A brief Friday blog in the form of an update about my musical leanings. I haven’t written anything about this aspect of my retirement for quite a while. That might be because I’m not currently playing any live music. My jazz Monday nights finished 3 weeks ago and there will be nothing further in the jazz genre until summer school in August, which isn’t as far away as it was when I conceived my cunning summer music plan.
It was simple and appropriate, or so I thought. It was as follows – stop playing jazz until summer school and in the meantime switch seamlessly to playing Irish music. I could even continue playing Irish music Monday night as that wouldn’t interfere with the jazz summer school. How hard could it be? I’d played while we were in Ireland. I’d also discovered a pub that held Monday night Irish sessions – The Chemic as above. I’ve been to two of these and enjoyed them. A little soon to say I fitted in but I have felt much less fitted in in other sessions than in the two of these I did attend. So what could go wrong?
Simple, after four weeks I haven’t been to one. I’ve tried to keep my hand in by watching and in some cases playing along to Youtube clips and the like. But I haven’t managed to get off my bum and go to a Monday night session. I think it went wrong when on the first of these jazz-free Monday nights I thought, I won’t go tonight I’ll just have a wee break before jumping in.
Trouble is, even in an area that you enjoy (and as you know there is a degree of discomfort / challenge in these musical events), it is all too easy to do nothing when you’re retired as opposed to doing something. Yes, I’ve written about the perils of idleness but it’s one thing to write about them and quite another to drag oneself out at 7.30 on a Monday night.
Can’t even blame the weather on account of it being summer not darkest mid-winter. True the British summer often bears a striking resemblance to our winter but no, that’s not the reason. No, it’s simply that inertia is habit-forming. My saviour musically in past months has been I’ve been in the habit of going out on a Monday night and that habit has seen me through those weeks when I didn’t feel like going out.
But currently, after 4 weeks, I’ve now formed the habit of not going out. Mrs Summerhouse hasn’t helped by saying, in that entirely positive way of hers, it’s nice to have your company on a Monday night, isn’t it puppies. They look at me with those Collie eyes that say never go out and leave us again and by the way do you have any treats on you?
I really thought that last Monday was going to be the night I finally broke the bad habit. All through the day I kept telling Mrs SH that tonight is the night I definitely return to my Irish music. It wasn’t. True I was knackered on account of a particularly tiring day in the vineyard. There’s nothing like a roaring gale up dale to reveal the weaknesses of one’s vineyard windbreaks. The willow trees have grown too tall and the wind just blows straight through. So we spent the day tying up, replacing plastic ties, picking up vines that had been blown flat etc. But I digress.
This is as close as I can get to an excuse for why, when it came to Monday tea time, I knew I weren’t going nowhere. Double negative and all. It’s frighteningly easy to reverse the mantra of, I will go tonight, to nah, I’ll go next week and yes, I will have another glass of wine if I’m not going out.
Weak-willed, weak kneed, moi? Surely not. I suppose what might be interesting is to try and come up with a plan for breaking the negative habit. It’s not as if I don’t want to go, I do. I just can’t get off my bum and go. So I need a plan maybe a bit similar to the way I set it up to attend the Irish session in Kerry that I wrote about a couple of months ago.
What can I learn from that successful strategy? Be there when the session starts for another good reason, like having a beer. Then move seamlessly into the back room when it does start. I’ll keep you informed but I tell you now it’s not going to help next Monday because we will be in that London for one of our annual visits, so that may form the basis of next Tuesday’s blog, if I can find the time to write it.