Performing Solo

It's January and there's never much for me to write about until the weather improves and I can get outside and hold a camera without shivering too much...

However, just to catch up on one of the few events since my last missive way back in 2019, a few photos from 16 December 2019 when I performed a solo entertainment for the members of the Over Wyre Social and Activity Club's Christmas Party event.

This was at the request of one of the club's founders, who I first met one or two years ago when we were eleven years old.

She can remember me playing and singing when hair still graced my head... I've been taking my Mum to the club which meets once a month and was asked if I would play for the Christmas party. It's a long while since I've done a show on my lonesome apart from the odd couple of songs a night with friends Tomas and Maris on cruise ships. Certainly neither Jan (the friend) nor Mum (the er… maternal parent...) had seen me do anything like this for several decades.

But it was good fun and I made sure the party-goers had a good time and chose songs that they could join in with.

And to finish with I turned to the keyboard to play a gentle version of White Christmas. Bing would have been proud! Thanks to Jan and to the members of the club for their welcome and generous applause and praise.

Rudesheim Christmas Market

Sunday 8 December 2019. We arrive in Rudesheim and the coach parks a little way out of town. A road train has been booked for us to ride all the way in.

The train drops us off behind the river front and right at the start of a string of Christmas Market stalls.

There is also a mechanical music museum, though when we try to get in, we are turned away with the phrase "We are completely booked for the rest of the day" even though half an hour earlier Les, our driver, had phoned to ask if they could take a party of ten or more... Unfortunately, we were the only ones who thought it would be a good thing to visit.

There are some rather inviting hostelries too - although the painted cat on the front of the Stadt Frankfurt looks more suited to Halloween than Christmas!

Unable to visit the museum, we console ourselves with a somewhat massive cone of chips... The Germans spell pommes frites exactly the same way the French do and having only learned French at school I once made the mistake of pronouncing them as "pom freet" in Bavaria. One diner laughed so hard he choked on his own chips and the waitress glared at us sternly and said "pommus frittus!" in an affronted tone. I got it right this time...

A large Nativity scene. It reminded me of a trip to Bethlehem six years ago where the Palestinian guide pointed out the hillside where the Shepherds had been and said "Lets all sing the song..." He was sadly disappointed.

We had a good look round the market and found more stalls on the side streets as we walked back towards the river front. This however is an alley off a side street and doesn't have any...

A goods train was passing as we came to the river front. We turned left to walk along another row of market stalls, getting split up a few times, there were so many people there.

We also had a look in the souvenir shops. A bottle of wine was chosen to grace our Christmas table and one or two other bits and pieces were bought, including the inevitable fridge magnet.

Then we crossed the road and level crossing to walk along the riverside back towards the coach. Much too far... We should have turned off the river bank after a short distance but were blindly following another couple who just kept going. There should have been a clue in the way they kept turning to see if we were still following them...

Eventually we reach a ruined bridge. It was dark now but I could make out a sign saying it was the Hindenburg Bridge. An arch still stands. The arch next to it had broken away from the support and leans drunkenly in large chunks of masonry against its neighbour. The spans over the river were destroyed by air raids in 1945 during World War II and the German Wermacht destroyed the arches in an attempt to hold up the Americans who were advancing through the region.

We caught up with the other couple who were panicking a little and then got some conflicting directions from people and I rang driver Ian. After some confusion we got back to the coach just about on time. Others needed Ian to go out searching for them. But we all got back on the coach safely in the end. We were not the only ones to walk as far as the bridge!

Monday, 9 December 2019. A very early start for our journey home. The hotel puts take-away breakfast bags together for us at 5:00am. Another pre-packed lunch is available at the coach interchange before we come back through the tunnel to England. We get a 25 minute stop on the motorway - just time to wolf down a MacDonalds burger - never my favourite meal. The coach looks amazing from the easy chairs at the back of the vehicle. For some reason we leave it at Blackburn for a taxi to Blackpool but our way into Blackburn is blocked by an accident and we have to reverse up a side street to turn and then detour around through Darwen. We get home on schedule though at 11:30pm.

Return to Magical Markets of the Rhine Valley Index Page

Koblenz - Our First German Christmas Market

Saturday 7 December 2019. The third part of today's excursion, after the Rhine cruise and Boppard, is Koblenz.

It's mid afternoon as we arrive in Koblenz, the city at the point where the River Moselle flows into the Rhine. Several river cruise ships are moored up here and we sneak a peek inside as we walk past. The standard of furnishings in the cabins looks very high and luxurious.

We are walking up a main shopping street, Miss Franny looking in wine shop windows picking things for me to juggle later on our walk back to the coach... Bits of music in several different styles reaches us and eventually we come across these four guys who happily pose and/or blink as I take a photo. You win some, you lose some...

A massive shop selling Christmas decorations. I went all nostalgic when I saw these as my parents had a couple of glass birds just like these when I was still playing with my toys on the floor with bare knees rather than from behind a microphone. The pink one next to the gold one came home with us.

