It's a beautiful sunny, though slightly chilled Saturday morning. One of those mountain autumn days where there can be, if you're lucky, an unexpected collision of cool air and warm light. But Tom is away with his Mum for the next few days and so I have before me, a time of relative solitude. It's my job to make this time productive rather than too reflective. I'm not interested in navel gazing.

Strangely, I find that my singing gigs at the outreach cafe on Fridays are calming. Not at all anxiety inducing. Maybe I am just getting used to being in front of an audience. Maybe I am becoming more accepting of making mistakes and just getting on with it. In the past, the opposite has been the case, and a missed chord or wrong lyric would be just too embarrassing, throwing me for the next part of the song. Or causing me to look for blame elsewhere. Yesterday I started a song in the wrong key(I had the capo on from a previous song) and knowing that there was no way I could sing that high, I stopped and started again. I felt a bit of a goose but soon recovered. I guess also that the people there are so kind that they would never try to point out a mistake, and having a cafe atmosphere ( rather than being a performance venue), it's also true that no one is paying that much attention. Yes, I am really starting to enjoy my time each week there and I think that I am becoming a better performer too. Though that was never my aim.

So Saturday, I embrace you and with God' s help (for no other is sufficient), will try to stay in the groove.