Last week I took my guitar into a music store in Penrith for a long overdue service and restringing. Yesterday I got it back with a relatively clean bill of health. At twenty years of age, it still has a lot of life left yet.

Said guitar has sat near the printer for nearly two years now, only occasionally played. This was not the case only a few years before when it got a regular weekly outing to a café set up by Anglicare for clients and staff in Mt Druitt. It was not the case either some years before that again when, in a previous marriage, I would spend hours working on a few songs for our regular music parties as well as accompaniments for other singers who needed a guitarist.

I bought the Yamaha in Kyoto around 2002, hoping to turn some of my English classes into more special occasions by learning the text book CD songs and rendering them live. It worked a treat - kid faces lit up when I pulled it from its case and began teaching them a song. It was a really useful Tesol aid and I brought it back to Australia in 2007. It's not a top quality instrument, but its sounds good, plays well and does the job.

So, I plan to get back into playing, going over some of my old café repertoire and learning new material. I trust you will hold me to it!

Back home again.