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A kind of Blue

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I was often almost late for school. Almost late as opposed to late because I wasn’t very good at confrontation and the thought of being asked by Mr Kettlewell to press my nose against the classroom wall, back turned to my friends was quite a daunting one. Not sure public humiliation is allowed as a form of punishment anymore. I was often nearly late because I was lining my jumper with a pair of headphones, and stuffing my puffer with a counterfeit CD collection like I was going to shop myself at a bar in Spain. For as long as I can remember I’ve been a creative. I wanted to write, play and perform. It seemed counterintuitive not to use lessons like Maths and Science to immerse myself in things that inspired my spark so I would wrestle Linkin Park into a Sony discman under the table and hope everything was panned to the right.

Apparently as I left year 2 my mum asked my teacher if she were to guess what I would do in adulthood, what it would be. She said ‘writing’. And that’s where I remained most passionate. I played the piano and guitar, wrote words and sang songs. I often chuckle to myself about one particular verse written about the Jarrow March aged 9:

“Men marching, marching, marching,
Men marching here and there,

Men crying, crying, crying,
Men crying for their town”

It actually sounds more like Baldrick than Burns. 

I was a little boy with a big dream.

Yesterday I had the first real low feeling in a very long time; not sadness but self doubt. A disbelief. In my own ability, and in what others think of my work.

I’ve had a flirtatious career in the creative industry. Lots of near misses. Some strange experiences and plenty of requests for friends and family to ‘enter newest plea here’. I’ve been under no illusion that my road to Jools’ hootenanny should be laden with palm leaves however I’ve often felt there could’ve been a chance. Last night, however, i felt overwhelmed with tears watching Disney’s  ‘Soul’ for the 3rd time this year. It’s Eli’s favourite – I’m not an addict. If you haven’t seen it, please do. It’s protagonist Joe is an extraordinary 40 something Jazz musician turned teacher by financial necessity. It’s a deep investigation into what makes us human and what ‘purpose’ is. For most of the film Joe believes that for life to have any meaning he must become a successful musician. Over the film he learns that his life has no singular purpose – no one’s does. And during Joe’s epiphany moment, I found myself succumbing to tears (for also, the third time).

I actually felt like I’d reached Joe’s moment of realisation a long time ago. A life isn’t measured by its measured successes, but how it’s lived. I last played my own songs at a gig in 2016, packing away the quirky pedals, not putting pen to paper, and certainly not inviting any friends to a dark room in Hackney in return for a free lift to London for the evening. Friends have gone on to ‘hottest record(s) in the world’. To prime time TV. Have become recognised authors and are the lockdown restaurant startups causing you to drool over your Instagram feeds. I couldn’t be happier, and love to be able to be the friend that still remembers the glory days of Rustington Otters or sticking to the floor of the only club in town. I found myself weeping because I still had a dream. In the same way that you dream as a child to be a fireman, not because your life depends on it. But because it’s your dream

A chasm of questions flooded my brain but two irked me the most.

How do I get there? Am I actually any good?

As we’ve landed in 2021, it feels like a lot of us have a bit of a seize the day mentality. A cocktail of wasted ‘rona time’ and January resolutions perhaps; I’d set myself the goal of striving to write professionally, in whatever form by 31st December, this year (actually after watching Soul the first time round). In ugly wording, to earn a living, predominantly from creativity. I’ve been writing daily – in song form, as a comic and as you know (because you’re reading this) in journalistic format. It’s been such a release to create again. I’ve been feeling insightful, fulfilled, and artistic. And then there comes the wall.

Since making the decision to pick up the pen, dust off the delays (they’re a guitar effect), and somewhat script my self deprecation, I’ve noticed a huge drop in social media engagement. As if the broadband box was listening, and Mark Zuckerberg was alerted that I was not merely musing. That I was an artist. Self promotion doesn’t feel very easy when you are the product. Yet in a world where content is king, and everything is a point of sale, I find myself aware of the insights.

