25/07/2024
Greetings, BYAMtches. Well... you're owed a very overdue explanation of just where the heck we've been. I'll answer the most obvious question first though: NO... BYAMPOD isn't done. We'll be back. Promise.
The longer explanation is... my mum's health took a sudden dramatic turn for the worse a couple of months ago. She's been in and out of hospital with end stage heart failure, which rapidly progressed to vascular dementia. We've been watching her slip away both mentally and physically, and it has been very hard on the whole family.
I'm sure a lot of you have been through similar with your own parents, and know the toll it takes.
Additionally we've been dealing with the cost of her ongoing care - which brings a whole lot of other stresses. We're now in the process of selling her house to pay for it, and... meh. Yuck. All of it.
It has put huge pressure on my ability to work and earn money, so when I do have the time, that's what I've needed to focus on, just to get the bills paid. It has meant we've been limited in terms of the energy and time we have, and we needed to prioritise the kind of extracurricular projects we do.
Weirdly, all of this coincided with our YouTube channel - Digitiser - suddenly going viral, and gaining an influx of new viewers. We chose to focus on that as the one thing we do beyond the day jobs, because it gets us out of the house, takes our minds off of everything, and actually brings in a little revenue.
That's been our priority outside of my mum; just trying to find moments of self-care and joy.
Our channel has become much more BYAMPOD-like in the past year (just with less Marillion), so if you do want a bit more Sanja and I to tide you over until we're back with BYAMPOD we've plenty to choose from.
I recommend these two:
We spend the night in a haunted museum: https://youtu.be/nVlPUG3gG74?si=IGkfYJZh3LysEms4
We explore the history of Britain at war, before taking a sharp left-turn into investigating the military-industrial complex: https://youtu.be/sDm5SaRqWHI?si=VpKFWeOcSD-9-GEZ
So, apologies again for just suddenly disappearing. I'm well aware of how unreliable we've been over the past year. Unfortunately, BYAMPOD is - for us - a hobby as much as anything, an indulgence, and that meant it was the first thing to fall by the wayside when the going got tough.
Those of you who've been with us a long time will know we've had a particularly rough couple of years.
BYAMPOD and its audience has been one of the bright points of that time. We've always loved hearing from you, loved interacting with you, loved meeting you at gigs and Weekends. We don't want to throw that away, so you can be sure we will be back. We talk about BYAMPOD every week. It just needs to be when the time is right.
Until then... other Marillion podcasts are available!
Much love to you all,
Paul (and Sanja... though she's in the shower right now and doesn't yet know what I've written, but she concurs with all of it, probably)
