Good Review Woohoo!

I woke this morning as a copy of Mojo whacked on to the floor through the letterbox. There was a free Tamla Motown CD which boded well (there's been rather a lot of nerdy Indie music recently) but I hardly dared to open it and look. The page fell open at the CD reviews section and there it was! Yee ha! A review by Lucy O'Brien and four stars!!! It's worth it!!! When I first started up again I didn't know why on earth I was doing it, there was just an urge to get up and play and have music adventures, and really that is what it's all about. But this was such a bonus, and it has been fantastic to have positive reviews from such funky mags- Nude Magazine, Wearsthetrousers, Esquire in Thailand and Collected Sounds. This one caps it all perfectly and I am smiling.
It has been a good year for McCookerymusic, with some fave gigs being Rochefort en Accords and Whitstable, and of course the Christmas ones. I've loved recording in London with Tom, in Scotland with Pete and at Embleton with DJay Buddha and the lads. There have been some crappy lows this year but some wonderful highs as well.
I've also done some brill things- starting with the weekend at Chollerford, then the Writing about Schools project in Northumberland, then mentoring Tom's songwriting (I LOVED that!), then the Songwriting Weekend with Martin and Scott in the Lake District, and the Song Club.
To cap it all, I pulled the curtain this morning and there was the new bin on the path, looking full of itself. I'd thought I'd have to wait till next week with black bags al over the place and rats nesting in the Christmas wrapping paper. To crown it all further I got an email from someone at Barnet Council (they'd been alerted by Google to my predicament), offering to try to locate the missing one. Alas, I'd already forked out for the new one and the old manky one is probably servicing some horrid burglar somewhere by now, looting someone's Christmas presents.
I do hope not.
Now all I have to do is fix the clothes dryer, which is leaking all over the floor. Might just pack it away to deal with after Christmas.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this blog! I do know it's a complete jumble sale of rubbish and jewels depending on whatever it is that interests whoever. I look at the blogs of the people who leave comments and they are all much more focused and interesting than mine which is mostly therapy-rambling. But it is nice to know that people read it and I'm not just talking to myself!
That was something that made me laugh out loud once. I was all by myself in a bedsit in a huge dark house in Willeseden listening to the John Peel show. Everyone was out and it was totally silent outside.
'I don't think anyone's listening', said John Peel. 'I know I'm just sitting here talking to myself'.
I really felt that I was the only person in the world at that point and that I was his only listener, and it was the funniest thing!
The man was a genius.