I Must Be Somewhere Around Here...

Several weeks of travelling about and being busy at weekends have left me with little time for updating the blog lately. However, here's a bit of an update. "Bit" in that it skims the surface and just gives a flavour... This last week started with a train trip to Edinburgh.

I'm not a big fan of trains. It seems that every time I take a trip by train it reminds me why I don't like them...

On the day I was coming back (Tuesday), the power lines just north of Carlisle decided to come down. As they do... It meant that no trains passed that point until lunchtime that day. Now that's not bad as it was teatime by the time I was ready to roll out, but all trains were running late. Quite late... And by the time we got to Preston, the usual three-an-hour trains to Blackpool had turned into none-this-hour but four-in-the-next...

I got home late and of course Fran was on a late shift so I had to set to and make some tea, after cleaning up the cats' litter trays. As my meal was almost ready for coming out I heard the merry sound of one of the cats upchucking a hairball... He sat looking at me as though to say "Hey Dad! Welcome home!"

Then on Thursday I had the joys of a hospital trip in the morning for some tests that involved taking a fasting blood sample then administering obnoxious gloop and then taking another blood sample after a couple of hours of doing nothing, eating nothing, drinking nothing to see what my body had done with the gloop. I had a rather queasy feeling that I knew exactly what it had done with it but never mind...

Then after a very late breaking of fast, it was almost time to set off for Shrewsbury.

The Lion Hotel had a notice in their windows - their own cat had gone missing...

I was running a workshop in Telford but the travel agents had decided there were no hotels with vacancies closer than Shrewsbury so I had a half hour drive on Friday morning in the fog to get to Telford.

After that, all I had to deal with was a trip up the M6 on Friday night which is never a good thing. I might have been tempted to head back towards Shrewsbury to go up the A49 to Chester but someone said the M54 was blocked due to an accident that way... I reckon it still might have been quicker!

Anyway a good night last night as we went to Garstang to watch Garstang Musical Whatever (used to be Garstang Light Opera Group and I could remember that name...) doing a show of musical numbers from all their productions over the past 25 years as they celebrated their 25th anniversary. Brilliant night!

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7 Brides, 7 Brothers and a Preacher...

Last night we had the most excellent night out. We went to the Spring offering from GLOG - the Garstang Light Opera Group - who were staging "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".

Band member David Lancaster is a member of GLOG and was playing the part of the Preacher. As usual he put in a fine comedic turn with lots of face pulling and a few ad libs here and there. There were some fine performances from Marion Gaughan as Milly and Roger Lloyd Jones as Adam and I must especially mention some of the younger members of GLOG who turned in blinding performances as the brides and brothers.

The more experienced of the cast being chastened to realise the script would have needed rewriting a touch as "Seven Widows for Seven Divorcees" perhaps? No matter! I always remember the excellent line from "42nd Street" which goes something like "Son, I've been playing juveniles on Broadway for 15 years and no one is going to tell me..."

As it was the last night for the show the cast traditionally have a last night after the show party, the last few of which Fran and I have been privileged to attend. I travel too much to be able to attend rehearsals to be a member, but the band play GLOG's fund raising evenings and I've sort of been adopted as a sort of associate member! In order that both David and Jeannie (who works behind the scenes) can enjoy the night I've always driven on these occasions.

Last night the party was held in the Church Inn, giving David the chance backstage to adopt his Preacher persona and announce "Everyone to the Church!". GLOG Chairman, Peter Cooney and I took along accoustic guitars and after the hotpot supper we gathered the cast of the show around us for a couple of hours of sing-a-long fun to the music of the Everly Brothers, Dylan and more...er.. did I somehow launch them into Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody???"