If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!
1. In normal circumstances I should have been packing my bags now, ready to head home to the UK for my Annual Summer Organ Recital Tour. Six weeks or so ‘on the road’, involving 3,000+ miles behind the wheel and all the ‘on-site’ preparation, not to mention the presentations themselves in about 24 different venues. These have tended to start in North Yorkshire and then head progressively southwards, diverging to both east and west along the way, and hopefully finishing up on the south coast of England.
Last year the Covid pandemic forced the abandonment of the whole venture, so I bravely set about trying to ‘reschedule’ as many of the appearances as possible for 2021. Surely, I though, the situation will have been resolved by then, and life will have returned essentially to ‘normal’. How mistaken could I have been!
2. The UK has made good progress with the vaccination programme, but nevertheless the country has been experiencing a 3rd wave and infections growing in intensity. Here in Thailand to date only minimal headway has been made, and despite living in a popular tourist area and being in the priority age group, there appears to be no hope at all of getting a first ‘jab’ before October at the earliest, with some saying this will in fact not be until early in 2022. Another major complicating factor is that, having left Thailand, it is now well-nigh impossible to gain re-entry into The Kingdom without being required to jump through any number of wholly unreasonable ‘hoops’ which, at my time of life, I’m simply not even prepared to consider.
3. That unfortunately leaves me with no option but to stay put here for the foreseeable future, and so alas, my Summer Tour for the 2nd year in succession has had to be cancelled. To say this is heart-breaking doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings, but must ‘bite the bullet’ now and begin writing to the various folks who were to be hosting me to explain the predicament. Hopefully some at least, where the venue doesn’t book up too far in advance, might be able to offer me a comparable date in 2022!
4. As always though, I shall be looking to venture into pastures new, and if you would like a recital, do please make contact, either here or else in a PM if you don’t have my email address. Please don’t worry about money at this stage – I should hate anyone who wanted me to play to feel that lack of cash was an insuperable impediment!. For obvious reasons I do try to group things in areas, so as to reduce time spent driving as much as is practicable, so if 2 or more people can get together and offer more than one venue in an area, that helps enormously and would be greatly appreciated. I’ll plan to be in the UK from just prior to the start of July until the middle of August – would love to be able to do another fortnight, but wearing my other hat as the Parish Priest of Pattaya, simply can’t be away from my flock any longer!
Thank you all for taking the time and trouble to read this, and look forward to hearing from folks in due course!
