The Foote Capo, and other stories...

Happy StarWars day everyone!!

It's been FAR TOO LONG since my last blog post, but here I am, talking to the world again.

I can't believe how busy my last few weeks have been. I mean, I usually like to keep myself busy, but I remember waking up two Tuesdays ago and just thinking "I have no idea how I'm gonna get to the end of this week".

The three big things have been a 2 day event at Lichfield cathedral called "log on 2 God", seeing around 200 high school pupils wandering round the old cathedral and playing giant versions of Rock, Paper, Scissors with them. I also got the opportunity to speak to many of them about issues concerning self image and how the media distorts what real beauty is.

That was the really fun bit. But then, in the same week I had another trip to the north east for the leadership training course I'm on. It was pretty amazing really, but also baked my noggin within 2 minutes of arriving. More about that (hopefully) on my other blog www.realyouth.net/good2great.

It was a cool few days, and my old friend Dave from Scotland came down so he could travel with me, which meant that as usual he stayed till the saturday, (but got the right train this time).  And finally, on the Friday, my other friend, James, came to visit so he could help with a big puppet training day at a church in Market Drayton last Saturday. It was a really good day - but puppet stuff always is. I've developed a bit of a puppet bug again. they're now all over the house. James left on Sunday after printing a few GrannyMechanics T-shirts and missing his train back to sheffield due to annoying roadworks.

Anyway, last sunday we went to our old church, St James, in the village for a christening. It was weird to be back there after nearly a year, but not a lot has changed.

And that's about all - oh, except for producing a new newsletter to send out to friends and family (if I like you, you should get one in the post - if you don't get one, well, that says a lot doesn't it) and the youth leaders' lunch that I organised for this Thursday - a really productive meeting, even if only 2 of the 8 people turned up.

So, I hear you asking, what has any of that got to do with the title of this blog? Well, let me explain...

The worship leader (Paul) of our present church called on Friday to ask if I'd be willing to play at the service today, and of course I jumped at the chance. As it turned out, every (planned) song was in the key of E, so for some variation I figured I'd get out my old trusty Foote Capo. It's basically a Krysler capo, with the rubber that would normally press down the low E and two high strings cut away. It's really fun to play and produces some lovely drone effects. I've played around with it quite a lot since I made it in 2003, but today was the first time I've used it in a corporate worship setting since I first made it for a youth event in Rugby.

Well, I think that's the last 2 weeks covered. I now have to go and re-format my laptop as it's running slower than a sloath snail. Joy Joy.

May 4th be with you!!