I completely forgot about number 6!

My second half marathon was trained for and completed, and I forgot to blog about it!!  It feels like ages ago now, but I managed to beat last year's time by over 15 minutes, and even managed a sprint finish for the last 100 metres of the 13.1 miles.  Here's a pic of me with my medal after the race.

This time I ran for Stroke Association and the just giving site is still live if you feel like donating to a fantastic cause.  On the morning of the race I discovered I had no safety pins to attach my race number to my t-shirt.  My Delicious Freak badges came in very handy :)

Very happy with having improved my time and felt fantastic after the race.  Unfortunately most of the good work put in has now disappeared under a layer of beer and good cheer, but I'll be training for the next big thing soon :)

If anyone fancies training with me and is local  to me, give me a shout, the loneliness of the long distance runner isn't just the title of a book!

Numbers 20 and 21 Completed (with a little bit of Cheating and combining two into one!).

Well, Rachel managed to graduate and leave Cardiff before I had chance to visit her at Uni and go drinking with her.  However, by a stroke of luck, she managed to come down to my Nephew's University Town for a night while I was there.  This meant we had a proper "Bad Uncle" night out in Exeter with plenty of drinks, giggles and of course live music.

The Sorry Head in Exeter is a fantastic pub with great beer (discounted thanks to Dan's membership of the Rock & Metal Society), lovely bar staff and a cracking band playing 90s Grunge and Alternative Rock.

Rocking out to covers of Pearl Jam and Nirvana tracks that awakened me to music other than Radio 3 and my older sister's record collections of Abba, Shakin' Stevens and other such things with my awesome Niece and Nephew, both musicians in their own right, was something of a proud uncle moment.  It reminded me that music is a journey, and that whatever point you're on in that magical mystery tour, it reaches parts other things just never quite get to.

There was laughter, mickey taking, drinking and pure fun.  I have a feeling the 3 of us will get together there again some time in the new year.  In the mean time, a definite reminder for me that spending time with my "niblings" is a vital part of keeping me vibrant, young and alive.

Sadly (or fortunately!) all of our phones died at various points in the night, so we have no photographs to share with you.  However, the memories will live on with me for a long time - happy days on Planet H :)

Item 5 - It's in the planning stages!

Ok, so one of my 40 things before I'm 40 was to record at least one song at Real World Studios, the home studio  of Peter Gabriel and also the birthplace of parts of Marillion's last two albums and parts of Steve Rothery's Ghosts of Pripyat album.

Well, that idea has developed somewhat and got a bit bigger and a bit more exciting.

I decided to contact Real World and find out a bit about their pricing and the space available and what's included and what's there.  I discovered that although the prices are certainly not cheap, they are not overly prohibitive either, and include overnight accommodation at the studios on the day of recording as well as a 12 hour recording day, two of which should be enough to get the foundations of an album well and truly off the ground.

This, coupled with the stunning Yamaha C3 Grand Piano in the "Big Room" and Bosendorfer Mini-Grand in the "Wood Room" and the 360 degree tour which the studio coordinator emailed to me, got me thinking - how about we record most of my next album there?

So, I talked to the rest of the team - Becky, Patch and Duncan and as you might suspect they were all as up for it as I am.

Now, clearly, I will need some help with funding this venture, and I will again be turning to the wonderful Kickstarter, and the fabulous fans who have supported me thus far, and hopefully some new people who'd like to come along for the ride with this one.  One of the bonuses of using Real World is that we can have an extra person or two along for the ride with us, so one of the Kickstarter Pledge items will be the chance to spend the day or two days in the studio with the band watching the album take shape, and an overnight stay into the bargain!

In the mean time, just to get your interest going, here are some pictures of the studios.

13, 18 and a slightly amended 19 are completed.

Between 31st of May and 15th of June I had the wonderful pleasure of spending a couple of weeks in Hong Kong, exploring it further and enjoying some things I didn't get round to last time around.

This time, I got to spend some time on a couple of beaches, and I swam in the South China Sea, which was warm and comfortable to swim in, unlike the numerous swims off the UK I've had in the past.  There are no pictures of me actually swimming as my travel companion was too busy soaking up the sun, but she can vouch for me that I swam, so you'll have to take our word for it.  I did, however get a few shots of the beaches, so here are the picturesque bits :) 

Repulse Bay

Big Wave Bay from the Dragon's Back

Repulse Bay

So, what about the Big Head Hat stall, I hear you cry?!  Well, unfortunately it was no longer trading, so there was no opportunity to buy another travelling hat from there.  However, I'm determined to find a hat that fits on some of my other travels, perhaps the Italians and Dutch understand the plight of the larger-headed man?!?  

