On my way back from a rare visit to London i drove past Heathrow Airport and witnessed empty car parks on the perimeter roads and no planes on the runway ready for takeoff. I found that very sad indeed. It was dark and wet, the day was wearing thin, everything seemed wrapped up in a vision of not normal. I feel the walls closing in on me, slowly and silently. Within these walls oxygen, just enough to last me until it runs out. I feel the stress of winter and the darker nights, normally a time of touring on the upward hill to Christmas. I feel like my future has been robbed from my very hands. Positive thinking is found only in the simple moments of the day, when the room opens in my head just before sleep. I worry about family and about my industry, where the next year will leave us all, a place we will all have to learn to love again, and live again post virus. As much as i would like to write words for songs i find that the soil of inspiration has been polluted by the toxic turn of life, i seem to be in suspension possibly simi retired. Yet im not allowed to have feelings like that as the reality of home brings into sharp focus how all the pieces of the everyday jigsaw fits together. Like a Mars bar, its work rest and play, but gently.

Planning ahead is difficult, even the show Squeeze has in December is on a delicate knife edge. Christmas itself is a strange thought, a place and time maybe held this year on Zoom, and thank God for Zoom. Planning and travelling is what i have done all fo my life so to be knee deep in not knowing is terrifying. There is much to be grateful for, so much to love within the good spirit of life. A gratitude list goes a long way. I can swing in and out of feeling normal and not trapped, trapped though is more like the normal. I have grown here in my shed over the months of isolation where writers have come and gone, songs have been born, shows raising money for good causes have been enjoyed, its been a sweet journey into the darker months of the year. I feel proud of what i have achieved but feel that the coming months might be more of a challenge. If i were to fall ill during this time it would be very scary, as it would be for us all. The rawness and laziness of life could be my undoing. It’s too late now for the gym, the pool or the bike, although my I watch is on its way to assist. With great fear i sit here colder than a spud keeping away from danger. If thats possible. The truth will all be in the app.

My life has been so blessed so what more could i wish for. Mrs D and three steps, and four healthy lovely Diffs all off doing their own thing. Dublin, New York, Bethnal Green, and not sure where Riley is. A log cabin? Behind me a long history of chaos and confusion and a fair sprinkling of sadness and joy. I have found home, but even home can be a fragile place at times, it’s difficult to always get things right, when the ball needs to go in the back of the net i sometimes find myself looking the other way. Home is a country mile from where i was born and grew up, a London i hardly know anymore and simply could never afford. So where are the roots of life, i guess they are under my pillow, in my suitcase, but the suitcase is up in the loft, im going nowhere for now. Going to London today was a mission, a journey i know so well but when i arrived half of the people on the street were wearing masks and the other half not, gliding like lemmings towards a cliff. In many ways i have everything i could ever need for this desert Island, pencils pens, notepads and screens, guitars and more guitars, a soft cushion to sit on and files and files of my past. Scrapbooks of where i have been. What more could i need. I feel so lucky to have had such a great life, a journey of stage and song, its a place to admire from afar, and here i am afar. Home is here on the edge of everything else surrounded my a life in a muddle, no gold discs for sitting here like a stone. Home is marriage with all of its deep love and domestic bliss, it’s a partnership we talk and walk through, its worth it if you work it, but no partnership is safe from failure and i have had a few along the way. Each day explains more of the good nature of love and its hidden deepness. Home is happy faces and food on the table and two orbits of the sun and moon. I have never been at home for this long in my life, and its a foundation for tomorrow and all that tomorrow may bring. Roast potatoes and peas.

This time last year i was in Southend with the band, what a show, the usual pat and clapper of song, the dressing room chair to rest on after a hearty meal in catering, a set of well polished songs with each breath complicated by the next, but in a loving way. The car next to the bus, the journey home, or to a hotel to rest and be that bloke on tour in that band that has been my life for over 47 years. It’s like a crown made of matchsticks worn well above the head, worn well and in tribute to its long design. I just hope it never goes up in flames, all that hard work up in flames. A year ago this week the Albert Hall which today is struggling to stay open, how very strange does that sound. A wonderful night of performance, songs we all love and an audience who we all love too. One song leads to the next one stage to the next one catering meal to the next, but not right now. My car journey today reminded me of being on tour, rain, roads, traffic and the news on the radio. News i would rather not hear, but then suddenly there is a chap who is trying to break the World record for talking about Astronomy for 24 hours without a break, now thats what i call good news. Touring is like an X girlfriend who you no longer see but you think about from time to time, she is there waiting in the wings of the mind ready to come back and applaud you, or punch you. Touring wont be for a few years, thats the prediction anyway, maybe longer, longer standing still. That place at the end of the road will be there. This week i have indulged myself in our songs for a new Squeeze set, so many great surprises, and for whatever there may be in the mist of time all i can hear are wonderful songs, well crafted well produced and well loved. Like looking in a cupboard and finding your old boots, and they still fit.

