Tanglefoot ~ FootTales

The Corn Exchange Building specifically and the City of Bedford in general are new to us. Both were nice. We had a relaxing day which began with a drive of less than an hour over from Aylesbury, an easy load-in and then an afternoon of wandering the old castle mound, the Bedford Museum and the pedestrian malls of the down town. Wendy said, early on that she was on a mission to find either a mille feuille or a chocolate éclair but before we found a patisserie, we saw the river and decided to walk along it. That led us to the castle hill.

There was a wedding photography session going on at the base of castle hill with a bunch of very nicely turned out folks including a couple of little (probably flower) girls in matching, old-fashioned, smocked, ruffled, layered, off-white dresses and great big, curly hair. They were having loads of fun holding hands and walking toward and away from the photographer who was taking a lot of shots to get that one perfect, casual, unplanned shot which will look so familiar in yet another wedding album.

Up the hill, where the castle used to be, we came across a bunch of highschool students who were, as is the wont of highschool students, very busy being totally self-absorbed. Not unpleasant, just unaware. They were hanging around in a small lean-to sort of structure which housed a series of plaques telling the story of the design, construction, assault, defence and conquest of the castle back in the 12th century. This story was told in about a dozen sections; while we were reading the first ones, we could have made love or committed murder and not caught the attention of this group of students. Eventually one of them noticed us and said, "They´re trying to read". The reaction from the others was as if we had just appeared from thin air. But to their credit, they all moved aside so that we could continue to learn about this bit of history.

After coming back down the hill, we had a short walk through the Bedford Museum which is largely 19th century and hence not all that different from small museums at home. It also seemed to be neither air conditioned nor ventilated so on a warm day like this one, it was pretty stuffy. We made one circuit and then headed for the market where we found a café. I was looking for a latté or similar but Wendy had been coveting one of those ced drinks which are so nice on such a day in summer. No luck! "We have no ice but we´ll have more in about 20 minutes." Unfortunately we weren´t prepared for a 20 minute wait so I grabbed a coffee and we headed out to find a pastry shop (we had not given up the mission!). Eventually we did, and though Wendy pronounced the chocolate and the cake of her éclair to be great, the cream seemed a bit sour. However, we were already a couple of blocks down the street by the time she made this discovery, so she finished the good parts and disposed of the rest.

Back at the venue, the organisers plied us with coffee and tea, muffins, cakes, fruit and snacks of various sorts. It was quite nice. They said they didn't know how much/what kind of audience to expect as things had been "a little slow lately". Not so much for us. There were a few empty seats -- ones that didn't face the stage -- but otherwise the room was full – always nice in a new venue.

There was young man there from France who was interested in l´ancien francais canadien, a man whose grandfather had fought at Vimy, a group of six none of whom had seen us before and all of whom were quite distressed that their new find was about to disappear, a couple who had seen us only once before, on our first UK tour (I bet they would notice some change). Alice is quite quiet and very sweet with arrestingly large, Welsh, black eyes; she´s 8. Alice (and her parents) have been attending shows since before she was born; she seemed pleased to see us and enjoyed the show from right in the front row. Afterward, when she discovered that this was the very last time she would ever see us, she became inconsolably sad. She went over to Steve and threw her arms around his legs, weeping. He picked her up and held her for quite a while until she was a bit calmer. I guess we have made an impression.

We drove into town and, thanks to the SatNav found the theatre right off. I was driving and although we had been here once before, nothing looked he least bit familiar. I was just following instructions until we were about two blocks away from the theatre building. Then suddenly I knew exactly where we were. Funny how that happens.

There was a pottery class going on in one of the arts studios in the building when we first arrived. Some of the members of this class had some items which were drying in the theatre. Fortunately nothing got stepped on or damaged though it did seem that some of the potters felt sharing the building was a bit of an inconvenience. No fisticuffs erupted. As before, we were given access to tea and coffee and such. This always makes set up seem so much more civilised. While all this was going on, Wendy went out for a run – something she has taken up reasonably seriously over the last couple of months.

