Doing Nothing Is Actively Doing Something

Today’s my birthday. ‘Happy birthday’ you say. Well thank you. That’s very kind of you. But what am I doing on this ‘special’ day you may ask? Well, I have taken the day off work and my only plan is to meet Mrs Away From The Noise for lunch later. Other than that, I’m doing […]

How To Be Happy Being Slow

I love listening to podcasts and while looking for some new ones, I recently noticed a facility on my podcast app where you can ‘speed listen’. I presume that the objective of this is that the faster you listen, the more you consume, the more productive/better/faster you will be in your own life and this […]

How Portland, Oregon Can Help You Appreciate Life More by Doing Less

A while ago, I spent a few months travelling across the USA and one of my favourite places was the rather laidback city of Portland, Oregon. There is a thriving food, art, music and craft beer scene and it’s also renowned for its slight hippyness. What’s not to like? Maybe I could sense something in […]

It’s The Little Things

As we live our lives, from time to time it can feel like we’re treading water and that we’re surrounded by the same old ‘greyness’ and it’ s true that the world can be a terrible place for all kinds of reasons, however there is beauty and joy in even the little things we see and […]

Can What’s Missing Be Your Strength?

I have been a fan of Q (English music magazine) for many years and in the latest issue, I was reading an interview with a band called Royal Blood. Now I’m not really a rock fan but every now and again a band comes through that I really like and Royal Blood are currently and […]

Rip It Up And Start Again

When digital music first came about a few years ago, I loved the idea of having access to pretty much any music I wanted and these days, whether it’s downloading or streaming, there are even more opportunities to have no physical music and own more music ‘that you can’t touch’ and I find a strange […]

What Do You Really Need?

It’s Thursday, so it’s podcast day here at Away From The Noise and today I’m back home in Granada. If you’ve been listening to or reading this blog over the past few weeks, you’ll know that I’ve recently been travelling around the centre of Spain. As a result of this experience, I have learnt a […]

One Thing At A Time

You would think that it would be easier to do one thing at a time, but how many people do you see who are doing two or perhaps more of the following everyday things at the same time?: – chatting – reading/looking at mobile phone/tablet – communicating (making a phone call/sending an email/text/Whatsapp) – listening […]

Happy Digital Bonfire Night

I use the app/website Pocket to keep any article, videos or links that could be of interest to read another time and it has been an incredibly useful tool. Whenever I have some ‘dead’ time, I go to Pocket and catch up on those articles I’ve been meaning to read for a while. However going […]

How To Get Away From The Noise?

After living in London for 17 years, my wife and I decided to move to Granada in the south of Spain in 2014 to get ‘away from the noise’. Most people assume that the ‘noise’ was the urban-ness of the millions of people and the traffic chaos of the big city and to some extent […]

Being Away From The Noise In Granada

Hi There are many different reasons why we may want to get away from the noise of our daily lives and there are countless ways to help you do so. This blog is my way of doing that. I live in Granada in the south of Spain, write songs on my slightly battered acoustic guitar […]

Embracing The Melancholy

It’s been raining here recently and while looking out at the downpour earlier today, it got me thinking about the nature of water. In the same way that perhaps water embraces and absorbs the energy around it to move forward, I noticed I was doing the same today. I walk a lot here in Granada and when it’s […]