Brave, dignified, noble little Monkey passed away on the 9th of November 2009. He was a beautiful grand old hamster, who will live on in our memories now he is at peace. What a cool little dude. We both loved him dearly. His passing has broken both our hearts.

He came in to our lives and in 2 short years gave us so much joy and was the recipient of so much love, before his old age and weak heart meant that this beautiful little creature had to be put to sleep. He was so brave and dignified, right to the end, keeping his fur in order, cleaning himself as best he could. At the end he was still eating his favourite things, sunflower seeds, dandelion leaves and broccoli but the effort of even having a drink and a snack would cause him to collapse puffing and panting, falling asleep where he lay before waking again and shuffling back to his nest to sleep.

Every creature, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is a living, breathing, thinking, caring and feeling being who deserves our respect and care. Gone are the days when animals are seen as soulless automatons put on the planet for our benefit, an opinion I've always held to be ignorant and self-serving. Care for all animals as if they were your own children, they are a blessing on this planet.

"The use of the word 'dominion' in Genesis, where it is written that God gives man dominion over all creatures, is controversial. Some consider this to be a flawed translation of a word meaning 'stewardship', a word which would indicate that mankind was given a great responsibility to take care of the earth and its various forms of life."

I really must update this more often, Here is what's been happening...

* Britta got a full time contract at London Zoo for 6 months and is now a Zoo Keeper proper!

* We moved house and now live in Manor House. It's the first time I've really lived anywhere other than West London but I am liking it so far.

* Warblefly are getting a head of steam up for the summer. We have just done a couple of gigs and have a few more lined up over the next couple of months including the Wickerman Festival, Wallingford Bunkfest, Broadstairs Folk Week, The Hairth @ Knockengorroch and a few other goodies.

* I bought a couple of cool new cymbals for the drum kit. A 20" A Zildjian ping ride and an 18" Zildjian custom crash. They make a good sound.

* I had an operation on my neck today to chop out a cyst thingy that had been there for ages but they reckoned should come out...

* Went to a Gong gig on Sunday night and Britta and I caught up with Daevid afterwards. What a great gig! It was the first time I'd seen Steve Hillage playing too!

* I have a whole stack of photos to put up at some point.

* I'm sure there's more stuff that's happened..?

Just got back from a seeing Jean Michel Jarre in concert at the Royal Albert Hall with Simon. He played Oxygene on all the original instruments. See some photos here... 

Hello everyone. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. I made a surprise visit to Mum and Dad in Balmy Palmy for Christmas and was just about over the jet lag when I had to fly all the way back to London again. Meanwhile, Britta had a lovely Christmas with her family in St Albans and no jet lag :)

I have been busy uploading Warblefly albums to Last.FM and you can see the results here...

http://www.last.fm/music/Warblefly

Hello everyone. Click on the "New Gallery" link above and you can see that I have a proper gallery again. I am working hard to get some photos up there but  you can see some wedding photos in the 2007 album.

More soon...