Monday, March 24, 2014

On The Road Again

     We’ve been out on the road for a few days now.  It has been that intense driving, driving, driving, take a quick nap, have something to eat, get the guitar out and play after driving to the venue from our host’s house experience.  As I say, an intense experience, but gratifying.  The gigs went really well.  We played to extremely enthusiastic audiences, sold a few CDs, and got to see some old friends.   We left Blyth about 10:15 am on Thursday.  Our goal had been to leave by 10 am.  We had a last minute telephone emergency and had to pay for some more minutes on the phone which involved booting a computer and logging into the site for our UK phone service provider.  It seemed a little bit like we hadn’t been driving, because Jimmy has been driving us to all our gigs while we stay in Blyth.  We drove to the Bridge because Jimmy and Val had a gig that night, but other than that, we’ve been walking most places
     The first gig was Bishop’s Stortford Folk Club, better known as “Stortfolk”.  We stayed with John and Hillary Macnamara the first time we played Stortfolk I believe.  Since we have stayed with Geoff, and Jacqui Leeds in Sawbridgeworth.   Geoff, and Jacqui are both actors, although Jacqui is disabled these days and doesn’t act.  Geoff, on the other hand, is quite active and was out performing in a play (opening night) on the night that we played the folk club.  That meant that we drove to the club (Geoff usually drives us), and he showed up a little late, but I think he and Jacqui caught our entire set.
     It was the usual format of floor spots, us, raffle, floor spots and us again.  Stortfolk used to be held in a church.  The local priest served drinks from a small booth in the back, and we all played in a slightly cool, dark room.  We were always amused by the church, the priest, and the booze.
     The club is populated by a very talented bunch of people.  For the most part their floor spots know how to play their guitars, accordions, whistles, etc. fairly well, and usually sing on pitch as well as being hilarious much of the time, welcoming, and generally fun.  Now the club has moved to a British Legion Club.  It is warmer, lighter, and much smaller.  They had a good attendance for us, which was nice.  It doesn’t pay much, but that said, Geoff and Jacqui have bailed us out a bunch of times when we needed someplace to stay near London.  Did I mention that Sawbridgeworth, and Bishop’s Stortford are just on the outside of London?  Geoff commutes into London a few times a week these days.  He used to go to work 5 days a week, but he is now semi-retired.


Geoffrey Leeds (actor)






Jacqui Leeds (acting)

     On Friday we discovered that we were having some technical problems, which we ended up having to spend some time remedying.  We did get that done, and got underway to Southampton, which was about 3 hours away (as it turned out).  The drive south is far enough that the world there is a little greener than in the North, there are more birds, and I have the feeling that the population is a little more affluent, but I don’t really know that.  I still get a little sleepy in the afternoon, but didn’t fall asleep driving, which is always a good thing and arrived at our hosts home right on schedule, and with enough time to get a very short nap  They fed us, and we chatted through dinner.  After dinner there was just a little bit of time to get ready to go to the folk club, which we drove to.
     The Fo’c’sle Folk Club is held in the backroom of the Richmond Inn, a neighborhood pub replete with ruffians, and karaoke singers.  The members of the Fo’c’sle Folk Club are a world apart from the barroom patrons.  Our host, Brian Hooper was the MC, photographer, and he played a floor spot as well.  Our old friend Trevor Gilson was there, and it was really great to see him.  By now the club members are fairly well familiar with us, and they were very enthusiastic about our performance.
     After we got back to our hosts home (Christine and Brian Hooper ) they fed us “cheese and biscuits (crackers)” and we visited.  Brian had a stroke a couple of years ago, but recovered well.  If he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.  Christine was a little bit quiet, and I was not.  Kristi was her usual friendly, curious self and I think makes a good impression.
     On Saturday we left the Hoopers’ around 11 am.  Brian gave us directions to get to Stonehenge where I contemplated the great motion picture “This is Spinal Tap” all afternoon.  I can’t say I was disappointed in Stonehenge, but it was £15 apiece to get in and I don’t think conceptually too much more fantastic than Avebury (although I’m sure someone will disagree with me).  There is a very nice museum there with just the right amount of information, and laid out to be quite digestible.  It includes examples of the dwellings that people would have lived in during the Stonehenge “era”.   I thought that the burial mounds which you can see in the distance from the Stonehenge site were interesting.  The area of archeological interest is much more than just the Stonehenge rock formations.  When we visited Avebury, there was no charge to see the site, and you could wander around at will in the site.  One result of visiting both of these sites is that now we know that there are several others to visit in the U.K.


How the archeologists think they lived back then (budget housing).

Kristi on the bus to Stonehenge
£14.90 a head

Here's what we came for
How we got there

Kristi being a proper tourist



                                                          This is Spinal Tap

    I’m still a bit tired after being on the road since Thursday.  It is Sunday, so it wasn’t a temporally long trip, just a lot of miles.  We had planned to stop in Loughborough, which is a three + hour drive from Blyth.  As it turned out the hotel we wanted to stay in didn’t have a parking lot.  We would have had to park in a parking lot about three blocks from the hotel, and haul amplifier, guitars, bags etc. to the hotel room, and then back to the parking lot plus go through the hassle of having the hotel remunerate us for parking.  We decided not to stay there.  Oh, and we had made a mistake in our booking so they were going to charge us twice as much, and we would forfeit the money that we had already paid.  Our mistake, but we feel that they were uncooperative, and in the end downright hostile.  That was Travelodge.
      So we made the three hour drive to Blyth in the dark after calling Jimmy and Val and letting them know we would be in late.  They said OK, and away we went through the wilds of Yorkshire, Durham, and Tyne and Wear to finally arrive back in Blyth, Northumberland where the North Sea washes the shore, and the big wind generators roar.  There are a number of places in the UK that feel like home now, and this is one of them.  We’ll tell you more about Blyth next time.

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