That said, I did frequent Stanley Market twice and came away with some lovely bits and pieces for friends and family.  Also, this time around I took on the mantel of Geoff Pugh  
t-shirt buyer extraordinaire and I think I may have bought more than he bought on the Blues Brother's Road Trip!  Here's a shot of one of them which I particularly liked:

A number of others with messages like "Don't grow up, it's a trap" and the one I'm sporting today which has the word "Artist" all over it, and most cost less than 50p!!

The holiday as a whole was refreshing, breathtaking and will stay with me for many years to come.  The weather was changeable, and we had our fair share of rain, but it was "proper" rain, rain drops coming down with such force that you could feel their weight and their surprising warmth, clouds hanging ominously in the sky and stunning flashes of lightning too.  Thankfully, most of this was witnessed from the comfort of the hotel room, 20 floors above the city.

A nation of strong contrasts, from the congested streets of the north of the island, the shopper's paradise of Kowloon, and then, the peaceful, beautiful and picturesque south of Hong Kong Island where I swam in the sea and found this little gem of the craft beer revolution:

If I do visit again, it will probably be on the way to somewhere else, perhaps Australia, Thailand, Vietnam or one of the many other exotic places that Hong Kong gives easier access to.  In the mean time I'll leave you with one of my favourite pics that I managed to capture from the hotel room.  It was a dark night and it was only once I looked back at the photo on the camera, I realised I'd captured the red sails of a "Junk" sailing in the harbour which is just visible through the skyscrapers.

Huge thanks to my travel companion and local knowledge guru Wednesday who was lucky enough to do most of her growing up in this fascinating and beautiful country.  Here's to more adventures!

Number 4 Completed and I have the photo to prove it :)

So, I finally bought myself an E-Bow Plus having lusted after this battery powered slice of magic for many years since I first heard it used on E-Bow The Letter by REM (and later realised it had been used on many older and more proggy albums!).

I then experimented with it on all of my guitars and also my lap-steel.  However, April the 3rd gave me the first opportunity to use it in a live context, guesting with Heidi Widdop at The Robin 2 on a fantastic new original song of hers.  It delivered in terms of tone and smooth attack and I was transported by it, it was lovely and I will definitely be using it more often in the future.

Here's a shot taken by my good friend and dedicated music fan Ian Hall:

I also got chance to use my lovely new Epiphone Amplifier which looked and sounded the business - another Ian Hall capture :)

I've also done number 22 - "Get more support slots for bands on national/international tours" and "Go on more random Photo Walks.  I now have dates booked supporting John Hackett Band, Morpheus Rising and Multi Story and will continue to look for opportunities here in the UK and further afield.

I've also started number 34 but that's more of an ongoing until and beyond the 40th birthday thing. Photo walks are fun, especially when challenged to take photos of particular things by people, so if you have any particular "wants" for me to take shots of, that I at least have some chance of capturing somewhere in easy walking/driving distance, that'd be great.

Still a number of challenges still to complete, training for the 10k run is underway, and the run will take place on Sunday 1st of May, so that'll be done soon.  I'll sign off for now, but I should be back with an update again soon.

John Hackett said YES!!

So, item 23 on the new list was something a little bit different, to get John Hackett to play flute on my next album.  John is a musician whom I've admired hugely since first hearing "Kim" on older brother Steve's album "Please Don't Touch".  His work on "Sketches of Satie" had me hooked, and I also looked out his classical album "Velvet Afternoon".

Thanks have to go to friend and fellow prog-head John Simms for providing the opportunity for me to meet John Hackett face to face.  He had just given a beautiful concert at John Simms' then church Wesley Hall, Crookes, Sheffield and was standing at the rear of the church.  I took the opportunity to talk to him and we chatted music, singing lessons and general life.  He was wonderful to talk to, so when the opportunity came to ask him whether he'd contribute to my next album, after a few email exchanges, I decided to take it, and just see how it went.

He said yes, though he did express some relief that I wouldn't need him for a session particularly soon as he mentioned he's behind on some other promised sessions.

I've just discovered he's playing with his band at The Musician in Leicester on the 17th of April, just 3 days after my 39th Birthday so it'd be rude not to go, especially as his new album "Another Life" is top of my personal list of 2015 albums.

I really can't wait to work with John, and I know that his flute will add a dimension to my music which only his ethereal, beautiful and melodic playing can.