We set up our PA which meant that the in-house tech crew just had to do lights. That worked out very well so that we ended the afternoon sounding good and well-lit and with nicely replenished levels of caffeine in our systems. The lead-hand among the crew was keen to be sure that everyone knew she was ´the boss´. That is absolutely fine, especially if it serves some useful purpose like knowing who can fix a problem or who will take responsibility for getting things done. In this case, it really served no visible purpose but it also did little harm other than to serve as a slight irritant. So, in the profound and ever so useful words of that famous Canadian pianist (and heir to the 27th Earl of Stoke) Sir Robert Graham... "Wha´evvah".

This was our first return to the Limelight Theatre since we played there at the end of the tour two years ago. We had had a pretty good crowd back in 2007, but this time the seating in the lower (main) section was packed by showtime and there were a bunch of folks in the balcony. During the first ten minutes of the first set there was a steady stream of people threading their way into such seating as was available up in the gods until it too was full to bursting. The show was very well received and afterward we had a chance to hang out a bit and see our soon-to-be-New-Zealander friends Hamish and Michelle, Canadian fans Aingel and Harry who are holidaying and Tanglefooting while in the UK, and Joe, Rob and Sarah who will no doubt win the most-shows-attended award for this tour. At the end of the evening we tore down, packed up and headed for the hills.

Another night, another Travelodge. For the thirty-seventh time on this tour, the person at the front desk of a Travelodge assured us that the extra linens we would need for the extra beds in our rooms were already in the rooms. And for the thirty-fifth time... they weren´t. They did get it right twice. I am sure that some bean counter has told them that this is the most efficient approach but it seems odd that their default position is to not supply the rooms. Doing this means that guests have to go to their rooms, discover that they do not, in fact, have what they need (and what they were just told they would have), then return to the front desk and wait for the concierge to find whatever is required (since it is not always readily to hand), before they can return to their rooms to bed down for the night. On the other hand, once we were ensconced, we were able to have a good sleep and a nice lie-in.

This was a particularly special day for me as Wendy arrived at Gatwick about 10:00 am and then took a coach up to Cambridge to meet us. We were driving in from Bungay which is only and hour and a bit away so we arrived in Cambridge in lots of time and parked the van in The Backs, as usual. No exams today (as there had been when we were in town a year ago) but it was open day for prospective students. Thus it was busy.

We walked through Clare and into town where we wandered a bit beginning with the open-air market where we dispersed. There was a group of street performers from Africa who were dancing and singing and attracting quite a crowd. I sat at an outdoor café and had a coffee and a mille feuille. In a bit, I set off in search of the tourist information centre figuring that they could help me get to the bus terminal. There were several signs pointing me in one direction after another until at last I came to the spot where the African street performers had been and discovered that the tourist office was right around the corner. I entered the building and was greeted by a very charming (but clearly not local) French girl who gave me a rough idea of how to get to the bus terminal which is really not a bus terminal as I would think of a bus terminal but rather simply a place where buses congregate along side a park. It functions perfectly well as a bus terminal, I am sure, but somehow I expected a bus terminal to be a building. It´s a good thing there were buses there when I got near it, otherwise I might not have known that I was there. But I was.

