They say you shouldn’t reveal a woman’s age. I’m going to break that rule out of gushing pride. I know the woman in question won’t mind. Because, at the grand young age of Sixty Eight, my wife, Ineke Fee, has just swum, cycled and run from the start to finish of her first ever Triathlon.

Ineke is a force of nature. She would be the first to admit that she’s not an athlete. But give her a brick wall to get through, and she’ll be the last human being standing.

The running was always going to be the tough part. She’s got a leg issue which makes it painful. But she did it. Because doing it is what she does!

We’ve all got our brick walls to face. And there are different ways to face them. Ineke smashed hers. And that brought a tear to my eye.

Getting through, is sometimes just a case of getting up again.


Discover Fee’s Music

Spock And Captain Kirk needed to learn to get along.

In our heads we are Spock. Our rationalising is faultless. We are so convincing that we cannot help but believe every word we tell ourselves.

Even if what we tell ourselves amounts to…

”This is what I believe, and nothing you say is going to change my mind”.

Maybe we simply need to acknowledge that about each other.

Maybe we need, more often than not, to say a big fat YES to whoever the other person in front of us is, and instead of trying to change them, help them to move in the direction they want to go. To become the best version of the complex hybrid of obviously wrong opinions mixed with well meant intent, which most of us in fact are.

”Aye, Aye, Captain'“.

“Completo” is a spanish word which means….Full. No more room.

“You can’t get on this bus, mate. It’s completo”.

Which is clearly related to the English word “Complete”. But the English word is commonly used in a different way. It alludes to a sense of accomplishment.

”I’ve finished what I was doing. It’s completed”.

In either language though, it’s time for a new direction:

-Kill some time and wait for the next bus perhaps?
- Go home?
-Start the new project?
-Hang around, feeling lost?

The decision has been made for us. But we still have to decide.

Discover Fee’s Music

The Bus To La Herradura?
It was a mystery trip,
Nothing was surer.
We paid our fare.
It was cheap
To get there.
So we didn’t end up
Very much poorer.


Discover Fee’s Music

A quiet mind.
A useful aim?
I think so.

But every mind
Has an opening
Like a cave
Where The Fruit Bats come home to roost.

I discover, at some point,
That this opening is also an exit.
And that, anyway, those fruit bats
Come home
In order to sleep.

I still wave my arms around
Trying to stop those fruity thoughts flying
Like mad things.
Getting in the way.
Getting in my hair.
Making a racket.

But they need sleep too.
So, eventually, I let them sleep.
Until the next time
They need to eat.

Then I let them fly away.

My breath.

The constant song
Of my very own bee hive mind
Keeping me alive
And conscious.

Yet sometimes that melody is lost
Like some small, unnoticed child
Amongst the
Thronging crowds of noise.

The crash of the ocean seas.
The wind humming in the trees.
The cars upon the city streets.
And the thumping beats.

All of these louder and more insistent
Than the coming and going
Of my tiny, insignificant
Inhale And Exhale.

But none of them more meaningful to me.

I breathe.

Discover Fee’s Music
.

It’s a long story. Even our tiny part of it is long. Beyond telling, in even the smallest fraction of its entirety.

Which parts to tell though? Who even wants to listen? But we keep living the story, and then sharing, and listening to others share, all our parts weaving together into an intricate complex whole.

When we read a great novel, we don’t want it to end.

But we, little me and you, are in a never ending story. Even if our own parts in it will end . And we get to choose the kind of character we play - loud or quiet, impactful or subtle in our influence on the narrative. Albeit limited to an extent by nature and nurture.

Any character in a “real” novel would die to be given this kind of opportunity.

We’ve got it! We’ve got a role in The Very Long Story.


Discover Fee’s Music

The tides fall and rise
Without my say so.
They come and go
To and fro
The fall
The rise.
And though I may have my preferences,
There is no point,
No point at all,
To despise
The one over the other.

My own Fall And Rise
Is no different
To the tides.


Discover Fee’s Music

Help Me To Believe.

I need to get lost in your story, whether it be in the form of a song, or a book, or a film. As soon as I start to doubt….the moment something within the narrative seems unbelievable…. then the magic begins to disappear.

You could win me back. I’m a hard case but I know too well how difficult it is to maintain complete, unfettered focus in a listener, reader or viewer. And it’s very rare for anything to be THAT good. So, we have to be a little forgiving with the story telling, including our own.

But some stories are that good. Sometimes we are completely submerged in the imagined world that is presented before us.

I’m in complete awe of anybody who pulls off that trick.


Discover Fee’s Music

There is a daily blog that I read. It’s read by a few million I think.

Despite its many qualities and its resonance with me personally, sometimes, even fairly regularly, it gets repetitive. Sometimes I can predict what is going to be said.

I doubt it is possible to be creative and fresh all the time. However hard we try. I don’t manage to be that, I know.

But it doesn’t do us any harm to keep trying.

Inspiration needs A Moving Target.