My Gap Years

There seems to be a three-year gap to fill in... 

Since 2017, when the blogging stopped, there have been two more Kettstocks – both Kettstock2 and Kettstock3 ran over two nights rather than just one, and were both huge successes. Sadly, we lost a great singer and a great man in Bill Deacon. And sadly, the Russ Payne Band came to an end due to a perfect storm of personal difficulties – but not the traditional "musical differences".

Bassist Bill Keller and I diversified into jazz, in Brighton and London respectively, and were both playing and gigging up until the pandemic hit.

I joined the staff of the excellent magazine The Oldie for a year and a bit, before eventually retiring from the fray. I have continued as a freelance writer and as an editor and contributor to www.Pembrokeshire.Online, the community website for my favourite county.

And I have continued to travel... My latest piece, on following in the wake of Odysseus, will be in the December 2020 issue of The Oldie.

That piece is 1,200 words... but behind that are something like 70,000 words that made up my journal from March to October 2020, An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague.

I'm now editing that journal and will start posting it here very soon...