Podcasts are the new chatter, and i have long thought about doing my very own. I may. Over the last few months i have done many but none stand out as much as the one i did with Bob Lefsetz. A fireside chat with meaning and depth. While the World rolls up the red carpet i have found that talking online about my life has made me more aware of myself and what has been achieved, i feel grateful. Not a normal emotion for me as i have found it hard not to be in the corner, the kid who had his tie cut on the fist day of school, the bullies muse. How far can i drop my trousers i used to think, only of coarse metaphorically. I can speak. Yesterday i was invited by David Hepworth onto his web Podcast, this was new for me we had a good laugh talking memories and shop. I guess its online like all the others. Jools and Vic Reeves another good laugh round at his, the theme transport. So much to enjoy, have a listen one day. It’s a good time to snuggle up and enjoy a good Podcast with the weather and darker nights, the wind has been whistling around the village for days, its wonderful i love the moving weather as i sit here at my desk. I want to avoid being out and about as i try to keep safe on the sofa, its not easy for me as i want to be out there in the car, on the stage, in the dressing room. For now here in my nest, the swaying tree of life with a microphone and Zoom at hand. It gives me time to mull, mulling over the Song Club album and how it lifted my spirits to put the record together, sadly it came out just in time to bump into Bob Harris’s Stand By Me project, the BBC were not in the mood. I love the songs and the heart that went into the album and feel proud of everyones coming together. The truth is that sales are thin on the ground for such projects, we reached number 2 in the charts with 49 sales, but many downloads. This on the Songwriters chart. I have never been above number 2 in my life, so it felt like the right place to be. Between the Podcasting and the album my life has been built with twigs and fallen leaves, very comfy indeed.

And then lockdown number two, looking down the barrel of another four weeks sitting on a narrow fence trying to stay safe, not feeling cold, not going out, not wanting to wither. Fear wakes me in the night as i scratch the surface of my head to find a new direction for myself, but there is only one direction and thats along the garden path. My body radar is working overtime trying to track every creek and shiver, looking for signs of not well. My glands, my throat the soul or creation sits within the walls of this thick sod. If i stay put long enough maybe it will all go away, a vaccine will arrive and then i will be back in the dressing room of life. For now its still, sit and feed the empty page with desire, shop online and be lucky. What else can you do. Three shops booked, Christmas looking dodgy, maybe even digital. Who knows. The predictions are shit. The heavens cry with rain, plip plop on the roof of my cabin, my office my solitude and my retreat. It looks so tough for the younger ones, a generation of kids starved of live music education and relationships, their upbringing in suspension by the glow of a screen. The TV is on but its not enough, the phone finely balanced on the knee, more images and pages to scroll but very little in the touch. For me growing up it was about the being there with your mates, up on the heath, down by the river, outside the pub, rehearsing songs. Lockdown begins.

So i sit here thinking fuck it, its all going tits up so what do i have to lose by being a little more capable of change, take a risk, say things louder, speak your mind tip your toys out of the pram. Who knows i may enjoy it. Home and work, salt and pepper, love and marriage horse and carriage. Cold fingers type as the night presses on around me, darkness and cold, still and somber. All of my moods are fighting to be heard at once, it’s like a a fire where someone has chucked on an old sofa. Flames lick the night, heat weighs a ton on my chest, the popping of timber as everything burns around me. I stand back and realise that the airport is like the inside of my head, there are no planes, there are no destinations for the time being. Home the only place to come home to, defined by its own warm shadows in the ever dancing flames. There is also the fuck it button, have a drink, go mad, have a drink enjoy yourself the inner tannoy announces, but then i hear the voice of reason, and here’s where i jump. The nuclear code is in that briefcase with the fuck it button, all will be revealed like the last sentence on a page, the final step of a dance, the last note of a song. What God provides i will be be happy to except, but if it does all go tits up then im in like Flynn.