Ta Da! Our first Christmas Market! We've glimpsed others down side streets but decided to walk up the shopping street and then work our way back down doing the side streets.

Glűwein is mulled wine and lots of people were wandering round with glass mugs getting emptier and eyes getting glassier!

Well I don't mind if I do... The mugs came home with us too.

Not really sure what this was about... The policeman seems amused but what is that she's holding? A turkey foot? A set of withered bagpipes? And she's reaching for a bribe out of her purse too...

Time for a wander and getting into the Christmas Spirit. Or should that be "getting Christmas Spirits into us"...?

Ham and cheese on a stall. Fran considered getting a small cheese as it would have been cold enough in the hold of the coach. Kaiserschinken as the ham is labelled, is literally King Ham. Miss Franny shook her head. "I might want some cheese but I don't want any king ham..." Blimey... Alright, alright, calm down..."

We had a good wander around all the side street markets on the way back down. A group of people with brass instruments were playing just short snatches of Christmas Carols, getting a round of applause after each one. Literally just one verse for each one. Perhaps they were enjoying the applause!

As it starts to get dark it gets quite a bit colder. We set off back to the river with about 45 minutes before we are due at the coach, to walk along to a significant landmark. We reach the junction of the Moselle and Rhine rivers and looking across the Rhine, we see the cable car.

This is the landmark. A huge statue of Kaiser Wilhelm of WW1 fame with the base made into a prison by Hitler. It was specifically to hold Winston Churchill in WW2 and to incarcerate and humiliate him in sight of passers-by.

I have no tripod with me, but can't resist taking a few photos of the Moselle River at night.

I've always loved night photography anyway. Often quite ordinary buildings can look wonderful when picked out by lights against a dark sky.

We walked as far as the first bridge over the Moselle River and then turned back to return to the coach for our trip back to Assmannhausen and our hotel.

Once back we had just enough time before dinner to trot a way down the street to take a photo of the hotel.

Return to Magical Markets of the Rhine Valley Index Page

Creeping Bentgrass Christmassy Car Club Concert!

Thursday 14 December 2017. All awash with alliteration, no... that's it. I'm not going to be able to keep that up... Thursday night saw us battling torrential rain and hail in Fleetwood as we set up in the Cricket Club to perform at the Christmas Party of a local Classics Car Club.

We have played for this club several times in the past and strangely, whenever prizes for the best car are handed out, the judges have always managed to overlook my Mazda... However, no prizes tonight as the order of the day is to celebrate Christmas and have a party!

I'm trying out my new American Professional Fender Stratocaster for the first time at a gig tonight and it sounds lovely and is a perfect match for the old faithful cherry red guitar.

A surprise visit from Father and Mrs Christmas and... surely that's not a reindeer...!

Christmas Greetings 2016

On Christmas Day, let me extend warmest Christmas wishes for a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year 2017 to all my readers. Let me share a memory of my own childhood Christmasses.

In those less technically dominated years in the second half of the 1950s, our Christmas tree would be bought from the greengrocer and carried or dragged home depending on size, always on the very first day of December. Dad would wrap a string of lights around the tree. Not the tiny insignificant things we have today, but bulbs an inch or so long and all different shapes. Some were like Chinese lanterns, others like a moulded Santa's face. Some were like parrots.

But one year he brought home a set of lights with a large plastic base and a glass tube with coloured liquid sticking out. Once the bulb was lit and it had warmed up the liquid, it began to send bubbles up the glass tube!

Whenever Dad bought a set of lights he would always buy a few extra bulb holders and would join them into the string of lights. With all the lights wired in series, if any bulb went out so did all the others and it was a long job sometimes to find out which bulb had blown. Adding more bulbs added to the electrical resistance and stepped down the voltage. The bulbs shone that little bit less brightly. But in the days when people strung paper garlands across the ceiling it made it less likely that a bulb would cause a fire.

Our Christmas trees had movement from the bubbles, long before domestic Christmas lights would flash on and off and change colour. The lights lasted for years and spare bulbs were available right through the 1950s and 60s until the smaller fairy lights came out and the manufacturers thought of changing the fittings slightly every year, forcing people to buy a new set when they ran out of bulbs.

We would visit one set of grandparents on Christmas Day and the other set on Boxing Day. These were our Christmas Parties and there would be more presents for everyone and we would at some point all sit or stand and sing a few Christmas carols, around the sit-up piano in the front room. There would always be a moment where someone would sigh and say "Eeh, our [insert name of a family member who had died during the year] was here last year..." and the grown-ups would all look up and lift their glass of sherry or port. For a while as a child I thought Grandma kept all the dead people upstairs in her bedroom and I used to be terrified of going upstairs to the loo in case they came out wanting a Christmas hug...

Have a wonderful Christmas.

