There will be those who say “what?” when they see the title of this post. There will be others who go “oh yes, Jacob’s Ladder…I see”. Some of the second group will say “Oh I LOVE that, I’ve not heard it in years”.

The thing is you see, it’s not always what jumps out and bites you that is what’s important in a shot. In this case, in the foreground are some flowers, nice though they are, they were almost certainly bought from a supermarket. (It wasn’t me that bought them so I have no idea from whence they came.) So, in other words they are unremarkable for every reason other than that they were kindly bought by the people who looked after JD and Lola while we were away.

Behind the flowers is a stack of records (yep, you know - proper records, made from vinyl and that revolve at either 33rpm or 45rpm) that we’ve been listening to – The Monochrome Set’s Jacob’s Ladder in the front and Nine Below Zero’s album “Don’t Point Your Finger” (not only is this one made of vinyl, it's made of bright green vinyl). That Monochrome Set’s single is one of my best tunes. I love it. It comes on the stereo and I can’t stop myself from leaping around like I’m deranged. Perhaps I should put it on now – I could do with some cheering up…

Due to the wonder of t'interweb, I can quickly see that The Monochrome Set are still with us, or perhaps more accurately with us again, and that the sublime Jacob's Ladder was issued on Blanco Y Negro in 1984. Don'tcha just love looking in the corners of life. I know I've made observations of this nature before but I really hope that the band know how happy they made me and my friends back in the day. No, strike that - I hope they know that I am still made gloriously happy from the moment I hear the opening bars of the song.