22nd August 2021 - Life n Grimes.

Evening everyone.

Today we will be trying to deal with one of the larger issues, that are causing a lot of fights with the Black Dog.

It is a recent addition - brought on by the Covid outbreak and as such, totally caught everyone unexpectedly !.

My Disco !

Some will say it's a silly thing to be-causing the depression ?

But I suspect its hit me even harder as all of my barriers are still down

Also not helped, that several things are totally reliant on the disco for us to have them,!

The disco also provides me with 95% of my money that I need for Fuel,food n drink when we are out on bookings or riding Vincent !

So like a very few people I know, I have had no money since start of 2020!.

So lets start to work thru this. with the Help of Lynne.

2019 was a good year for us,!

with us picking up new bookings all over the place, that would at least double the amount of bookings we had in 2019. and some more were waiting to be Confirmed.

Although I was still maxed out on Antidepressants, we were all very happy.
Especially as we had picked up 2 new stage lighting bookings, instead of just NABD National

So there we were, slowly going thru the kit testing it all getting ready foe the 1st booking in February. 2020, when What we know know as Covid hit and that booking was cancelled !

By the time March 2020 came around all 37 confirmed bookings and the 4 others TBC - were all CANCELLED!.

That was the 1st bought of the deepest depression bout we had to try n fight since we had lost Tim.

In Feb/March I tried to come of the antidepressants and at one of the attempts, we found out just how bad things were on the disco front financially!.

The Van was overdue it's yearly service and check over, looking at see what would be needed later in the year for it's MOT.

Then Came the Road Tax! - which for a few months we SORNED as no money to tax it :( :( Then there was the money we had laid out on service/repairs (that I cannot do) that we had done in early Jan.

Also The Disco covers the Car Insurance (Lynne's for when she passed her test (But now no money to pay for lessons, so the car got SORNED)).

CBRTIM also came to a stuttering Halt once again (are we ever gonna finish him ??? )

So our major priority, is too get as many Disco Related bills/expenses paid for as we can!.

At this stage we took the decision, to notify all our customers, who wanted to re-book as soon as they were able.
(Only 1 Person acted angrily and we have not spoken since.

Shame as they were good friends)) of the situation, as at point we just did not expect to be able to survive if not able to accept bookings by end of April 2020.

So Lynne, Steve n Me sat down and discussed what too do. I was in a real mess, and just could not concentrate easily.

We narrowed things down to 3 options !

1. We call it a day. and I try and find something else to do.

2. We sell of items we no longer use, but in my words keep for backups just in case!

3. We sell off the lighting rig and just concentrate on just providing the disco and 3-4 lights!.

So we went away to think about the 3 choices we have in front of me.

Steve made his mind up with Calling it a day or cutting right back and just doing discos with 3-4 lights...

Both Lynne n Me were not so positive! as it's a lotto to let go off.

So for now we decided to sell of items we have not used for 3-4 years.

This surprisingly helped loads as we were able to keep the van insured, and other Disco bills/ Money owing Paid off.

But we still could not last beyond June 2020!

So I had to keep looking in my boxes in the disco room for more items to sell off.

Plenty of small items that may sell of 99p - £3.99 but as unable to get into the Disco Room properly (due to my health & lack of space in rest of house to store items whilst we went thru the who;e room and remove the items to potentially sell off>)

But we managed to sell enough to keep the disco afloat till Jan 2021 :) :)

This was a big weight off my mind. Although in the end I failed to come off the Antidepressants at least the disco was ok.

But then started the next round with the fight with the black dog (amongst other things that were not making the fight a fair one!).

The worry that when bookings did start to come in :-

1. Would I be well enough.

2. Steve's serious diagnosis.

3. Would I be able to Dj as well or better than I am used too.

4. Crowds are now a huge issue for me !!

1. The Disco over the years has consistently provided a good enough reason for me, to get my health in a better place. And give me the get up n go to try my best.

2. Only Time will tell here. There is no doubt that Steve's diagnosis came as a huge shock and it pulled me up severely as to whether we should carry on...

3. This fear is probably the worst fear I have. As those that know me well and see me behind the scenes know just how much pressure I put on myself to do the best I can !

I have this constant fear of failing and letting down those who booked me, as well as it affecting my pride & Health.

I have also Spoken to Rick Hulse about this and we are sure at the events Rick Books me for, we can manage this issue. So now just gotta worry about the smaller events (if we get any bookings for 2021/2022.

So things settled down for a while with constant flair ups with Black Dog sometimes caused by the stress n worry about the disco.

But then I phoned Rick to just have a chat and he confirmed that NABD NATIONAL 2022 & NABDdonia will be going ahead (Subject from any restrictions still imposed.)

This started a few more bookings coming in for 2022 - but then I realised How the fuck am I gonna survive till May 2022 !!

And this has started the latest fight with the Black Dog & the Disco !!

At the moment things are stable as they can be - we are ok till mid September 2021 so far.

So I will have to delve back into the disco room and see if can find more items to sell off.

But the fights are getting harder and harder to pull thru and win.

with the uncertainty being the biggest factor! and there is nothing I can do about that!

Old Nicks Tavern has re-booked us for News Years eve (Subject to any restrictions) and altho stressed we are looking forward to that booking as we love being at Old Nicks as a guest,playing Guitar or any bookings they get for us....

Ok so we still have not resolved this issue, and in all honesty it's not gonna be resolved until we finally have 3-4 bookings under our belts once more.

At the moment, we are NOT looking beyond 2022, as we all want to see we all cope with 2022 first...

Fingers crossed jotting his down will help me with any future bouts of the Black Dog were the Disco is causing the issue......

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