Tomorrow is July 2nd, and that will be the start of the second half of 2010. I know this absolutely because I have been keeping a diary, and today is the 182nd day, with 183 to go - hence tomorrow will be on the other side of that equation.

I have kept up my promise to myself to repeat last year's experiment of a diary, depsite my wife's occasional piercing stare and betty boo voiced "Dear Diary, today the flowers were out, and the sun was in the sky....." as I am sitting at the lap top, bashing out a couple of days worth of memories.

I continue the belief that the diary has actually inhibited creative writing - for me song lyrics - as that is something I have done little of this year. Indeed, looking at a box full of lyrics from years ago, it seemed that all I had time for in the mid 1990's was writing lyrics, and bad ones at that. Now those subject matters are dealt with, and I'm not sure whether the world is ready for a truly "middle aged" album, about putting the bins out on a Tuesday, discussing the price of a fence between me and the next door neighbour and school parents evenings.

Stangely enough in the last couple of days I feel incredibly confident that if I had nothing else to do, I could have easily started and finished an album - there is a mentally creative streak running through me at the moment, but I am simply too tired to do anything about it when I actually have the time to do something about it.

Night-time, and running up to and beyond Midnight specifically, has always been my witching hour - the time when the best stuff came, the homework hour, the creative zone, the time when the world was less cluttered with other interesting things, and I could go on, knowing I wasn't missing out on anything. Anytime after 11pm that I am up now is a mistake which I pay for every following day.

Remaining positive about this year, though, I have enjoyed a lot of it, from the births of two nephews and two nieces, to seeing our two flourish and simply become more whole, without seeming to lose anything - I am told regularly that there comes an age where children move away from you and start to dissapoint, but we are way off that yet. Work has been stable, and creatively I have actually managed to play some music and record some demos, but nothing like the amount or standard that I would want.

And there is the Noble Grape, which is all done and dusted musically, having been mixed down brilliantly and highly professionally by my sparing partner Mickey Simmonds, and we have that alone at the end of this year as the product of two years writing, recording, fiddling with and re-mixing. It is a good album, I think, and will be worth sending out to a few people around Christmas time.

I was really thinking about a DVD suppliment to the album, and I had a "mockumentary" approach in my mind, and several characters to play, who would all say what a great band The Noble Grape were - in their own heads. We have some footage from the recording sessions, now nearly two years ago, and with photos from 1996/97, I could make an interesting ten/fifteen minute short.

But here is where reality kicks in - years ago, had I had this idea, and even if I hadn't have had the facilities to do it, which I actually have now, I would not have hesitated saying that it was worth the time and effort, because, quite frankly, I could have spent days, even weeks working on an edit, and it wouldn't have mattered. Now time matters a great deal, and it is too unimportant, which is sad but realistic.

The diary is a great leveller and proves to me, day after day that I am achieving things, but it also shows me that I wake up and it is nearly lunchtime, I have lunch and it is nearly teatime, I come home from work and it is practically bedtime, and whilst I say this knowing that I have (luckilly) much more time than most, as I work several days from home, and don't have that punishing schedule that means I miss days, rather than hours, it is still not enough time to do the "extras".

U2 sang a song called "Running To Stand Still" and I think that is genuinely what we all do from a certain age in life. If we don't we risk missing, or losing the people that we have decided to spend out time with, and while it is possible to resent those immediately around you for not allowing you the time to go off on flights of fancy, at the drop of a hat, keeping them beside you, and spending time with them, has got to be a prize worth paying that price for.

Looking at the diary, it won't win any Booker prize for plotline, mainly because the plotline is very very samey. Mondays are always the same, Tuesdays are always the same, and so on throughout the week. The changes come in terms of the TV programme you watch that night, or the new album you discover, or a book, or whatever - but the practicalities stay the same.

When you realise that when the normal ends, it is the worst moment; when what you take for granted, you can't take for granted anymore; when the mundane becomes tortured; when you realise that what you most want in your life is exactly what you had before, but this time a chance to celebrate it before it is gone. The diary is showing me what a lucky boy I am. I go from day to day of the same normal stuff, from Sunday through to Saturday, the same routine, the same people, the same love, and I am very very happy about it.

As my good friend, and Scotsman Ali Greenlaw says, "lang may your lumb reek".

MAS 2010