My original guitar, bought in GAK Audio in Brighton in 2007, has just been restored and a Fishman pickup added. She is reborn and has a posh new case which Luthier Gary Norris has demanded I keep her in. To stop her drying out again and needing more TLC. (Which was expensive to remedy...) But Gary I like to see her, I like to be able to pick her up and play.
And, because she has been battered I always take her with me to rustic settings. Doesn't matter if she got a bit more clobbered. She's got character; like her owner! Well she is coming with me to rustic settings is my decision. She has been with me on a big part of my musical journey and we loved making music together by the campfire yesterday.
As I sat by Brent and Jolinda's campfire, outside the cottage Brent has designed and built with his son, which is set within the 160 acres of land he owns I was in heaven. We enjoyed a lovely glass of Bordeaux, ate sausages cooked over the fire and I felt I was really in a part of 'frontier back country' Canada. Because I was.
A NEW CANADIAN
And, as a New Canadian, as of last Thursday, I was blessed. We laughed - my son shot bullets from a 120 year old rifle blowing up cans filled with water and me and Virginia made music by the fire - it was a perfect. A blue skied afternoon to remember for a lifetime. Indigo our dog enjoying his freedom and new friends in Whiskey and Mollie. A town dog getting as dirty as he could. Excellent.
BRENT
Brent is an amazing man. A mountain man, a songwriter, a designer, builder, woodsman (in every facet) and a visionary. He is A Man of God, his faith running through who he is. That is how we met in church and then later at House Group we held at our house. Feels so long ago now. We walked together yesterday and discussed the Canadian and American Constitutions - he has studied both in depth. I am in the enquiry of what my responsibilities are to be a Canadian Citizen. Apparently Canada's constitution is based on one from 1847 - Queen Victorias reign. A business document drafted in London was how he summarised it. His father had been a Politician, he has his original copy.
Brent encouraged me to publish - all that I hide away. Identifying the enemy that stops that, as we walked through the sunlit back country meadows on his land, was enlightening. My friend encouraged me. He said he had my back. You need friends like that. I need friends like that. He is an excellent shot, has a powerful right hook and a bible based faith that is his strongest weapon. We do get on.
And today my friend went in for Cancer surgery.
It went well. He will be back guiding hunters into the winter. And...
It's a funny old world.
PROVOKED
And meeting with him was memorable. It provoked a lot of what I wrote today and my thinking. When you meet someone you respect, like, and has strength of faith by the cottage he has designed and built on his land maybe that has more impact?
And maybe God was walking with us in the garden?