I lay in bed, a little dejected. The algorithm had only shared a piece of work to 3% of my ‘audience’. As if the internet had decided before anyone else could, that I wasn’t good enough. My partner, defiant in the fact that wading the water of dejection was worth it, and that to dare to dream wasn’t just a road to rejection. She reminded me of the comment someone had written a few days previous thanking me for my writing and telling me how helpful it had been in relation to their own life. There are so many quotes I could land on from the David Brent school of philosophy but this is today’s take home, for myself more than for you. 

“A philosopher once wrote you need three things to have a good life. One, meaningful relationships, two, a decent job of work, and three, to make a difference. And it was always that third one that stressed me, to make a difference. And I realise that I do. Every day, we all do. It’s how we interact, with our fellow man.”

And here I am, still writing. Because as self unaware as Brent is, every day alive is a day we make a difference. 

When I was wondering how best to picture-pair this piece, I remembered that I keep a childhood photo in my studio of my cousin and I sat on our grandads lap immersed in his organ playing. I use it to show children that I teach where a seed of interest can lead you. Maybe tonight, it’s a reminder to myself where I’ve already been led.

Whatever walk of life you find yourselves in, I’m sure you’re going to find yourself in your own little blitz at some point. Like tiny little bombs exploding self doubt and fear of failure. When those moments happen, I dare you to ‘do it anyway’ and keep composing. I don’t want to tell you whether or not Joe ‘makes it’ as a Jazz musician because if I don’t ever end up with some kind of deal, it doesn’t mean I didn’t. 

Love is.

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Love is complex. It’s everywhere. Like the constant stream of brightly coloured 24 hour news. It’s Hugh Grant stuttering through the same film role, countless times over. It’s if or how you wear yourself clambering to a crowded bar on payday Friday. It’s hours of agony staring at the two blue ticks screaming silently at you waiting to see an italic typing… It’s the feeling in your legs when you see it. It’s constant reassurance that you’ll never leave. Or it’s asking them to promise they never will. It’s the hoards of gifts seamlessly towering like a competitive game of Jenga. And it’s asserting every piece of your puzzle directly on top of theirs because Coldplay told you it might just fit. And only they understand.

Or it’s not.

Maybe it’s us. Maybe we are the complexities, complicating one of life’s simplicities with our own experiences and narratives. To reject fear, and choose love – a popular refrain; many believe that these are two of human beings’ primal instincts and that we cannot feel the two at the same time. Without a degree of psychological training I don’t feel comfortable pronouncing this as universal. However, I do sense a change in my soul.

I used to live in the top paragraph. Like waves of vast emotion crashing against my metaphoric coastline. I remember an evening dinner riddled in the fear of not loving enough and needing even more. Tears at the table, and I mean remembering the scales back then, it wasn’t Mum’s cooking! I remember planting a foot through the floorboards, accompanying a likely cry of ‘you don’t understand’ or something similarly adolescent. 

I’ve complicated friendships, relationships, and the mirror all in how I understood love to be. A negotiation as opposed to a commitment, a job description rather than a feeling subscription. Maybe that last line’s a tad too much of an application of my GCSE learnt linguistic devices.

As a songwriter, many of my mentors have always talked about the importance of being able to strip back to basics. Melody and lyrics. The foundations. Building your rhythms, instrumental hooks and the perfect mix is how you build the house. It quite often sounds better with the full band, but the song remains the same whatever its production. What if that’s what love is? A foundational decision to trust that the choice to be in it and receive it remains the same even at its most bare. Melody and lyrics.

An all encompassing love isn’t how many times you text, or how they reply. It isn’t how much net profit was received at Christmas. And it isn’t stepping into it wondering when or if, or even how it might end someday. It’s just turning up everyday remembering ‘I do’, and knowing you are. A reflection. A choice. A receiving. Right until the end. It’s fragile, and it can be very painful but neither are reasons to be afraid. A wise woman once said “today’s the day you worried about yesterday, and all is well.” A perfect love casts out all fear.

To dare to love is to dare to lose. But when life throws us losses, I’d rather have them winning.

