What a difference a year can make. Last Easter morning, I was celebrating with my friends and host family at a packed church in Ghana with my girlfriend Kate - an exhilarating, if exhausting, experience. As the congregation danced, smiled and heartily sung their way through the service, looking immaculate in their Sunday dress, the huge fans overhead struggled to maintain a comfortable temperature, as the country sweltered in the approach the rainy season. So much was familiar - the Anglican service, the hymns, the Easter message - yet a quick glance out of the window (no glass, just mosquito netting) reminded us that were in Africa - palm trees, goats everywhere, scorched red earth. A year on, as I write, I am tucked up under a duvet on St. Agnes, the smallest and most remote of the Isles of Scilly, 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall, with a strong north-easterly wind and rain rattling the windows outside. The view out of the window here is equally spectacular - the rough sea breaking over the western rocks, and further out, over the Bishop Rock lighthouse. This afternoon, Kate and I will wrap up and go for a no-doubt bracing walk, followed by a roast with her family and then spend the evening in by the log burner. Ghana feels a world away, yet I will be back there in just over a week, and so I am re-commencing my writing in preparation of my second African Adventure.As many of you will know, I spent 7 months in Ghana from October 2006 to May 2007, when I worked as a volunteer as the Mansek School of Music, teaching classical music. I also travelled a fair bit, made lots of friends, hung out on the beach a lot, and generally absorbed life in West Africa, which I wrote about at www.offexploring.com/jsills where I will be updating blogs and photos from this trip. When I return next week, I will again be living with Fiifi and Justy, and their young daughters Emily and Jenny, in the sprawling town of Effia Kuma, on the outskirts of Takoradi - a bustling market town in the Western Region. Whilst I will be re-visiting the music school, the main focus of this trip is for me to deepen my knowledge and experience of Ghanaian music, in particular traditional drumming and parade bands. During my last trip, I had a few formal djembe lessons at the African Academy of Music in Kobrobite, and then lots of informal jam sessions with my friends in Takoradi. Funnily enough, African drumming became a big part of my life last October when I moved to York, one of the whitest, most Anglo-Saxon places I've ever known! Here, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Jon Ward, a fantastic drummer and percussionist (and all round lovely guy) who has studied in Ghana, who runs drumming groups in York. I am now a full-time on member of his bands Calabash and Akimbo, learning all the time about different rhythms and percussion styles, whilst experiencing the community and exhuberance of playing in a drumming group. As well as learning drumming in Ghana, I will also spend time with my good friend, trumpet player Kokobush, who is going to teach me a selection of Ghanaian parade band tunes, which I will record and notate. During my last trip, I was a member of his street band, playing trombone in various parades throughout the year, which were always uplifting and very tiring! The mix of brass, percussion and dancing is totally explosive and infectious, and I am really keen to set up Ghana-style street bands in England - I tried this out last summer when I was a leader at the National Youth Music Camp, and it was awesome. Can't wait to work with those musicians again this year. Finally, I've been really getting into West African music recently, having been to two life affirming gigs in Liverpool - firstly the Soul Rebels tour with Tony Allen, Salif Keita and Awadi, and then Damon Albarn's Africa Express - an eight hour epic of artists from all around the continent (such as Amadou and Miriam, Bassekou Kouyate, Soud Massi, Tony Allen again) jamming with UK bands (such as Franz Ferdinand and the Magic Numbers). Brilliant.Sadly, I have just 17 days to pack all of this in, as I have to be back at university by the end of April, but I intend to make the most of every minute. I'm hoping to make a flying visit to the beautiful beach retreat of Green Turtle Lodge for a night or two, and hopefully a surf at Busua Beach. I'm looking forward to lots of things as well as the music - the colours, the food, seeing old friends, and of course, some much needed sunshine! I am taking my new Zoom recorder with me to record as much music as possible, and. I'm intending on setting up a myspace to upload my recordings when I'm back. Also, I'll try and update my blog a few times whilst I'm out there, with a longer blog when I'm back in England again. I'll be posting everything on www.offexploring.com/jsillsCheers for reading and keep in touch-James