Sunday: Sat waiting for our morning briefing at the Ding vaccination centre. Hardly any staff in today, let alone patients. I’m on front of house for Moderna today. Numbers are painfully low. For the whole 12 hour shift, I have fifteen booked appointments. Fifteen… Last week I wrote over a thousand word post. I guess I’ll be writing some more today. Hopefully we will get quite a few walk ins. Last week I had around twenty. I was assured by the ops manager this morning that the program will pick up again by September. No firm date, but it will be happening and this centre will stay open for it. At least I know I’ll have something further down the line.
If it ever gets busy again, I’ll be wanting more shifts but having a nine to five job, that can’t happen. Unless of course I book leave and work those days. I’m not sure how my weekday employer will feel about that though. They’ve known that I work in the vaccination program all along and have never had issue with it. Indeed one of my new colleagues used to work at the fire station when I was there and they do weekend vaccination work still too.
I’m still adjusting to the fact that none of my children are children any more. It’s very strange. Many years ago, I used to wonder how many kids I’d have and when they would become adults. I’ve been a father for thirty years in September. Crazy. I have a photo of my first daughter and myself just after she was born. Looking at it, I wasn’t much more than a baby myself, not even seventeen at the time. One good things is that my kids have young parents so at least we will be around for quite a while for them… Hopefully.
It’s another thing that My Lady has missed. I still miss her so damn much. As much as I’m starting to get to grips with being on my own to some extent, I sick of having to. I just want her back. One thing I don’t want back however, is the old me. He was shit all round in my opinion. Lazy, unmotivated, thoughtless and a load of other lame ass traits. I’ll always despise him. How I wish I could have been the man I am today when My Lady was still here. If she was still here I wouldn’t be that man though. Catch 22…
Work husbands father in law now works as security here. We got chatting this morning and it turns out he has purchased a guitar beginners setup. He was asking advice on how to get started with learning. I always get a little excited when someone asks me about this kind of stuff. It’s potentially the opening of a whole new world for them. It might sound overly dramatic, but it is dramatic. For me anyway.
Over the last two years, I’ve got more into music than at any point in my life. I’ve taken it to my highest level yet. On Monday I finally had a taster lesson with the vocal coach I used to work with at the performing arts academy. It was like starting out as a semi new musician all over again. I would love to be a good rock/metal singer. I’ve tried a few things vocal wise and if I select/write tunes in the right key, I can genuinely sing them in tune, mostly and even with a little power on some. The first thing I wanted out of the lesson was to find out what my range is, then I can pitch my songs to suit. It’s also good to have a baseline to start off from. It turns out my range is from C3 to D#5. Around two octaves. Good enough to start with anyway. Especially given that I’m a smoker. I have a paid lesson tomorrow evening and I won’t lie, I’m rather excited about it. Trouble is I know it’s going to be addictive but I can’t afford regular lessons. To be honest, I probably shouldn’t even be having this lesson but I’m hoping I can get enough “homework” that I can make some progress when I’m not having lessons. I’ve known the teacher for years and we get on really well. She has an amazing and, I can’t lie, a very sexy singing voice. A real pro.
So now it’s around half four and all the Moderna appointments are complete. Just walk ins now. The ops manager just came and told me the last appointment at 7:25 has cancelled. There’s a good chance we will be leaving early today. That would be great. I might even have enough time to do a few things when I get home. I got most of the chores done yesterday so I’ll probably end up losing myself in Cubase, remixing previous projects and working on my two new ones. Mr Screamer is in the process of recording some more vocals for me.
Over the years, I’ve created several songs. Not one of them has been finished. I’ve never had the confidence to try and add vocals and I don’t think I’m very good at composing at all. There is only so far you can get being self taught. It’s time for me to start learning music theory. Ever since I purchased a mixer/pc interface, I’ve been playing around trying to write songs and I’ve made some half decent stuff. No vocals and no lead on any of it, so I’ve never heard what my music sounds like with everything in it.
Since I started working with Mr Screamer, I’ve had an amazing time mixing his stuff into mine. Back in 2020, I wrote a handful of words in a pathetic attempt to express my emotional turmoil, but barely enough for half a song. I’ve had good feedback about it but I’ve been stuck for over a year now. I sent the lyrics to Mr Screamer and he tried to fit them into a couple of my songs. Once we tried it, discussed it, changed it and so on, we definitely got somewhere. We just need more words now. He has a collection of words he has written over the last year or two as well, so I said he is welcome to use them in my music if it fits.
Ever since My Lady died, and my muse came back, I’ve had an album concept in my head. I want to express the transition from the fairy-tale love we had, through our life together and then the horror of her passing and it’s effect on us, physically and emotionally over the intervening time. Titles like “I am the storm”, “Rebirth”, “Train in the face” yes you read that right, among others. I’m still thinking about other titles.
Did I mention?… I hate trains…
I hope that by the end of the year, I’ll have one or two completed songs. I’ll be quite frustrated if I don’t. This is something I’ll never stop doing. There is so much to learn when it comes to composing, mixing and producing, it would take years and years to absorb it all. What I wouldn’t give to be able to work as a studio engineer for the rest of my life. If I could, I’d never “work” another day as long as I live.
Over an hour and a half to go until we close for walk ins. Chances are, being Sunday, that there will be little to no patients arriving. The centre is in a shopping mall and, again being Sunday, most people assume that the centre is closed, as all the shops close at four due to the archaic Sunday trading laws. I could think of worse things to be paid well doing.
So today I’ve had seventeen Moderna walk-ins and fifteen Moderna appointments all day. Since that slime-ball Boris Johnson basically told everyone stupid enough to believe him that Covid was over, society has bought into it hook line and sinker. I always said that I hoped society would not go back to pre Covid attitudes. Well it almost has. So few people wear masks any more. On the rare occasion that I forget to grab my mask from the car, I genuinely feel awful and 99% of the time, I go back no matter how far away the car is. How many people would do that now? The level of selfishness in society never ceases to amaze me. God knows why, it’s not like it hasn’t been obvious all along.
The ops manager let us go an hour early in the end. Even let us sign out for the normal time. I like her, she always greets me fondly and genuinely means it when she asks how I am. She wants to know, not be fobbed off with “good thanks, you?”. The phrase sounds so fake now. I don’t know why.
So another weekend flew by. Sat in my car in the rain in my lunch break. I ended up staying up a little late to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. What a race. Rain at Monaco always makes it crazy. I was actually excited all the way through it.
Triggered a bit this morning. I don’t even know why. Still got to crack on…
The Life and Times of Lord Crookedhorn. 