Love is simple. It’s the step father offering to fill up the car so you can care for the man who’s name you share from birth. It’s the toddler, pressed up against your face in the bathroom as you caress the porcelain perch proclaiming; “Got these sweeties right here. 3 for you. Me have 1”. It’s the ex-wife preparing an emergency food parcel for the temporary cat resident you’ve taken in at short notice. It’s the swathes of local folk scrolling their emoji’s to find the praying hands on the church prayer page. They don’t know you, but they’ll do it anyway. And it’s the coach who measures your waistline weekly, swapping helping you hold your dumbbell press for a personal best for teary tissues. These things. This week. Love without measure. Look out for it, it’s everywhere.

Dry your eyes, mate.

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Picture the scene. A hefty 15 year old boy, lay aloft (it is aloft) a Thuka (knowing the age group sleeping in their beds, they could’ve chosen their name more carefully) cabin bed sobbing into an already fairly snottily covered pillow one Thursday morning in 2004. My mum, because she’s still a saint,  gallops up the stairs to tend to her inconsolable eldest son. 

“To break from protocol, we’re going to play that beautiful song again, straight away” Jo Wiley told the abundance of (I’m hypothesising) brickies, cabbies, students, ‘keyworkers’ and the like falling apart by their newly purchased DAB radios. “It’s The Streets, mum, it’s like he knows my life”. 

I can’t remember exactly what part of my life Mike Skinner had been privy to at the time. It couldn’t be the 93% attendance record at school because that was deemed by the schools as ‘for my eyes only’, and it couldn’t be the fact my WWF wall tidy was fraying quicker than The Rock could smell;

I must not have received the text reply I was holding out for as I probably bravely penned to an unsuspecting recipient:  

“Nobody sed it wz easy, It’s such a shame for us to part, Nobody sed it wz easy, No1 eva sed it it wud b this hard, I’m goin bk 2 the start.”
Tb. Luv u x x x

NME wrote at the time that Dry Your Eyes was “a hairs on the back of your neck song for jilted lovers”. “Rarely before had Skinner sounded so poignant and vulnerable, and, well, normal” Tony Naylor so concisely put. I returned to this song so many times over the fifteen years of relational turmoil that followed.

The fact I can’t remember if this rejection was from C or H, or maybe even the fact I thought it could’ve been a yes from J but she was still with R, but then I enticed her with a shared train journey to see Muse meaning it turned out not to be a rejection either way J meant that it wasn’t all that bad. But in those 9:02 minutes I felt like he knew whatever ever it was that I was going through. Side note: he must’ve had my number as the preceding single ‘Fit but You Know It’ seemed to contain musings that only the snowman with its secret pocket had been stored with. 

The take home, tissues were needed on more than one occasion.

This week there was a change to Monday’s television schedule. Boris once again requested that we’d stay home and limit our interaction with the outside world. The very same day, I had earlier responded to a Facebook post asking me to rate how I was feeling by way of a coloured heart. I responded with a red heart – ‘I was doing great’. A mere twelve hours later, in one single moment my life had turned round.

Okay, that is a slight exaggeration but the new year, new me-moon certainly felt more like same shit, different day. Skinner writes that ‘the world feels like it’s caved in, proper sorry frown’. I didn’t sleep on Monday night. Restless. Anxious. Somewhat overwhelmed. I felt the weight of the family’s finances collapsed upon my chest. All plans of being creative, of rediscovering my artistry felt like they had to be shelved. And, the 2 stone weight loss that had been achieved before Christmas seemed like the dying embers of an open fire. Or perhaps a better metaphor would be simply asking the question: what’s the opposite to a tyre puncture?

Lying wide eyed as my partner and son slept, I didn’t know how we were going to cope with the mental, productive, financial and emotional complexities of another full lockdown. In that moment, that red heart emoji was certainly bleeding its colour.

There’s a meme being passed around the internet – there always is – that says “thank you for my seven day trial but I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2021”. So much of day to day life is transient, I’ve learned anyway. ‘It was best of times and it’s the worst of times.’ I always I like to turn to The Office in times of writing and there’s a moment where David Brent describes life as just a series of peaks and troughs. “You don’t know whether you’re in a trough until you’re climbing out, or on a peak until you’re coming down”. 

