First Blog: Summer Update

Summer is slowing to a halt just as quickly as it revved up. Feels like just the other day when I started to feel the riptide so to speak. It’s always the same story. I get back to PEI after a busy school year and suddenly I have nothing to do. I feel guilty that I’m not working night and day. Next thing you know summer hits and I’m playing eleven to sixteen shows a week wishing it was May again.

Truth be told, I’m glad it isn’t May. Anybody who knows me knows I try to live in the present. This has been a great summer. I enjoy the hectic schedule, and I don’t exaggerate when I say eleven to sixteen shows a week. By the end of my busiest week this summer my index finger had bled twice.

Tonight we had a ceilidh in Stanley Bridge and I spotted some friends from Englehart, Ontario a few rows from the stage. I had met them last summer so I approached them after the show to chat. Their daughter Bethany had performed a song at our ceilidh in 2018. She has a lovely voice. I also chatted with my friends the Rouhani’s from Hamilton, Ontario. They are great supporters. I visited them for Easter dinner in the spring. After consuming a winter’s worth of sad slow-cooked stews and countless Burger King meal deals, it is fair to say that I had a good plate (or three) of turkey dinner at the Rouhani’s. It was a supper-then-sing occasion rather than the usual converse structure of events.

After dessert I squatted to pick up my guitar. This proved to be too much to ask of my groovy 1970’s Value Village pants. They ripped in E-minor: or was it E-flat? Whatever the case, the Rouhani’s were gracious enough to give me a pair of black jeans which I have received great mileage from ever since!

When this wild summer is over I will make another post of some summer highlights. Yesterday I turned twenty-one. Life is good. As a pig-farming friend of mine often tweets after Sunday mass: “Went to church today. No change. God still good.”

Anyhow, lots to recall with a smile, lots to look forward to. Most importantly, a lot of learning has occurred over the summer. I would like to write a few new songs when I get back to Toronto for my final year of university.

All the best folks,

Shane.