My next Berklee course starts tomorrow… Music Marketing 201. Nothing to do with honing the craft but it’s a new course that goes through the whole world of marketing and how it applies to where the industry is right now. In one way I wish I’d done it 20 years ago but the industry wasn’t changing at quite the same rate as it is today.

There’s a lot of doom and gloom associated with all this change. People think record companies are going to die off. People think songwriters will have an even harder time making a living. I’m not so sure (and in the latter case, I’m not sure it’s possible!). I think all of us have to adapt and those who don’t will indeed fall into the same pit alongside the dinosaurs. But everyone chooses how they respond to change and how we are able to frame it – i.e. either positively or negatively.

Talking about framing, here’s something I read today…

This was a letter written by a college student to her parents:

“Dear Mum and Dad,

Apologies for taking so long to write but my writing utensils were destroyed in the fire at my apartment. I am out of the hospital and the doctor said I should be able to lead a normal healthy life. A handsome young man called Pete saved me from the fire and kindly offered to share his apartment with me. He is very kind and polite and from a good family, so I think you’ll approve when I tell you that we got married last week. I know you’ll be even more excited when I tell you that you are going to be grandparents very soon.

Actually there wasn’t a fire, I haven’t been in hospital, I haven’t got married and I’m not pregnant but I did fail my biology exam and I just wanted to make sure that when I told you, you put it in the proper perspective.

Love,

Your daughter.”

OK. I need to turn in 3 more songs before the end of the week for a musical Sue and I are working on and I've lost my voice. I managed to croak out 2 songs yesterday. Thankfully they were work tapes, not demos. There is never a good time to lose my voice but the timing of this totally sucks.

And there’s a million other things I need to get done before I come over to Nashville at the end of next week.

But I’ll make it work, somehow. Lemon and honey on tap. With ginger. A long hot bath. Sleep?

Grateful for any other suggestions…

S.

Just bought a new keyboard for my iMac… one of the new ones that come with the upgraded iMac… it’s so cool and so thin. But most of all it’s so writeable… it makes me want to write and write and write and write…

So if there's anyone out there who needs to brain dump an idea or two into Word, I'd recommend it. Actually any writer would have a little fun with it. Might not answer your emails FOR you, but it might help you get there quicker.

But here’s an advance apology if I end up being verbose, bombastic, longwinded, wordy, garrulous or effusive in my next few blog entries. I can’t help it… it’s my computer’s fault.

S.

P.S. Here's a picture Poppy made for you

Went up to London again yesterday for a meeting. As I was nodding off, the train stopped at Gatwick Airport and a bunch of tourists got on. One chap, a chubby Japanese guy, sat down on his own, opened his rucksack, put on his glasses and started reading some tourist info. He was clearly very excited to be here.

This seemed a familiar scene. Then I remembered: last night I watched Heros. In my semi-sleep state I totally expected our Japanese tourist to disappear into thin air to a different place on the time/space continuum. Or maybe see someone fly through the air in their pyjamas and land on the roof of the train.

S.

Grandpa asked Poppy today whether she liked England or America better. She said England because that’s where her grandparents are. That was the right answer. And she was genuinely un-primed.

Good girl Popps.

S.

I went fly fishing for the first time in my life yesterday. I was grateful for the opportunity...it was a corporate bash with my brother’s company (thanks Freddie, really). And it was held at a fish farm so the odds of coming home having caught my quota of 4 monster fish sounded pretty compelling.

Well, after an hour's training and 7 hours standing next to a lake throwing a piece of fluff at a bunch of clinically depressed fish I felt like throwing myself into the water and grabbing them with my bare hands.

Then, just to make things worse, within an hour of the end of play my little brother hooks two fish, one of which was the largest catch of the day. He even offered to let me land the second one and call it mine.

It was a kind gesture but I know when I'm beaten. The fish won yesterday, hands down.

S.

It was a beautiful crisp clear day today. I had to get up early to go to London on business. As I drove to catch the 6.05 train from Arundel to London Bridge I could still see the last stars of the night against a deep blue night sky fading to orange as the sun came up.

6 years ago at the same time of day the skies were also clear. I was jet lagged and looking out over the water from my room at the Boston Harbor Hotel talking on the phone to my Auntie Eileen who'd just finished her lunch back in England. I remember seeing the first planes of the morning taking off. It was the second day of a week’s investor roadshow with a major client of the investment bank I worked for. The day before we had been presenting on Wall Street. Little did I know that one of the planes I was watching was about to make history for all the wrong reasons.