I’m writing this at the end of the first week of lockdown 3 probably somewhere between okay and great. On Tuesday I reached out to my coach to ask for help in processing these ever fluctuating feelings, trying to work out how to support my family, run the business that pays our bills but still find time to strike a creative match, once daily. We walked and talked (holding a two metre stick between us at all times), it always feels so good to talk. In a mere hour of passing time I had felt the feelings, acknowledged how they were affecting me and put in place a strategy to restart. 

BIR style Chicken Tikka Masala

New year, new me? I’m pretty sure this is actually the wettest dry January since records began. Instead, I invite you to embrace a ‘new year, same me’. You don’t have to change everything, it’s about being just a little more ready for not knowing what’s round the corner. Reach out, get mind fit. Set some little goals. Achieve them. (We’ve already a restaurant style curry from scratch this weekend!) There’ll be a forever of Mike Skinner moments, but it’s only a 4:32 minute song. There’s always a follow up single (Blinded by the Lights, if you’re asking). 

Always feel the feelings. Even the tough ones. Even when they flip your life upside down. It’s so easy in times of stress to feel helpless, however I am so grateful to the years of process that reminds me to ‘dry my eyes mate, there’s plenty more fish in the sea’. That’s a metaphor, not always an excuse to join Tinder.

A Love Letter to 2020

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New Years Eve, 12 months ago, I remember it well. A varying opinion on whether or not the latest apple update was ‘exactly’ British Standard Time. Or whether actually it was better to watch the Jools Holland pre-record on BBC 2 as opposed to the fireworks on One, as there was, of course, a slight delay on a live transmission. A buffet table untouched in the corner, waiting to be devoured when those that didn’t like ‘mini Guinness’ realised that they didn’t like Guinness even though mini Guinness tasted nothing like its title. A quiz, based on the participants had been well received, if a little waring towards the end of the first hour. And as the bells rolled in, I frantically made my way through the niceties, and a half sung Auld Langs Syne to in-act one of my longest standing bi-yearly traditions of predicting the England starting line-up for their first game of the upcoming Euro 2020. The last time a summer tournament had rolled around, I was swamped in sadness, staring at a marriage failure, father to a six month old, and heartbroken at any glance my way. Things were different now; with England ranked 3rd in the world, Right Move taking pride of place on the home screen, and an engagement ring tucked away in the front of a bass case that despite my sons protesting was not the ‘Buzz Lighter (sic) Woody pendant’ ring that he was adamant she would want. Unlike some of the storms that had gone before it, 2020 was going to be a breeze.

Fast forward to the limbo-like-noone-knows-what-the-day-is period between Christmas and New Year, or as my household call it Highlighter Radio Time(s) and all that has gone before it has blown in a gale not even Michael Fish could’ve predicted. I’ve sat with the laptop open staring blankly into the white abyss, with only the words ‘love letter’ gazing longingly back at me. Luckily, I’ve had a fair few attempts at ‘swimming against the tide’ in my letter writing to unrequited loves so my admiration for a year that has so openly squeezed the pants off of its most clothed bottom is no stranger.

With every thumb scroll, in between loo rolls, hiding from every ‘are you still in there Joel?’, we’re greeted by an army of brightly coloured, boldy worded messages from our brand frontrunners, effectively saying F**k off 2020, you’ve been sh*t. It’s Christmas, we’re in the toilet a lot this week, and i’m sure you’ve seen those words to some extent, time and time over. Sure, I could write a piece that underlines and magnifies the above sentiment. The news today, interrupting the rerun (i’m sure) of Chicken Run, described as bittersweet. The promise of another vaccine that has been ordered enough times to provide a sense of normality amongst a death count of near 1000 within the last 28 days, cases rising across the country, and our teachers at odds with the government over what exactly ‘schools are safe except where they’re not’ actually means.

Tomorrow, if you’re reading this today, or today, if you’re reading this hungover, we cross the threshold into the new world. With Brexit now actually a memory, we remain a country even more divided than when “we” lost. And yet, in that division, that’s why I feel brave enough to celebrate 2020 for the year that was. In the spring, the news was stark, and unnerving. We baked. We clapped. We continued to work. We didn’t have to work. We P.E’d. We queued. We quizzed. We laughed. We definitely cried and we cared. It was only going to be for a few weeks, so that was okay. Like a game of monopoly, we could pick up where we left off, tomorrow.

