Friends of the Armchair Traveller

Tonight is Xmas eve but I'm not listening to carols. Not because I don't like carols, it's just that I don't like Xmas. New Year's celebrations with hope for the coming year is more up my alley, although I'm not optimistic that 2026 will be any better than 2025. My littler sister got me rolling with a stunning new piece which I know means a lot to her, so I include it here: This exciting gift from Chris set me thinking... why not share some favourite music around? So just to start the ball rolling, I went on a journey through some of my personal favourites which are on my YouTube special list. You may know a few of them but I don't expect you will know all  of them. They range from singers to instrumentalists, male and female performers, solos and duets!  From many parts of the wide world. Why don't we just start with this most unusual number... "Tonada De Luna Llena" Natalia Lafourcade with Gustavo Guerrero  I have a great admiration for song...

 On Sunday 9th November my little sister Chris   (known to so many of her friends as Chrissie)  celebrated a huge day in her life. Chris has been fighting cancer since the shock of her diagnosis in early 2018. At the time her partner Matt was also fighting cancer and Chris looked after Matt until he succumbed to his illness in 2019. That was a tremendously difficult period which Chris negotiated with great love and affection despite being in the horror of wondering what was going on in her own body. Chris continued receiving many different sorts of treatment for her cancer at the Peter Mac up to and throughout the horrible period of COVID which brought our entire society to a grinding halt! Then in 2021 because she was having trouble with her voice which had always been so important to her as a musician and creator of music, she started to take lessons in artwork such as sketching and watercolours. I posted the first blog about this transition in her life in September 202...