Before Wendy´s bus arrived, I had some people watching time. Having arrived about 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival of the bus (and, since the arrival was actually about 15 minutes late) I had a chance to observe a pick-up football (soccer) game where a new player would join or one would leave about every three minutes. There was what I can only guess was a game of rounders being played (slightly more formally that the football) by some uniformed school kids – looks like that could be a fun game. Closer to where I was standing, I saw a couple of twenty-somethings, she who had recently arrived on a bus and was waiting at the terminal, clearly expecting to be met, and he who showed up maybe 20 minutes later to pick her up. She looked quite relaxed, slightly hippyish, hanging out in the sun with a substantial assemblage of luggage. He arrived wearing a very straight-up black suit, white shirt, black tie, looking very business-like, though clearly happy. I wondered, as one does, ´What´s the connection?´. I couldn´t tell if they were business associates (though I thought not likely), boyfriend and girlfriend – which then raised the question ´how long?´ Are they long-time lovers or did they meet once in Thailand three months ago, have a tryst, and then part company with an agreement to meet again when he was back home in Cambridge and she was passing through England on her way back from Bhuttan to her home in Pugwash… perhaps. Maybe long-lost cousins? Or brother and sister? Hard to tell. And the brief hug and kiss that passed between them did nothing to settle the question. She was fairly laden so he grabbed her backpack and rolling suitcase, she picked up the rest, and they began to walk. Their path took them past where I was standing and in the time that their conversation was audible to me, she said (presumably responding to some question from him about all the luggage)… "I´m a *girl*! I *need* lots of clothes." To which he replied, "Not this weekend…" Right: brother and sister it is! And off they went.

Wendy arrived, we left the terminal and walked back into town. She had the odd experience of feeling that she should 'know' the place, having lived there for a while many years ago but finding everything quite unfamiliar for some reason. So we wandered around like tourists familiarizing ourselves by taking pictures of phone boxes and stone walls the way one does, you know. We got back into the middle of town and found a café where we were able to set down the luggage, powder our collective nose and sit down for a coffee (in my case) and a tea (in Wendy´s). Before long we noticed that our rendez-vous time was approaching so we finished our drinks and set off
again.

We had planned to meet at the van at 5:00 pm. From there we had been going to drive to the hotel, check-in, relax for a while and then return to town for a 9:00 pm BBC interview with Sue Marchant. But the SatNav informed us that the hotel was at a greater distance than we had thought and driving to it would have required pretty much immediately turning around and coming back so we decided not to. We left the van where it was and agreed that we would head back into town and re-convene at the van at 8:30 and thence to the BeeB.

Steve and Wendy and I visited the Round Church (second oldest building in the city) but it was closed for the day so we didn´t spend much time there. Instead, we chose to go and have dinner at Don Pasquale´s Italian (no kidding) restaurant. The food was quite good and since we were seated outside, we were able to watch the world go by. One of the happenings at that moment was the operation of a large crane just down the street. Every now and then we would notice the crane´s cable hanging down into the belfry of a nearby church tower. We would turn back to our food and conversation and the next moment the cable would be elsewhere, presumably on the ground, though behind a building from our vantage point.

Having seen it in both the up and the down positions several times, we thought we should gain a new vantage point where we could watch the whole process and see just what was being lifted. We joined a significant crowd that had gathered to do the same in the small square where what appeared to be a complete set of brand new bells had been deposited on the street surrounded by murder tape, by the church, near the base of the crane. Turns out it was only half the set of bells and rest were to arrive on
Wednesday. It was a fun process to watch and while we were doing that, the other Feet arrived so we recommended Don Pasquale´s to them for dinner.

As planned we were back at the van at 8:30 and drove to the BBC where we had a truly fun interview with Sue. She is a fan, a friend and a consummate interviewer. We got on air where we talked a bit and sang a few songs. Then we took some pictures and headed out for the hotel.

After the Boston show, our friend Fiona said that she said that she would be coming down to visit some mates who live just outside Bungay and they would all be attending this show. I believe it was Shaw who cleverly remarked that England and America were "two countries separated by a
common language". (I wish I´d said that) Whatever Canadians do not share with Americans, we do share some of the linguistic disparities that have developed since we colonials have all been away from Mother England. May I offer a for instance? I had suggested that since Fiona would be in town in the afternoon, we might go for tea between soundcheck and showtime. Now, I had meant ´go for tea´ in the way one might ´go for coffee´. But of course I had not taken into account the fact that we are in England where ´tea´ is dinner (supper?) (evening meal?) (third lunch?… for hobbits). So, she suggested that we might have tea at her friends´ place, and picturing a scene involving perhaps some Earl Grey and scones at a flat on the edge of town or similar, I thought, "Won´t that be lovely?". Well, it was lovely… but it was different.

