The start of the year is always like this, lots of thinking and planning, bedding in the mental plants and reaching out for ideas. I love it. A few weeks in the studio with Mr T planning talking eating and getting closer to that reason. We have compiled a list of songs we intend to record for our new album, we have list of over 15 but it will whittle down to the standard size. Being up in the studio has its drawbacks the long drives from home often wears me out, every album we have recorded in the last 20 years has been the same, but its my choice to live in paradise, and its at the end of a very long rainbow. The barn has been floating in the rain that falls from the winter sky and the heating has struggled to warm up all of the rooms, its not easy to warm such a big old barn. Iv started staying at The Grazing Goat when im in London, a small tidy pub, its cheaper than Home House where i used to stay and the food is much better. I stayed at GG’s on route to Leeds to see the studio that Bob Bradley has in the heart of the city, its clean tidy and wonderful, an inspiration indeed. Peter Bradley and i have been helping Dom to write some new songs, he is 16 years old and very smart, a good actor, now in the West End and a good songwriter too. Cissy turn 20 and we had some food in London, Tom her boyfriend came along and he seems really nice, a gentle soul like Cissy and i hope he treats her well and keeps her happy and she him too. Its lovely to see. Grace came back from her holiday in Sri Lanker, all tanned up and ready to work. Riley got married in New York to the beautiful Natasha, so pleased for them both and my old mate Chalkie Davis sent me some great pictures of the big day. So sad not to be there. It seems like only minutes ago that Riley was in the bath with his Thomas The Tank Engine toys and speaking in a tiny voice, he was cute and lost inside the not knowing of family life. I miss him.Two big events for me this month were signing my publishing deal with Nettwork, it was so great to be back in bed, as it were, with the great Steve Lewes. The other being a writers workshop at the Idler Book Shop, two Sundays in a row. I really enjoyed the gentle days roll with it, and cake. I met some really nice people as i always do at these events. January, sick and tired you been hanging on me, don’t go don’t go…. And then back around the M25 for more writing with T. We have some lovely ones to work with and it seems like a shared experience for the first time in many years. My book now closes with a chapter about the joining of the circle in life in happiness and home. As i crawl through the deepness of age i wonder in to the woods where i can see nothing but trees but if i keep looking i can see the sky above and a gap where tomorrow seems to be. The woods is where you will always find me, there on the path looking for sunlight walking on fallen leaves and holding on to the air as it streams past me with its winter chill. Its refreshing and fills my life with lovely feelings. So this is the beginning of the year and i believe it will be a good year, there is no point living if you think any different. I ur towards to deep and the negative some times, but as i get older i say give a toss about the future, there may not be too much of it left. Expressing the wilt of imagination as it wains is normally a tender place, im not there. Its a happy cold winter but there is so much to feel warm about. The barn looks sunken on a field of mud under the brown of the downs, where sheep waltz and rest, here we sleep like ants in a nest waiting for the summer to drag us all outside to reach for twigs and storage.