As the weeks became months, and the months became one long seemingly never ending press conference, almost every person knew someone, who knew someone with it, working in amongst it, or sadly lost their battle to it. We had to grieve, differently. Carry on, differently. All whilst continuing to adopt the government’s greatest hits of snappy slogans. In the world of rolling news, there is always that. Rolling news. As it continued to play out, and the news became a constant roll of similar jargon I definitely started to only tune in when it was Johnson, or Sunak, sometimes Hancock as this was now the normal and we’ve always worn masks in shops, right?

But what is normal? Is there a correct normal? The people in Normal People weren’t even the kind of normal that I grew up to understand was normal. And certainly Neil (we’ll call him) didn’t think it was that normal for me to be inviting him to an evening worship event that “definitely isn’t like the organ church you’re thinking it is”. A quick google of the word normal reads: to conform to a standard, so in affect, for the first time ever, there or thereabouts the world is being asked to behave ‘normally’.

No doubt, this year has been unimaginably tough. But in amongst the headlines and the everything we already know and definitely don’t need to read again are the reasons why 2020 shouldn’t be written off, forgotten about or relived again at a better time. There isn’t a Coldplay song with a long enough euphoric ending to celebrate all of the against all odds achievements in this year. Babies, marriages, food banks, community, business start ups, weight loss, dating, intimacy, let alone a 100 year old veteran raising millions to help out.

We’ve learned, collectively, that we can all be creative, and we can all dare to dream. Even in our disappointment, and our fear, we have continued to love our friends and family, and function as humanity. Through screens, and perspex, there have been memories cherished, and moments created. One of my clients posted about gratitude yesterday, hoping that post pandemic we would continue to live in a way that is grateful for what we do have, looks to prefer others, and chooses community and connection. I actually love that kind of normal.

Why write this? I’m no pro-writer nor have any real tangible front-line experience to comment on. I did, however, live. And if you’re reading this, by default so did you, too. Even if not a lot, you survived. And again, even if you didn’t want to survive at times, you did that, too. Celebrate that. Against whatever you had to fight, that you fought hard enough to turn up to New Years Eve with your year complete. I’m not holding out to see the back of this year, or to wish in any new tier. 2021 isn’t going to rapidly change anything other than to give us another chance to say yes, and to keep going. My point? Whether you commiserate, celebrate or incinerate the 2020 shitshow, give yourself a chance, on the last day in this year to say ‘you made it, great job’. No-one knows the job of being you, whatever it looks like, or entails, better than you.There’s a funny meme being passed around this week. It reads: ‘10 years from now you’ll put on a jacket and find a mask in the pocket. “Oh man, what a funny year that was” you’ll chuckle to yourself. Then you’ll pick up your machete and continue across wasteland, keeping to the shadows to avoid roving gangs of cannibal raiders’If that’s to come, I better buy a bigger tele because those press conferences are going to be mega.

Merry 2021 to you, and a happy new normal. Again. X

(Picture was taken 31/12/2019 – pre socially distanced, of course)

Mr Poppy

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As lots of you know, Christmas 🎄 is such an important time to me. So much so that for the last ten years or so I’ve been called Mr Poppy anywhere I’ve been where people have seen ‘Nativity!’ Secretly, I’ve always really struggled with it as he’s a character who has a bit of a portly figure, and is actually quite childlike to the point of immaturity. Over the years I’ve found it a knock to my self esteem as someone that has publicly had his slip ups, in weight fluctuation, in my personal life experiences, in love and in the general wanting to appease other people’s expectations.

The journey of the last decade has seen the highest of highs and the depths of lows. However, as December rolls around, I have always emphasised the festive season. I’ve never really understood why other than to say that it was a constant fixture to pause whatever is ‘real life’ and either live in limbo or, sometimes, fantasy. Truth is, for much of my (post) Poppy life, I think I’ve lived in hope for (my perceived) better life. I’ve not wanted to struggle with my weight, or not handle adult relationships, or act immaturely.

