The only constant, is change.

After a month of working on building a work stream, November reached my target and brought it's own distractions, stress and excitement.

You'll see seven of the instruments I worked on in the image above, each had it's own story and finished with a happy owner. There were other guitars, two set up classes and some significant life events too.

Life events

It's a strange feeling having your youngest child reaching 18!  Obviously there was much celebration, food, music and sarcastic comments about leaving home.

A seven layer "monster cake" was one of the the highlights.

They say if you fail to study history, then you are doomed to repeat it. I get the "History repeating itself" feeling. Almost exactly 30 years ago in a small street in London, I was part of the protest against the UK Government and their urban motorway expansion plans. If you'd like to know more search "No M11 Link Road protest".

From the Guardian, November 26th 2024:
In the end, the police spent more than £1m evicting the protesters. The M11 link road still got built, of course. Nobody believed the campaign would stop it. “But what it did do,” says Drury, “was it turned the roads programme into a political thing. So, we won the moral argument, even if we didn’t win that battle.”

When Labour came into power in 1997, it cut the major road schemes inherited from the Tories from 150 to 37, and pledged to focus on public transport.

Back to teaching

During those 30 years, I spent some time as a secondary school teacher. Written in my leaving card, by a colleague, was "You've not thrown your last piece of chalk, Mr. Bacon!"  suggesting that my teaching days were not over.

True enough, during November I have run two guitar set up classes and my next one is running on December 7th. I promise you though I don't throw any chalk, but a little pencil graphite can be useful.

Finally, please check out the website for other classes I am planning for 2025, Fret Polishing and Level, Crown and Polish.

Have a great week,
Richard