Summer holiday reds

Today's the first day of my son's summer holidays and previously I've dreaded the summer break. As a child it meant being abandoned by dad at a caravan site in Devon with my brother and mum for 4 straight weeks together in a 4-berth tourer, come rain or shine. The first week or so was the worst, with bickering and grumbles. Then we would get into the rhythm of the sea and go surfing in time with the tides, and the time in the small caravan became more bearable. When Ethan was smaller, I would get irritated a lot with tiredness and depression and so my dreads of the long summer break would return, although I did try to break up the weeks as much as possible with short trips to my mum's or day trips out to museums etc, one a week.

This year however our summer project, along with day trips out, is for Eth and me to learn how to play the acoustic guitar. I played folk guitar when I was at primary school and learnt to play classical guitar badly for a few years at secondary school, but it's some 30 years since I last played. Today we went to get our guitars, music stands, books, guitar straps, plectrums etc, and we're both chosen red guitars - hence the blog title, as opposed to summer holiday "blues"... We've had our first guitar lesson today from a teach yourself book and it went quite well - not too tied up with fingers, frets and strings :). So mum and son fest coming soon to a spare bedroom or a back garden near us this summer. My tennis elbow's aching a bit but I'm so looking forward to playing the guitar again for pleasure xx