We have a little trip on the horizon, nowhere too exotic though. We shall be hading up to Shrewsbury in a few weekends time to see Camera Obscura our lovely friends from Glasgow. The following night they are playing in Wolverhampton, so we shall go to that gig as well.I hope to be able to hear them playing!

Heavy wax build up in my ears is quite a regular thing for me and the ear syringing trip has been something of a joy on many occasions in the last 20 years or so. The ritual in the week before a session takes place is part of the fun, in order to loosen the wax, olive oil needs to dripped into the offending ear when going to bed for around a week beforehand. It's a messy process and I tend to end up with pillows that smell like an Italian chief's apron. I'm hoping that the plus side will be beautifully preserved ears when the rest of me looks old and wizened.

So on the Friday before last I took the short walk to Logan Road, in anticipation that ten minutes later the world would be offering me a cornucopia of audible delights, rather than the the rather gloopy, muddled mess that had been reaching my brain. All started well, as the water sloshed around my inner ear and the nurse made complementary comments about the ease at which the wax was emerging, so my oiling technique is obviously pretty slick, if you'll pardon the pun.

Sadly when the process was finished, the change to the hearing in my left ear was minimal. Maybe some water was trapped which would dribble out later? The nurse said that I should "carry on oiling" (the least known on the Carry On films?) and if things were no better come and see them again next week.

Well the week came and went, and poor Orynthia still had to ensure that she was standing upwind when wanting to mention anything to me. So last Friday I returned with a degree of apprehension, what if all these years of listening to music has done serious, unrepairable damage and the rest of my life would be carried out with the equivalent of a cotton wool balaclava over my ears?

The nurse took a look into my ears and declared them to be in pristine condition, now I was worried. If there was no blockage why was I struggling so hard to make sense of the noises around me? After further questioning she deduced that their may be a blockage in the internal pipework in my head! No problem though, she advised take ibrobufen for three days inhale as much hot steam as you can an the tubes may open up. So that's what I've been doing over the weekend and thankfully it look like it's working.

Fortunate really, as Camera Obscura are not really in the Motorhead stakes when it comes to volume at their gig.