This is very convoluted imagery, but I have reflected on this as someone that feels like they’ve come through the ‘other side’ mentally. I’ve always heard the Mr Poppy thing negatively…I think mostly because it’s often been from students saying “you look just like him”. I do. A bit. (I also get “you look like Joel Dommett” and you won’t be surprised to find out I’m pro this comparison 😂😂) However, his character is as much full of innocence, hope and wonder. Amazing things!

I spent so long worrying about how I’m perceived by others that I would miss the Mr Poppy innocence of life and being myself. This year I made a promise to my partner that I would change that and seek what is truly in my heart. There is always a way through, whatever you see and however you feel.

I’m going to share a Christmas song next week that I’ve written for anyone heading into this season with some fear for how the next few weeks may feel. It’s written as a grieving widow, but it’s happy sad and I’d love to share the widow’s hope for life without, with you.

Be kind to yourself, always x

This Modern Love

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Families come in all different shapes and sizes. For some children there is only one whom they call mum. For others there may be a village of mothers. These women are ALL amazing and I am so grateful for all that they do for our little boy.

Although life’s story can be written in many different ways, when there is love, there is no boundary.

Cara,thank you for sharing our boy with, and in turn giving new purpose to Melissa 🙏🏻💕 You both provide him so much joy, laughter, wisdom, stability, routine and care. With you, he is safer than he could ever imagine, and loved beyond measure. Although I’m sure we may be in the minority in the way we do family after separation, thank you both of you for standing with me and showing the world that love wins, even after endings. Elias stands to be one heck of a man with this team behind him 🚀

To my mum, thank you for helping find my sparkle again. For holding me in the pain. For reminding me of my name, when I’d forgotten who I was. For providing me a bed when I needed to rest. For standing by me, even in my mistakes. You are one of my heroes and I’m a better parent for being your son. As I have written above, it takes a village to raise a child, and we couldn’t do it anywhere near as well as we are doing without you too 💕 we love you x

Caroline.

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Dear Internet,

Well, first and foremost thank you so much internet for all of your kind engagement and birthday likes, messages, GIF’s and party hats. This week has certainly be a waterfall of news from our tiny corner of the web! I do feel a little bit older than I did this time last week. I’ve noticed that I’ve made the switch from Radio 1 to Radio 2 permanently. Probably a long time coming. The morning aches – oh they ache! I’ve also discovered I’m really not as internet savvy as I once was. I do not know how to call Siri up on my new phone, nor sync calendars across providers. I made a big faux pas last week and it’s led me here.

I’ve been thinking a lot, recently, about second chances.

It was absolutely not my intention to post anything to my social media platforms about getting engaged a week ago. I wanted Mel to enjoy breaking the news, the likes, hearts, any comments. I wanted it to be her internet evening. All had gone to plan; she had tagged me in the picture and shared the news – whoever found out was going to find out and we were going to watch a film. Innocently, I changed our status to ‘engaged’ and before I knew it, it had posted that JOEL IS ENGAGED TO MELISSA. I’m so thankful to all of you who have gotten in touch over the last week – it just wasn’t quite meant to be so public.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about second chances. About how a year ago, on March 6th, I never would have even began to dream of being in a place with someone where I could even consider getting engaged. Life has (it’ll be a shock if you missed it) been somewhat chaotic over the last few years. I never intended to be a soap story. For that, I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry for the tearful conversations if you passed me sat at the beach. I’m sorry if you felt awkward because you didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry for my painful posts that led you to ask my nearest if I was okay. I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been okay for a very long time. My heart was broken. Mixed up, messed up and very unsure.

I wasn’t always a very good husband. I’d go as far as saying that I was actually a very bad one at points. I was so scared of it failing that I failed it before acknowledging its need for some plasters. My whole entire life leading up to getting married and the years that followed, I just wanted to fit in. Like many of us, I was looking for love, to be loved and seen lovingly. I’d grown up in a Sunday morning environment where lots of people had gotten married young and I was scared of not fitting the mould. Marriages are equally two people, but for my part, I let my wife down by not holding the relationship up when it needed it most. For that I am so sorry.

