Last time I wrote here, it was snowing . . . . . . .

What a weird year it has been so far - and it's only April.

The prime minister of Great Britain has taken to calling his potential voters bigots and we've had four seasons of weather (and quite extreme seasons at that) in four short months. Nobody has any money and everybody seems to want to blame somebody else for that and all their other problems.

Despite still being a penniless musician, I've just moved out of my parents' house for the first time in 15 years which has proved enormously positive and enormously exciting. It's also spurred on all sorts of other opportunities. I initially went even further than I ended up settling on by going over to London for three weeks which I loved except that I had a reality check and realised that I couldn't stay. I would run out of energy and money within about a month of needing the sort of money staying in a place necessitates. Still, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people, play some of my songs, meet old friends and make new ones, go to the theatre and some gigs, and get to travel on lots of trains. I love trains.

I came back rested and having realised that two bands I was in were both timebombs waiting to happen, I realigned my priorities and have worked steadily on a number of other projects since then. I have decided to release my own third solo CD The Shape Of Things in September. It's an album of lullabies, something I discovered whilst trying to decide the order of tracks. Put it this way, they're extremely effective lullabies. Just don't listen to it while you're driving. Apart from the fact that one of the composers of the tracks I didn't write has been left somewhat upset by my level of improvisation on his tune, I've been getting good feedback from people listening to the pieces - I look forward to playing some gigs around the launch.

I'm also playing with Keith Mullins, SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift. These three guys write, sing and play fantastic music. I have a bit of a split personality - I'm a big music fan and a performer. As a fan, there's nothing more inspiring than the fact that we are in an extremely exciting time for new CDs but that's also a bit intimidating as a performer. It's all part of the challenge. My label - Shandon Records - is going to release Ronan's second CD early next year and Ronan and I are working together to start turning the cogs of self-promotion already. SJ, Ronan and I are doing a Round Robin Gig in Bewleys on 19th May - looking forward to that.

And I've taken to music promotion - working with Conor Daly of Nota, an independent classical music promoter who I've known and sung in choirs in for a long time. He's bringing Thomas Hampson to the National Concert Hall to sing American Artsong with his collaborative partner, German pianist Wolfram Rieger. We're in the throes of writing press releases - a new experience but one I'm enjoying immensely.

And I'm also busy playing accompaniments myself in exams for flautists, violinists, singers and recorder players in various schools and music schools around Dublin. It's hectic but good fun and a great opportunity to meet the professional musicians of tomorrow. Keeps you on your toes.

Possibly the most exciting gig of all was last night when I played piano for a staged reading of a fascinating play "On Religion" by AC Grayling and Mick Gordon. It's quite an intense play but really makes you think and pushes you to question spirituality, religion and faith in your own life and in the world, something that in these very dark days we need to do more than ever.

See you,

jj