I was picked up at the theatre in a posh new Land Rover and driven out of town along lovely, winding, ever-narrower roads until, out in the bucolic countryside, we came to a picturesque (to the point of looking like an Edward Wilkins Waite) English country house with an expansive garden, a well-manicured (though not priggishly so) verdant lawn, an embarrassment of multi-coloured roses climbing the walls and various trellises, two ponds varying in size from quite large to quite larger and an array of trees which was home to a significant selection of avian wildlife, all of which cooed and purred gently – not a caw to be heard.

We had some wine (except me – just soda water when I´m at work) and communed with nature by one of the aforementioned ponds wherein there were waterlilies galore and many coy – perhaps other species as well. In fact I understand that the other pond contained… ready? … sturgeon! We dined al fresco on a bright but shaded (perfect for me and my sun aversion) patio off the dining room. Dinner was ideal: Steak and onion pie with a variety of veg and potatoes of the sort of freshness which is achieved by pulling them from the ground/off the vine immediately before throwing them into the pot. Dessert was a blueberryish torte with cream. Mmm. Being in farm country and eating such fresh food makes me think how nice it is to grow one´s own food… (and for some folks, one´s own caviar?).

It´s not that life on the road is really all that hectic, but this was a truly calming respite between set-up/soundcheck and the show. Very nice. After dinner we headed back to the theatre arriving about 7:15. Walking in I met Dorette Carter, a Canadian friend of Tanglefoot´s who has been hiring the band since (at least) Steve´s very first gig (back in 1827). She had come over for a niece´s wedding and happened to be close enough, at just the right time that she was able to attend our show. We said hi and she quickly alerted me to the fact that the start time for the show was actually 7:30 rather than 8:00 as we had thought. Things became slightly more hectic for a few minutes but, everything fell into place easily.

The crowd in the Fisher seemed a bit quiet off the bat but picked up steam as the evening progressed. As ever, these days, there were new fans and some of longer standing all of whom said they were sorry to be seeing us for the last time or that they were looking forward to seeing us once or twice more before the 12th … (not so glorious). In either case, all reports were good after the show. We visited with a bunch of fans, chatted and signed
autographs.

During this time we were able to have a more extended visit with Dorette who told us that among many things she had discovered on this trip was the fact that Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill came from Bungay. I am not sure how to explain it but this little bit of information changed both Bungay and the (nee) Strickland girls for me. In the past, somehow the years they spent in England before emigrating to Canada were vague at best; it was as if life for them had simply not existed, except perhaps as an abstract foil to life in the bush, until they arrived in North America in the 1830s. Now I have seen the buildings and walked the streets that they did for the first decades of their lives and it feels different. How normal this must have seemed to them before they left, and how unusual the new world must have been by comparison.

After all the audience had headed home, we had a drink and some cake with some of the theatre folks who were celebrating the birthday of the wife of one of the trustees. Thereafter we packed up our gear and loaded out. The crew at the Fisher is full of really pleasant, generous and accommodating people. We´ll miss playing there but, you gotta stop sometime.

Next morning we had a lie-in (until noon) at the hotel, got a bite of breakfast and then headed for Cambridge.

A new town and a new venue for us and it's a really nice one. The Hebden Bridge Picture House is right on the main street (or at least the street on which we drove into town) and load-in is right onto the stage – always a big
plus. From the stage door at the back of the theatre is a canal complete with narrow boats and swans (and, hey! where are all these Canada Geese coming from?) to the left and an elegant stone bridge to the right (I don´t think it is *the* Hebden Bridge, though clearly it is *a* Hebden bridge…). It is an idyllic scene which we drank in for five or ten seconds before we started hauling gear.