I’m not here, writing with regret, but with thankfulness, for the patience, for the experience and for the healing that failing marriage led me to. There are no sides, there is no battle, just four adults bringing up the most beautiful little boy, with joy.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about second chances. About how a month ago a lady with so much life left to live chose to take her own away because a second chance felt so unattainable. To Caroline, I never watched your shows but I have been moved more than ever by your story. It’s so quick to pass off a quick comment or opinion and think nothing of it. Someone once told me they thought of me as ‘dangerous’ whilst in a church setting and I was still dealing with that quick fire comment in counselling years later.

Last July, I met Melissa, a quietly happy young woman. We swiped right. We sat on the beach. We talked. We laughed. And in the weeks that passed, we cried as we shared our stories in greater detail than ever before. To quote Mel directly, she once felt she was “done and cooked – off the table”. She didn’t feel that she would get a second chance on a together life, with a partner. To have children, and to plan their weddings. I knew, call it God, fate, life’s novel, that I was going to marry her within an hour of meeting her, but I knew that I wanted her to remember it was okay to dream the dreams she had often boxed away. This girl had imagined being married by 30, and to be planning for a child but instead the birthdays would pass by.

In the past 8 months she has taught me how to have fun again. She has step-mothered Elias as if her own. She has hosted events for friends she hadn’t even met yet. She has held me as any last remaining scabs fall off from pains past. And now she has been able to begin to dream her forever dreams again.

There’s a good chance you don’t know Mel but for every loud, public speaking figure, there is often a Mel quietly helping write the speech. If you don’t know her, please pop into her cafe and meet her. She is how I imagine what God/life intended by love. The kindest soul you could ever meet.

I am sure there are people we know who are somewhat shocked at speed of our recent engagement but before passing any quick fire comment, I implore you to think wholly about what might be going on in the complete picture of anyone’s lives. I can’t stop thinking about what kind of messages Caroline Flack was receiving in her most private of moments. About how many people had opinions on her life trajectory. In the weeks past, we’ve chosen in our little unit to try not to vocalise comment or opinion, instead just to vocalise love.

At times, im aware that I could’ve portrayed something I completely didn’t intend to. I haven’t meant it to be ‘all about me’. These posts. My using social media to document my mental health journey. My experiences in the music industry. Actually far from it. I play music because I want people to have a good time and hope I can help. I’ve started stand up comedy because I hope that others can share joy in some of my embarrassing mishaps. I think I perhaps got lost along the way and forgot that happiness wasn’t fitting an ideal, or to a timeline, but that it could be found in learning to love who I was, where I was and how I was.

I’ve been thinking a lot, recently, about second chances. About how I sit here, free from depression, free from brokenness and free from the chains of my own past beliefs. About how for Mel it was her dream to be married at 30. 9 months ago, that dream lived in her dreams. She turns 29 in April (Sorry if maths isn’t your thing – see appendix 1) – looks like there’s a lot of planning to do! We all deserve a second go at whatever you call life.

Thank you for standing with us both, with all four of us parents in fact, and Elias too. Thank you for your concern or your not sures. At times I needed them. It’s okay to not be okay but it’s REALLY okay when you feel more than okay again, too.

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

❤️

Ps. I fully realise the irony of a mega post talking about not wanting to draw attention to a mega post 😘😘

Vision.

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H A P P Y N E W Y E A R 🎈🎉🥂

2019 was a year of two halves for me. Starting a little more broken than perhaps I had realised I still was, playing out the square peg, round hole scenario and feeling out of my depth in too many areas. Too scared to embrace the silent lonely times, I put myself, my son and some of my friendships through awkward moments and some scary ones too.

Roll on into the summer and I met this lovely lady that reminded me of so many things I had forgotten, or that were laying dormant. Just a simple conversation on the beach and i haven’t looked back since. I feel healthier in my soul, happy when I look in the mirror, at peace with what has been and gone and excited about what the future has in store. Most importantly though, I’ve learned how to have fun again, to pause in the moment and enjoy it for exactly what it is, the moment. Elias and I have found ourselves in make believe worlds, dressed up to the nines as firemen and we have just played together.


This isn’t a ‘she’s changed me’, more that in 2020 I feel secure, and properly so, and the doors to the rest of life have flung wide open, head up and heart very strong.

