I wish it could be Christmas everyday....

The day starts with a phone call from my mum to say there's been a huge explosion in Hemel Hempstead but that my sister, Pam, has called to say she and husband Richard are ok...

I check www.bbc.co.uk/news and, right enough, there it is - a massive explosion and fire raging at an oil depot just outside the town...

An industrial estate appears to have been destroyed. Just as well it was 6am on a Sunday and not during the day on a weekday that this accident has happened...

There is a huge influx of messages on the "Have your say" section of the BBC site - mostly along the lines of "I was awoken at 6 by a loud bang - and I live in (name of place quite far from Hemel)"

So I submitted a comment "I was awake at 6 am but I didn't hear anything. Granted I live in Edinburgh, but my sister lives in Hemel if that's any good..."

The BBC declined to publish...

Later in the morning, Anne goes off Christmas shopping - but to save her some trouble, we order a copy of the new Rush 2DVD/2CD set, "R-30" from e-bay as a present from her for me...

Looking forward to that because, when we went to see Rush at the SECC on this particular tour, we didn't see too much due to the number of giants standing in front of us...

Just after Midday, I am once again moving around without my crutches, albeit, very, very slowly indeed...

Ian Sclater arrives and we have a playback of the mix I created of his album. He makes various suggestions and I note these to carry out what will be the very final mix...

Then it's on to the Xmas song....

Ian's written loads of lyrics and needs me to change around the backing track I took so long to create yesterday and sent to him as an MP3 (rather annoyingly, he's not even listened to this so he's written lyrics for a completely different construction of the song)...

After a couple of hours of mucking about with the backing track, I finally get his agreement that what we've got is too long and we need to be more succinct. Then he wants some sleighbells on the track so I sample two appropriate shakes of said instrument from "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard (one of the greatest Xmas songs ever of course)....

After much more mucking about with this, I point out that it's unlikely our recording will be used and if it's to be released it would need to be re-recorded so we're probably wasting time trying to get the bells in exactly the right tempo etc etc...

Ian says it's not being released, they're just looking for Xmas songs - frustrated at this, I ask where I can find details of the competition and log in to the Richard & Judy website only to find that the closing date was Friday 9 December...

I e-mail them the version of the song with my lyric and vocal which I'd recorded quickly yesterday morning anyway and we call it a day...

Meanwhile Anne's been listening to Rangers beat Kilmarnock 3-2 while putting up our Xmas decorations - and lovely they are too...



In the evening I carry out the final mix of the album - Ian's suggestions have enhanced the disc and I am very pleased with the final outcome. It's been a lot of work but it's been worth it...

And the I buy a few CDs from my watch list on e-bay...

Discs by Michael Rother, Procupine Tree, Bill Bruford & Patrick Moraz, Sparks, Adrian Belew, Jane Siberry, Roedelius and Earthworks will soon be popping through the door...