This is tune I came up with while noodling on the piano in October 2020. This version and was recorded in December 2020 and a the sounds you hear come from the cavaquinho. For the full stereo effect, try listening on headphones.

The title comes from seeing a neighbour's kittens frolicing in my garden - see photo.

This is a version of 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' I wrote in December 2020. I was inspired by a friend who re-wrote 'We Three Kings'. It references other songs written by me and my friends.

Here are the words:

We wish you a Merry Christmas

We wish you a Jolly Yuletide

We wish you Splendid Solstice

And a happy new year

Now bring us some silly songs

Now sing us some silly songs

Now play us some silly songs

And some silly tunes too

We sing about goats and elephants

And seagulls and boats and toasters

We tootle and we pootle

And we must call the zoo

'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' is a traditional English carol from the south west of England that has been around is various guises at least since the 19th century.

More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Wish_You_a_Merry_Christmas

In this episode I look back at 2020 and talk about what I've been up to this year in terms of work, language learning and other stuff.

In this episode I discuss success and failure, particularly in relation to learning languages. Are they just different ways of look at the same thing? At what point can you say that you have succeeded to learn a language, or have failed? Does it matter?

In this episode I discuss which languages are hardest to learn, and what makes some languages more difficult to learn than others. It’s not possible to provide a definitive list of the most challenging languages as it depends on a variety of factors. This hasn’t stopped people from doing this anyway.

See also: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=1036

In this episode I discuss which languages are easiest to learn for native speakers of English, and what factors make languages easy or difficult to learn, including grammar, spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, the availablity of resources, and so on.

In this episode I take you on an adventure in etymology, the study of where words come from, and how they have changed over time. I start with the word etymology, and see where I end up.

You can also hear this, and other episodes of my podcast, at: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=1018

In this episode I talk about Dutch (Nederlands), a West Germanic language spoken mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. I talk about the language itself and its history, about my attempts to learn it, and related stuff.

You can find notes and links for this episode at: https://www.omniglot.com/radio/?p=1004

This is a little jig I came up with in June 2020 while noodling on the cavaquinho. The name comes from seeing a kindle of kittens cavorting on my garden shed one time. I didn't take any photos on that occasion, but did take one of other cats on the shed.

This version of the tune was recorded by me on the cavaquinho, mandolin, guitar and bodhrán in Bangor in June 2020. On the recording I play around with stereo effects and reverb, as you do.

You can find the dots for a slightly different arrangement at: https://musescore.com/user/16918231/scores/5667004

This is a song I wrote in June 2020 inspired by the goats that came down from the Great Orme and took over the streets of Llandudno during the lockdown.

This recording features me singing and playing the ukulele. The chords are C, F, Am, G and G7

Here are the words:

There are goats in the gardens

and dancing down the drives

racing round the roundabouts

and chewing all the chives

Chorus

Oh where did they come from

and where will the go?

It doesn't really matter

So let's enjoy the show

They're prancing down the promenade

and up and down the beaches

They're jumping through the hedges

and giving little speeches

There are goats in the greenhouse

and goats on the roofs

and goats in the flowerbeds

hopping on their hooves