Looking back, I can still feel the sense of panic as we sped out of the centre of Boston in two long black limos to a safe haven outside the city. My colleague was in tears for most of that journey. The husband of one of our party was missing. He was never found. It was too real. I managed to call Sandra, who was 3 months pregnant with Poppy, before the phone lines went down.

Our business trip was canceled. All flights were canceled. It took us a week to drive up through Vermont to Canada where a company plane would pick us up and take us back to Europe. I resented every second those crazy people kept me from my family.

I didn’t use the London underground today.

S.

I’m sure all Christian parents struggle with the question of how to bring up their children to know God.

And in Britain it seems particularly tricky… total secularism, under-funded churches, God-free education, atheist teachers and a media culture all conspire against us. Even at church today, when things got a little more wacky than normal, I know Poppy and Moo would have had their fragile faith damaged if they’d have been present. I cannot let that happen.

Sandra and I look at all we have in our lives here at the Beach House and the only things that will last forever are those three precious little souls sleeping sweetly upstairs. And that’s if we do our job right. So we’re feeling the weight of it right now.

Having said that, we have a strategy. We're already using an arsenal of resources we brought back from America - 40+ books and 33 DVDs! And it's starting to pay off. In Poppy’s bedtime prayers tonight she thanked God for “the whole earth and for the second one”. As I tucked her in afterwards, I asked what she meant by ‘the second one’. She told me it’s heaven and earth that God will restore after the second-coming of Christ. Nice.

Guess age 5 isn’t too young to start then.

S.

I came back from holiday "NEEDING" an extra-large widescreen monitor to dock with my MacBook Pro when I’m at home, just like Sigmund’s.

Well, it arrived today and it feels like my window into the virtual world I spend so much time in has suddenly got a lot bigger.

Now Sandra "NEEDS" one. And a wireless mouse and keyboard of course.

It's be nice to your Mac week.

S.

Big moment tonight… it’s taken me 2 years of research, patience and persistence but I’ve finally done it…

I CAN BUY MUSIC FROM THE AMERICAN iTUNES STORE!!!

Even 'Livin’ In The Rain'. Oh that feels good.

S.

I heard this over lunch today:

Sa: OK, now, I want you both to sit nicely
Pops: OK Mummy
Moo: What if we do, can we have a treat?
Sa: Yes, you can have a gingerbread man

Sandra gets up, opens a packet of gingerbread man cookies, places one down in front of each bowl

Sa: Now, every time I have to tell you to sit nicely from now on I will remove a limb from your gingerbread man.

The children ate armless, legless and headless gingerbread men after desert.

S.

It was our wedding anniversary yesterday - 17 years - gone like a flash. Although we’ve done a lot in that time it still feels a little disturbing how quickly time falls through our fingers. I guess if Poppy were 16 instead of 5 it would feel like a lot more had happened. And I’m sure I'd feel older.

We started the day by watching a little of our wedding video with the children. How come some people never seem to get older? Poppy loved Sandra’s wedding dress of course. Then it was to work, the gym and the three of us (2+ Barts) went out to dinner at our favourite restaurant – East Beach Café on the beach front at Littlehampton.

On the way Sandra and I got talking about her creation course. The more I hear about it the more convinced I am of how important a solid understanding of creation is to the rest of the Bible. It’s so fascinating that I’m thinking about doing the next course starting in November. But I did wonder how many people get to enjoy talking about the second law of thermodynamics on a date. I guess after 17 years we’ve learned to cut the small talk.

Happy Anniversary Darling!

S.

Can’t believe it’s September already. Booked tickets for my next writing trip early this morning. I’m seeing if I can upgrade my accommodation this time. Homestead Suites are good but I’m keen to feel more at home. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Today was a traditional Saturday – getting loads of jobs done in the morning, taking the kids out to the swings in the afternoon, friends round in the evening. Sandra showed them pics from our trip while I went out to get supper.

There’s a bunch of things I really miss about America. The people. The prices! Going out for ice cream. I could go on. But there’s something very grounding about Beach House life – children playing with their grandparents, cycling off to get fish and chips, walking down to the Lobster Pot for tea and ice lollies, driving around on our funny little roads on the left hand side, padding around in bare feet and shorts on a cloudy low-70’s day with virtually no humidity.

Poppy and I sat outside this morning and had half an hour ‘special time’ just looking at the colours in the seascape – angry/happy clouds, deep grey/Caribbean turquoise sea.

We are blessed to live here.

S.