well that will teach me, after all that work, and mess the leak is still there, only it has moved to another part of the skylight. i have to face the facts, i have lost this game and will have to fork out for a proper builder.  it has caused me great distress and means i have to move out for a week while they fix it up. the last few days have been crazy, tradies in and out, work and various other commitments. i can't do anything except focus on what needs doing urgently. 

in other news i did manage to connect with my friends jean and tez in the uk, it was very disappointing that i couldn't see them last visit, i really wanted to. plus they travelled to spain to visit our old guitar player martin von donaldson, who now resides in the mountains teaching flamenco guitar.  they kindly sent me some lovely pics of martin. it's strange when you have not seen someone for 40 years and gaze upon them after such time. i just remember a think ziggy stardust haircut, a sort of keith richards swagger and strut as he walked, a sort of rock and roll panache and grace when he played. he was a character. and apparently he has not changed. i miss him, a very smart switched on cat, i hope one day our paths cross again. all four off us, and lets drag chris in on piano, we have all come a long way from where we started and these are my friends, people i really dig. the distance has not decreased that. when i was a kid i never fitted into any group or trend until i met these guys because we were all freaks in a kind, strange individuals who followed nothing except bowie, berlin and the spirit of adventure. 

tez is such a smart intelligent man, beautiful really. his knowledge is expansive, not just history, geography ect but the esoteric. i think he was a rosicrution mystic at an early age, although he was very discrete and never mentioned much, he was like a wise old man even as a teenager. out of all of us he maintained his wisdom, along with his partner genie who was also a member of out little group. she herself is a huge intellect and amazing individual, always offering me practical solutions and again very knowledgeable about all sorts of esoteric stuff. 

we lost contact for about 20 years and somehow reconnected. not sure how but it involved the internet. one thing i must say, since reconnecting they both have always been very supportive and encouraging of any work i do. if it was not for them i would probably just dream life away without really doing anything. i'm very glad we are friends, i really look forwards to my skype calls with them.

chris went on to be the most accomplished musician of us, a very talented keyboad man, his last release was called, 'ziggy played harpsichord' and is exactly what you think it is.

looking at martins photograph i thought about how lucky i was to know these people. i was probably the least talented member, the one who would forget words, timing was dreadful, was not really rock and roll at all. it's strange now looking back upon those years, we just looked up to our heroes and hopes some of their magick would rub off on us. martin wanted to be a rolling stones, i wanted to be a bowie, tez was a classic ridem and blues man, while chris was most defiantly a jazz druid who could really play the honky tonk london clapped out bar piano.