A Morning in York

Following our brilliant night listening to André Rieu in Leeds on Friday, we were extremely sorry to hear that a member of the orchestra had suffered a heart attack. As a result, the rest of the UK dates have been postponed. The musician has not been named but is a male and has been with the orchestra over 20 years, as have many of this close-knit orchestra. As a musician myself I know that you form very close bonds with people with whom you make music and I can understand their decision to postpone. I hope he recovers well and is able to rejoin the orchestra.

* * * * * * *

On Saturday morning we knew nothing of this. We got up lazily and had breakfast then set off eastwards towards York.

We parked near the famous Shambles and walked together for an hour before splitting up - we both had secrets to buy for each other. Well, I had something in mind for Miss Franny anyway - her excuse was that she didn't want to feel rushed because she was dragging me round shops I had no interest in... Me! Me who shows ... ah... er... no interest in shopping whatsoever... Well anyway I had a chance to buy Miss Franny's Christmas present and stagger under its weight back to the car to leave it in the boot, hoping she wouldn't notice how the rear end seemed closer to the ground than usual. My arms will shrink back to normal hopefully...

I had a wander around the city centre. There were several shops where I wasn't averse to having a look in the window and the atmosphere in the city on this last Saturday morning before Christmas Eve was quite wonderful. There were several groups of carollers singing and musicians here and there. A small European Market had been set up and the air was full of smells of pastries and the tang of spice from mulled wine.

I had a mooch along narrow side streets and passed the Minster and under one of the gates of the city which are known as Bars. I came to Kings Manor, now part of the University of York, but once a residence of kings on their travels around the kingdom. King Henry VIII stayed here during his ill-fated progress which would be the undoing of his fifth queen. Catherine Howard. Whatever the facts it must be borne in mind they married (she would have no choice in it) when she was 16 or 17 and the king was 49, huge and with a stinky leg ulcer from a jousting injury. Not a match made in Heaven...

I walked past the Theatre Royal of 1744. It is built on the site of a medieval hospital and a well, thought to be Roman, lies under its stage! The rough brickwork of the building attached to it caught my eye along with an intriguing feature...

This was a small patch of brickwork that was obviously far more modern. I wondered what the reason for this apparent repair was (and still do - no amount of searching seems to have turned anything up). If anyone knows, please leave a comment!

House Party At Christmas

Once again over the Christmas period Creeping Bentgrass headed over to Darwen to play at a large house party.

With all the weather that had been going around we were pleasantly relieved to get there without having to wade the car through any floods. What an awful time many people have had at a time of year that should be enjoyable.

Ours at least was an enjoyable night and plenty of the party-goers told us how much they looked forward to it every year. In fact I'm sure there were more people there this year! And we heard from the organiser of the Harvest Festival we did earlier in the year that audience members from that event had been asking for our return too!

A huge than you to our hosts Brian and Christine!

364 Days to Christmas

Never mind - it's only 364 days to Christmas...

A couple of days ago Miss Franny disappeared into the kitchen, muttering something about "I may be some time...". The result was a pile of mince pies too big to shake a stick at! (I nearly wrote "mice pies" - I would have been in trouble then!!!)

Whilst my tum started to make appreciative noises even in advance of eating, she announced that the majority were destined for other homes and families and started to tick off the lucky recipients on her fingers. I was beginning to wonder if there would be a finger left for me but, phew, there was! They are a bit yummy are Miss Franny's mince pies!

Then on the shortest day (has anyone noticed the nights getting lighter?) the Mayan long calendar came to an end.

Now there may be several explanations for the somewhat total lack of world destruction that went on.

1. 21 Dec 2012 just happened to be the point at which the chunk of stone got filled up. "You fool! I told you to carve smaller!"
2. The humongous Mayan calendar got lost somewhere around 13 April 1461...
3. The tiny, seemingly insignificant, act that occurred deep within the bowels of the earth will lead eventually, as the Mayans knew only too well, to the inevitable blow-out...

I can't help thinking that it would have been far more sinister if half of the Mayan calendar stone had been left blank...

And so Christmas Day arrived!

My most-likely-to-lead-to-disaster present... I once shook a bottle of tomato sauce without checking that the lid had been screwed on properly. The resulting red streak came down one wall, crossed the freezer top and front, led across the floor with a gap where my front got in the way and then up the cooker and wall on the opposite side. Unfortunately one of our cats had been sitting on the freezer top and was so appreciative of his new red coat that he sped off, scraping against the living room door, his sister and then the curtains in the front room before we managed to get to him with warm water and cloths...

So the family have never let me forget that little episode. Thanks to other members of my family (who live at a safe distance) for this chance to repeat this event...

But call me a big softy or whatever - my best Christmas present was when my darling Grace came with her Mum and Dad to share the day with us. Gangan loves you Sweetheart!

More Christmas Aftermath

"You're going to laugh at me now..." said a cheerful, if slightly dripping, Miss Franny as she stepped in out of the rain on her return from work.

"Why, what have you done?" I asked mildly, noting the shopping bag swinging from her hand.

"They've got long dates but they were selling them off!" she said triumphantly.