This was our first chance on this tour to see our long-time friends Brian and Rosie. We were able to visit both before and after the show. After, we chatted in the theatre. Before, they joined us for dinner. It was really great. There's an excellent Thai restaurant next door where we had dinner. It was absolutely superb. Because we weren´t rushing them, they weren´t rushing either. That would have been perfect if we hadn´t needed to get back for the show but, in the end we did have time to finish our meal without any panic. As a starter, I had a coconut curry chicken soup with mushrooms and ginger; it was among the best soups I have had in my life! For entrée I had a
green curry which rivalled any that I have had. What a find. Why didn´t we start coming here ten years ago? It´s too bad we won´t be back but, you gotta stop sometime.

The theatre is a 500-seater and the staff had closed off the balcony at the back which kept the audience closer to us. They pretty much filled the main level and, in spite of the space between the stage and the front row (as is
usually the case in cinema buildings) the reception was warm and vocal. In the house were our friends Derek & Janet, Rob, Joe & Sarah, the aforementioned Brian & Rosie and a family whose 21-year-old daughter was celebrating her birthday (that very day) by coming to see Tanglefoot for the who-knows-how-manyeth time over the last eleven years. The show was a lot of fun and very well received by the audience. Afterward we headed out to the lobby to mix a bit, get some photos taken, sign CDs and comfort the soon-to-be-bereft Footheads for some of whom this would be
their last show.

When everyone had gone, we packed up the equipment and then, because Steve had not come to dinner before the show, he was ready for a snack. What a grand excuse for the rest of us! We pulled out of the theatre and almost immediately saw a take-away place called Paradise Something (or vice versa) and thought perhaps we´d sample their wares. It is run by a trio of south Asian guys who really know how to cook but seemed about ready to go home for the night. Steve and Robert ordered pizzas, but before Terry and Sandra could do the same, one of the cooks in the back quite vigorously told the order taker on the desk not to take any more pizza orders because they were out of pizza dough and he didn´t want to make any more. That, at any rate, is my interpretation of what they discussed at a volume and in a tone but not in a language that I could make out. Having taken the first order, the doughboy in the back proceeded to make perfect pizza dough in about ten seconds, without measuring anything – just splashing some water in a bowl and then dumping in a bit of this, a bit of that, a dash of something else and, Presto! Anyway, Terry and Sandra had burgers instead; these, they said were fairly forgettable. Steve reported that the pizza was quite good. But the pièce de résistance was my lamb danzag and garlic naan which was absolutely excellent… Welcome to Hebden Bridge: clearly a candidate for curry capital of the UK!

It is very cool to continue to get to brand new (to us) locales on this last tour. Especially when we as well taken care of and wonderfully received as in this case. It´s pretty easy load-in to the stage in the Village Hall. Set-up and soundcheck didn't take long... perhaps that's because we knew that a nice dinner awaited. So we ate dinner and then dessert and before you knew it, it was show time.

The show was sold out well in advance but two nights before the show, a pair of folks had cancelled meaning that there were two tickets available. As it happened, someone on the BBC was talking about the show so the organisers called the radio show to say that the show had been sold out but that they had just had a cancellation and so had one pair of tickets available. Within a minute there was a call and the tickets were sold. We had a chance to say hi and bye to a bunch of people from the area including a long-time fan to whom we refer as Helen of Doncaster (she looks like she should have a title) and Andy Shierman who has presented several Tanglefoot shows in the past and was there with all his lovely girls. Also in attendance was a group of new faces who have become known as the Boot Soup caucus since, we understand, they listened to that song 16 times on the drive over. (Exhilarating).

