recognition from somewhere - thanks Pete!

The pics you see with this post are 'festive' ones I took a couple of weeks ago out near Sellindge in Kent. While they are autumnal rather than snowy I think they are pics that make you feel really festive and depict the kind of 'idillic Christmas' scenes you see in ads by 'Marks & Sparks' on T.V. each year...

Its my FAVOURITE Christmas Fair of the year again this Saturday! Yes, folks I will be off to St Clements Church armed with my usual bags full of 50ps in search of loads of their '£1 a go win a prize every time' stall again! I always get some good prizes every year, lots of chocolate and the odd 'WTF' kind of prize! Last year on Christmas Day I unwrapped a tin of pilchards! NOT the greatest of presents to receive, eh? Makes 'socks, pants and handkerchiefs' sound like 'Harrods finest hamper', don't you think? Anyway, I am a well-known character at the Church at the event these days and each time I go I feel the spirit of Christmas within me and come away knowing that my special time of the year isn't far off now...

Sadly, I'm often unable to sustain the high that St Clements Christmas Fair gives me as 'much as I love them' most of the rest of my family are NOT Christmas people and can be 'old miseries'. Last year the '£1 a go etc' stall sold out completely thanks to me! When other people see me having loads of go's and see the smile on my face they all want to join in. I always think that alone sums up Christmas for me and how it should be - if we were all to be happy and smiley at Christmas the joy would be infectious! I like to think of myself therefore as 'the Murray Walker' of the festive season! Even if I am an bit of a misery the rest of the year round! Trust me to be 'out of step' with every one else, eh?