I’ve just come back from Ireland, Dublin to be exact and a conference, entitled (I think) Trad Ireland, run by an organisation called Tradtalk about how Irish music is faring these days. Jolly interesting it was (it’s still going on at the time of writing). Not such a huge challenge as you might think because (and the only slight downside) is that it was all on-line. The invite popped up on my Facebook page, as these things do. Given I’m trying to revive my musical interests in this second lockdown (something I’ve already admitted I’m finding hard, my music is suffering) I thought why not have a look, it’s free after all.
If I had wondered how Ireland was / is doing in the pandemic, could things possibly be as bad there as they are here? Well wonder no further. Certainly from a musical point of view, things are just as bad so it’s just as well we were not hoping to actually visit the old country in person so to speak, any time soon.
Not that we could have even if there hadn’t been Covid. I mentioned I’m in the process of trying to get an Irish passport in a previous retirement blog. This is being held up because I have had to apply for a copy of my birth certificate which rather than being lost in space is, I presume, lost in our house. We have turned the joint upside down, no sign. So I’m waiting for that, it’s supposed to come tomorrow, Mrs Summerhouse’s birthday*.
We realised, as we were doing all this, that our British passports had run out in March of this year, so we thought we had better renew these just in case the Irish version didn’t happen. Oh what fun we’re having with this. Mrs Summerhouse has her passport, I do not. On its way they say.
To get to this point has been worthy of a Brian Rix farce (if you know who he is). We decided to apply on line. What could possibly go wrong? We filled in our forms and elected to take our photos at home with Mrs SH’s iPad as is one of their suggested options. You then upload it to the passport site. It gives you immediate feedback on whether the photograph is fit for purpose.
Mine was immediately passed fit. Mrs SH’s was not and the reason was she was not looking straight at the camera. She’s always been a bit lop-sided. We checked it again and decided it was fine and sent it anyway, saying it’s fine. A couple of weeks later we got an email saying Mrs SH’s had been accepted and was on its way but mine had been rejected because the background was not plain enough and I should take another one. PS. Mrs SH’s was against exactly the same background.
I had another photo taken against a different (plain) background and submitted this one. As I say, you get immediate feedback on the site. All my different versions (about 5) were rejected because – you’ve got your eyes shut (I hadn’t), you’re side on, too dark and the image is not between 50Kb and 10 Mb. I checked, it was. In great frustration I gave up with a new one and resent the same photo that had been rejected in the first place. They said it was ‘fair’. They suggested I take another. I declined and sent it off saying, it’s fine get on with it or at least that was the subliminal message. They accepted it although I haven’t got the actual passport yet, I am optimistic.
And don’t get me started on the pets’ passports. If we drop out of the EU which seems more than likely. Some of us never believed that the deal with Europe was, to quote that pillock Boris, ‘oven ready’. So really don’t get me started on bloody Brexit, gunboats, are you fucking crazy, have we landed in Trump’s America? I digress what I was going to say is, then their passports won’t be valid. If we have Irish passports then presumably, as Irish citizens (which apparently we already are because our parents were born in Ireland), they will be valid.
And people say what are you doing in lockdown? Well apart from trying to restore my musical activities (more of which in a moment) we’re trying to get passports in case we are ever allowed to travel again. So far out of 4 possible passports for our Irish trip in May (house already optimistically booked and 25% of ferry fare still owed to us), we have in our possession just 1.
So life has not been without its challenges for us. If I can bear it, I will write a whole blog about my recent off-balance frustrations, but not now. I will move on to a more successful response to the musical challenge I mentioned earlier for the end of this retirement blog.
For this I need to turn away from Irish music and back to jazz. I’ve been somewhat stirred into action in this musical genre by my chum in OZ, he of the podcast talents who told me on last week’s Skype chat, that he would like a new musical intro to replace the folky, guitar version we’re using at the moment and mentioned some jazz piece I’d put out there a few months ago.
I won’t use that one but I did start thinking about another vaguely jazzy, key board intro. To cut this bit short, one thing led to another and it led to something I’ve never done before musically – play my acoustic guitar along to iReal jazz backing tracks. So far I’ve improvised along to ‘A Pretty Girl is like a Melody’; ‘A Night in Tunisia’ and ‘Am I Blue? I’m still in the A’s, so plenty more choices to go.
More to the point I’m enjoying it. The it being playing my acoustic Martin guitar which is down in the living room anyway. Along with Mrs SH’s iPad which is nice and portable, it can all happen with a minimum of drama and preparation. And this, I am slightly ashamed to say, has thus far been the key to getting going again on the musical challenges.
So with the passport challenge** still out there I’ll end this retirement blog with the successful musical challenge. And the moral to this is, if you want success, make it easy.
*It didn’t.
**PS.It’s two out of four, my British passport (as above) arrived today.