When the show was done, our hosts packed us a picnic of everything that remained from dinner. So we took it back to the hotel. We were staying overnight in Scunthorpe, because it is a place we have wanted to visit ever since we saw the name on a map back in 1998! We did this at a Travelodge on the fast food strip so we didn't really get any sense of what the town was like. We watched a few acts from Glastonbury including Crosby, Stills & Nash and an amazing flute player who could beatbox while playing, as well as a woman who was some sorta Bjork wannabe: the audience seemed good with it but it wasn´t working so well for me. We had a midnight picnic while we watched. We had decided to have a lie-in in the morning, so when I found myself up early-ish, I headed across the road to Tesco's (giant grocery store) to see if they had, as they often do, a place to get a bite of breaky. Instead, I found a very pleasant upscale cafe in the front corner of the store. I availed myself of some of their wares and sat down to listen to some rough mixes of a project being recorded at the studio up in Birds Edge. Zoe, whose project it is, was looking for some stand-up bass on several tracks and I agreed to do that for her. Brian put the available tracks on my iPod so I could take them with me. Zoe is an ex-pat American who does real-traditional and traditional-sounding original material. Should be fun.

So once everyone else got up, we piled into the van and headed for home. And the minute we arrived, I went up to the studio and got started. It was fun. And we´ll do the rest next week.

Enough for now. More later.

On the way from Cambridge to Faldingworth, we noticed that:
a) we had to pass right by Lincoln, and
b) we had lots of time before we were expected, so
c) we should go in to Lincoln on the way,

so that we could:
a) see the town
b) see the castle
c) see the cathedral

I wandered vaguely in a slightly drug-addled state. Had a good wander through the cathedral which included a very sedate repose overlooking the inner courtyard with a pot of tea. Walking down beside the choir I read some of the plaques naming famous Lincolners who (one presumes) are buried in or near the cathedral. One of them was William Byrd who not only lived in the area but was the organist in the church for twenty years! However, a look through the gift shop produced many recordings of the organ, the choir, the organ and choir… but no Byrd.

Then suddenly we had all returned to the van and were driving again.

The function room on the second floor of the Golden Hind, is definitely the smallest room on the tour so, no surprise that it was full. We loaded in and soundchecked in the mid-afternoon and then had some dinner in the restaurant downstairs. I went outside to cool down a bit and got into a conversation with someone whom I have since learned is the pub´s resident wingnut. He was apparently going to become a doctor but… didn´t (no real explanation). He had been in ´Tommy´. I believe that he had eaten two dragons for breakfast that morning and had also put the sun in his pocket. All this was fairly harmless until he got on to the topic of Afghanistan; when he suggested in no uncertain terms that what was needed was for ´us´ to drop exactly eight nukes on them, I suggested that this would probably make things worse rather than better and that, if he was upset about the loss of innocent life on 9/11 and 7/7/07 (as he claimed to be), perhaps killing millions of innocent Afghanis was not the best way to address his concerns. I left it at that without awaiting a response.

Doghouse Roses opened the evening and performed well. The two of them make a very nice sound. Our sets were very well received and we had a nice opportunity to visit with many of the folks who were at the show. Afterward we headed to (our Emcee) Dave´s new B&B which had not quite been ready for our use last year. In the morning we gave Dave a chance to stretch out and make full-English for all of us. It was terrific.

Leaving Dave´s in the morning, I went to enter the van and had a slight misadventure which involved standing up and putting the top of my head squarely and forcefully into the top of the van´s door frame. ow. When I had regained my linguistic composure, I asked Steve for a robaxiset which made me quite stupid for several hours but which seems to have helped me to avoid the stiffness which often follows a good blow to the head.

Last night we played in Bath. That means our longest drive of the whole tour is now out of the way! We left home at 11:00 am and reached Bath by about 3:00 pm. Four hours... if we were in Canada, we'd consider that a ´home game´. Got to love the compact size of this country. Even with motorway closures (e.g. M4 from J19 – J21) such as we ran into, no trip takes very long.

Once we got to Bath, we remembered that parking near the Rondo Theatre is ridiculous. I guess they weren't thinking of us trying to unload a van full of PA and instruments when they were building this town 2000 years ago... In any case, we were able to find a perch not too far away and the theatre house crew helped us carry in the gear. As we were completing set-up, our friends (the lovely "Teacake Gang") Sarah, Julia and Chloe dropped in to say hi, bringing:
a) teacakes, (woohoo!) and,
b) caramel wafers made by the teacake folks (mmm)
c) Chloe's brand new baby (bigger woohoo!)

