Holiday in Seatoller

It's been awhile since I've shown my face around here...I've been busy with my Uni's Summer Project, Been on holiday and started my new band with Annie[Logue]. We are called [OTAKU] which I gather is Japanese or Chinese for the obssessed. I am a manic Manga and Anime fan and I think the name fits well. It has a good punctuation and offers itself up to many interpretation on many levels.

The music that we do is very acoustic based with me on the guitar, bass and sometimes baking vocals and Andrea doing the singing duties. We both studied Contemporary Music together for three years and had a band called The Arcade Superheroes and after a long sabbatical, we got in contact with each other again. It has been great catching up again and we have both matured alot in the process. So, since about late December, we have regularly jammed and wrote songs at least once a week (she lives about 20 miles out of town and it takes about one and half hours to get to her house) and developed a strong 13 song set. The set list comprises of half original material and the others are covers. I'm practising Walking on Thin Ice at the moment (by Yoko Ono) and she's learning a song called The Sandman Calls (one that I've wrote. We have a gig of sorts tomorrow night (Wednesday) at a barv called The Emmott Arms in a village called Cowling. I can't wait...I love the buzzz of performance be it music, acting or artie.

I was kidnapped by Andrea for a week, last week and we went to a little place in the Lake District called Seatoller. It's a sheep farming hamlet and is really ting. The campsite was surrounded by hills and crags and mountainous trepidation. I really enjoyed this holiday. We played music, went fell walking, a lot of photography and general relaxation. I had the chance to hang of cliffs and I took the chance like a bull to a red rag. There is an old slate mine called 'Honister Pass' and that's were this [Via Ferrata] was situated.

Via-Ferrata means Iron Road in Latin and is where climbers train before going to the Alps and other climbing places. It was hard going though. I have a irreversible heart condition called Dilated Cardio-Myopathy which means that my heart is ready to pop but I have medication so I am stable. I had to sign away a disclaimer before I could go onto this adventure. I really enjoyed it, before the illness I was doing all this stuff anyway but...yeah a little reckless. The image above is the group at the summit I'm the one in the dead centre (with the glasses).