Lucky 13

Wake up! Wake up! You're thirteen!

If I can't muster a post on this blog's birthday – 13 on the 13th to boot – then there is surely no hope for it.

Once again I have been silent for a while – in fact, Happy New Year!

So, if there are any of you still checking in occasionally, I hear you wondering: were there reasons for the latest silence? Yes, and no. It all started with our central heating. Or rather, lack of it. We came home from our US trip at the end of last October knowing it needed some attention. The boiler, which is basically new, was happily pumping away but the radiators, one by one, had started to stop radiating. The man was called. He was puzzled, but decided some acid in the system and a flush through should sort it out. It didn't. As Christmas approached the only radiators giving out heat were in our kitchen and conservatory (they were on their own loop). As the system and the radiators were old we bit the bullet and decided to go for a re-pipe and replace most of the radiators. Unfortunately our man couldn't do it for six weeks from the point of decision. So we hunkered down in the lounge – which had a gas fire – and kitchen/conservatory over Christmas and throughout January. A couple of fan heaters were drafted in for other areas of the house. (It did make us think this was normal for our parents and us as children in the days before central heating was commonplace, and we don't know how lucky we are nowadays).

As far as this blog is concerned the point of all this is the record room, which is north facing and cool at the best of times, was bl**dy cold! A fan heater could warm it up but fan heaters are noisy and not conducive to listening to music. So the record room became almost out of bounds. It was the end of January – the day before the snow arrived luckily – before we could once again feel nice and toasty in our own house. The source of the original problem was never really found, but now we realise the system had not really been that efficient for years. The upheaval – floors up, furniture and stuff shuffled around, left its mark through most of February as we took the opportunity to redecorate a room and do some general sorting out. This meant the record room became a holding room so once again was almost off limits vinyl wise.

The record room is where I am typing this on my laptop, and although I could type it anywhere habit dictates that it is usually the record room, with vinyl in close proximity, where Feel It's posts are composed. That is the thing with habits too, when you fall out of them it sometimes takes a while to pick them up again. And so, now in mid March, that is how Feel It's 2019 is only just beginning. Quite frankly it was only the sudden realisation that his blog was about to be 13 that snapped me into action!

I could make a new blog year resolution to post more frequently, but I have never been one to make resolutions, so that is probably not a good idea. However, the record room is warm once again, and relatively clutter free, and I have broken the 2019 silence so there is a fair chance of some action around here again!

I have still been acquiring records (of course!), and a few have been played. One that became a real earworm was (another) Jackie Wilson single. As you dig deeper you realise there is so much to admire in his catalog. Once again peerless vocals matched by a stunning arrangement.

Jackie Wilson – Let This Be A Letter (To My Baby) 1970

PS: As is tradition here on this day in March: !! Happy Birthday Candi Staton !!