Little Celia had been born to the strains of Tanglefoot just six months ago! She's a little too young to attend the evening show but was keen to hear a bit of Tanglefoot. She is very cute and seemed endlessly fascinated by all
the noise.

We soundchecked quite quickly and easily and then visited a bit. Just about that time, Barbara who was our compere and hostess for this evening, and the person chiefly responsible for getting us to Bath in the first place, arrived with a lovely tray of sandwiches and a plate of cakes. It was then about time for the baby to head home, so we visited a bit with Barbara and grandkids Joe and Caitlin who are delightful. Then we had tea/coffee and a grand afternoon 'snack' and prepared ourselves for the evening.

For Robert and Sandra the prep included heading across the street to the Larkhall Inn pub for a beer. Nice, cool, simple thing to do, one might think -- to sit on the pub patio and have a pint... However, Robert found himself standing directly in front of the maid behind the bar (as one does when one wants a beer), with money in his hand (as one has when one wants a beer), and she served someone else and then someone else and then someone else -- all of whom had bellied up to the bar after Robert had! Then the woman called to her husband that he should come and 'serve this guy' (gesturing perhaps toward Robert). The husband went behind the bar and... served someone else who had arrived after Robert. So Robert said, 'stuff this for a lark' (or words to that effect) and prepared to take his
custom elsewhere. The staff pursued him in some sort of belated attempt to recover his business (as one does when one wants to sell a beer) but Robert let them know (as one does when one has had enough bad retail treatment) that he was not so keen to have a beer that he would put up with this.

So we won´t recommend the Larkhall Inn to anyone we care about.
It sure is hard for small-business owners to make a go of it, eh? Wonder why?

There were lots of familiar faces including Sarah, Julia and Chloe who returned sans baby, little Joe and Caitlin (6 & 8) who came back for the first set and then had to go home and hit the hay as there's school tomorrow. Also in the house were our very good and persevering fans John and Mary from Bath who have travelled far and wide to see us but were able to catch us closer to home this time, Bob and Jill Berry who have had us at the Chippenham Festival several times, Tom Lewis (one of the world's best shanty singers) whom I last saw in Canada, about 4 months ago, just before he left for Cuba with a great big musicians' Care package including some of my used bass strings... there were many new faces as well.

It was an excellent show. We were sold-out well in advance and (don't tell the fire marshal) were then over-sold a bit. The place was packed and rockin'. We've been having requests for Boot Soup so we put it back in the rotation for tonight. Mary was keen to hear Vimy and we were happy
to oblige. I guess it struck a chord with others in the audience as we just about sold out of Music in the Wood.

After the show we had a lot of photo opp's and chats with many folks who mostly wanted to know why we were not continuing after 2009 or wanted to tell us that they understood why we're not continuing but wished we
wouldn't… not continue. Several said that they had planned this as their last occasion for seeing us but were now determined to try and get to at least one more show on this tour.

Of course, there's always Owen Sound on December 5... :)

We packed up and headed back to Barbara's for a wonderful late-night meal and then a great sleep -- it was 10:30 by the time I got up. Guess I was tired. Steve, by contrast, stayed up very late to catch a Toronto FC game on the internet. Turns out it wasn´t a great game… too bad. In spite of this late-night escapade, he was up before I was. Crazy? I´d say. Anyway, it´s morning now; the headaches are all gone… So, some toast and cereal and coffee and then off to visit Gloucester. Haven't been there before and it's at least Roman-old so there should be some fun
stuff to see.

And there was. The new, improved GPS (now includes Bath and Gloucester!) guided us up the motorway to Gloucester but she couldn't help us locate parking with no height restriction. She sent us to a carpark -- 'car' being the operative word -- with 2.2 metres of headroom. That ain't us. So we used the old-fashioned method of hunting (bow & arrow? no): we looked. And pretty soon we found what we needed. We parked the van and pledged our troth to reassemble when the sundial struck for nineteen hundred. And off we went in many and various directions.