Fat.

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I’ve spent as long as I can remember feeling rather anxious about my appearance. I’ve battled with my weight for the best part of two decades, trying fad diets a plenty. I have gynaecomastia and it’s been one of the root causes of my struggles with mental health. There were days in the past where I used to stand in the mirror and curse my enlarged chest; I’ve cried about man boobs too many times to remember! I know I’m no stranger to a selfie and I spend lots of time fronting bands, confidently, but in truth I’ve always been conscious of needing a sports bra 🙈

I’m posting this, not because I’ve lost a particular amount of weight but because I was in the bathroom pre-gig last night and I looked at myself in the mirror and felt so happy in my mind, content with my weight loss journey but in LOVE with the body I have despite its wobbles and bumps. Living and walking through life confidently isn’t always easy but I certainly feel in a better shape for loving my shape, regardless of my shape. That’s a lot of the word shape 🤷‍♂️😂 It definitely pays off, though. It was the BEST feeling to play a gig without anxious niggles in the mind.

Happy Sunday 🙌🏻(Absolutely no filter here 👌)

Waves.

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“Who’s gonna drive you home, tonight?” – Drive, The Cars.

Advance warning. The following contains language that some readers may find offensive.

Fuck. It’s Thursday 22nd November 2018 and today came out of nowhere. There is no explanation for it, no real understanding why it happens but when it does, it’s like the waves crashing in onto the rocks upon the seafront where I live. I’ve been so careful in crafting these posts to try to articulate walking with pain in a way that it’s not too much about a ‘looking out a rainy window’ scene from Friends, whilst listening to With Or Without You by U2, but sometimes the carefully placed game of Jenga in your mind collapses and out of the blue, everything feels incredibly tough. It’s shit.

As I’ve carefully manouvered this year of new, of change and of self reflection and retraining, there have been moments, where for one reason or another, and sometimes no reason at all I’m sat balling my eyes out at work, or on the beach, or sometimes in my room. It’s something that I’m comfortable with sharing, and actually in doing so feel like I can shed my own stigma about the whole process. Understanding where it comes from is a completely different conversation and one that may come out one day or it may not, though I’d be inclined to think it will. Today, though, that happened. The icy air took my breath away as I paced the pavement on a short walk up the road to the local school that I was working at. Moving with a spring in my step, and an almost ‘I wish it could be Christmas everyday’ jaunt, I had a podcast in my ears. I was laughing. Audibly. In public. Not the easiest thing to process for the bewildered onlookers, exercising their dogs in the park. There was colour. There was joy. And then there was not. I stopped for two minutes to send a quick text and before I knew it, I felt alone, I felt scared and I was hurting.

I really relish time with Elias. He’s fast approaching 18 months now and when we can, we get out to the park. He loves it. He runs, he plays and he (said quietly) tries to help himself to other park users’ snacks. He’s a modern day Dodger. But one thing I really notice about him is that he is fearless. To him, almost every experience is a new one and he’s yet to know whether it’s a good or a bad one. Quite often a park visit will include at least one fall or maybe a little bump. In those moments, the fearless nature receeds and he clings, cries and calls out for help. It lasts a mere minute or so where the world has come crashing down and it’s bloody tough for him. It’s the way it is for all children, but what fascinates me is the resillience within to Chumbawumba their way through. To get knocked down but get up again. Their brains are still expanding and whether consciously or not, they’re learning how to manage the experience. Where it may be natural to apply the reins, I’m really keen for him to take these risks and to experience it and then feel it too, the good and the band. I love him so much, and it hurts to see him hurt but together we’re learning as father and son.

I had to use that knowledge today and remind myself that it’s okay to feel. I say it enough, gosh, I write it almost everytime; it’s okay to feel it. This week I spoke to someone about life, of my process, being like the tide. The sea goes out, it’s still, it’s serene. The sea comes in, it’s wavy, but you get up on that board and ride those waves unknowingly going to a new part of the beach (stones). The sea also storms. It crashes in, spitting shingle onto the promenade. It can be unpredictable, but that’s okay because although it gets crazy out there, the tide turns and it’ll be alright again soon.