Not exactly sure what everyone else was up to but, among the things *I* found were:

a) a cafe where I got a (what else) cafe (au lait, in this case) and a croissant that was fresh enough to be still warm. It arrived with butter and strawberry jam and the waitress asked if I would like some Devon cream. Well, YES! I enjoyed this completely unhealthy but oh-so-good continental breakfast, sat with it (or its remnants) for a bit and then continued my stroll.

b) a used CD shop (these have the potential to be my absolute economic downfall). I was just able to escape with no more than a couple of CDs including Rory Gallagher's 'Deuce'. Great album. Great guitar player.
Tremendous loss.

c) a Sainsbury's grocery store where (we had been told by the person who sold it to us) we could purchase extra calling time for our Lebara cell phone. Incorrect according to the Sainsbury's staff. Second choice
(according to the person who sold it to us): a Fonz4U store but I, for one have never seen one of these, certainly not in Gloucester anyway. Hmmm. Well, on with my sleuthy hat… the screen says Vodaphone when you start the phone up, so perhaps a Vodaphone store(?). Apparently not; Lebara uses the Vodaphone network but they can't do top-ups... however, a really nice guy in the Vphone store made some calls and found an independent phone store just a few hundred metres away down the promenade that could do Lebara top-ups... that guy ought to buy a pub; he knows
about customer service. I walked up the via and got the phone topped up in about 30 seconds.

d) another café (Caffe Rome, in this case) where one could get a full-English breakfast (because heaven knows we have not been getting nearly enough food!) and where, as fortune would have it, Steve and Terry and Sandra had all chanced to congregate. We all had breakfast and coffee at an outdoor table on the mall, in front of the restaurant and then, because we were downwind of the smoking table (not that it was designated but, if you are a non-smoker, you are *always* downwind from the smokers), we thought we´d leave.

e) an internet café where I was able to get on line to check email

f) another (Yes! Yet another) café where I picked up a latte to drink while I walked about and learned a bit about the High Cross which stood over ten metres tall, at the very middle of the crossroads of the commercial district of Gloucester for hundreds of years (from at least the early 1400s) until 1751 when they figured that it was impeding the flow of carriages and took it down – strange thing to worry about on what has become basically a pedestrian mall (go figure). But they were in the midst of demolishing tenement slums and little shops, etc. Urban renewal, eh? Somehow it´s not what I think of in England, in fact, quite the opposite usually.

So by now it must be time to head over to the cathedral for Evensong, right? And who should I run into there but Terry and Sandra who have acquired some olives and garlic treats. And then along came Steve. No vampires will be bothering us thanks to those snacks! Then it was inside for the service which was lovely (Howells, maybe?? – and wouldn´t that be appropriate, as he was a Gloucestershire guy). Some of the church staff who saw us out afterward and were chatting with us on the way were pointing out the ways in which this church surpassed and outshone some more famous ones. We had already been impressed but I guess it´s hard to live in the shadows.

Leaving the church, we decided that we would dine at a great, traditional sort of pub with a real dumb waiter operated by a real smart waitress . Among the menu items were several burgers: a mini, a Desperate, and an Extremely Desperate which weighed in at ¼, ½, and one
pound respectively! Just after we had ordered our food, we realised that it was almost 7:00 and that Robert would be waiting at the van. Steve knew a short cut to the parking lot so he took off in search of Robbie-boy. His Desperate Burger came down the dumb waiter and we had it sent back
up to keep warm. Steve and Robert arrived back shortly and down came the burger (huge!). I felt positively health-conscious having spaghetti with pine nuts, bacon and chicken in a creamy basil sauce with a glass of pretty
fair pinot grigio.

We hotelled until morning and then started the drive to Cambridge (not far but very little motorway driving). Edit Delete