A short series of articles about a long weekend that we took to Torquay in order to see a sixties show with John Leyton, The Honeycombs and Craig Douglas.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the index page of each holiday. From there you can follow the entire holiday or choose your favourite place or excursion. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Monday 23 September 2019. A busy afternoon onboard the Marella Dream, packing all our stuff into suitcases ready for the trip home tomorrow. We still had a final evening to look forward to.
It was Maris's birthday. So we were treating her and Tomas to dinner in the ship's Mistrals restaurant. One of three speciality restaurants, there is a small cover charge for the food but it is well worth the price as the food and service are both wonderful.
But first there's time to get settled and pull funny faces...
Or slightly more serious faces... The meal started with an aperitif - "What do you mean, waiter? I've still got most of my own..." This was a cauliflower tempura, a small cauliflower floret encased in batter and served with a sprinkling of chopped chives.
Starters included a prawn cocktail with mini lobster-type thing on top. Maris said it was just a big prawn...
...and then tried to make things up in case she had hurt its feelings...
Massive chunk of steak topped with dressed crab meat and hollandaise sauce with small salad on the side and side dishes of fries and mushrooms. Yum!
Maris went for full-grown lobster. Tomas mixed lobster and salmon fillet. Miss Franny also had steak but without the trimmings - she doesn't do vegetables or anything remotely green...
Maris received an extra dessert! Everybody in the restaurant all sang Happy Birthday to her, which was a nice moment.
Fran and I had a sampler dessert, with small portions of three different scrumptious sweetie stuffs!
A quick coffee and then its time for Tomas and Maris to go to work, singing in Tides Bar.
My backing vocalists were trying out their choreography tonight! After a week onboard I was struggling with the air-con drying out my throat which limits my range. I sang Doo-Wah-Diddy-Diddy which meant I could leave several lines to the audience!
As my last song of the cruise I sang Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire which has no high notes for me to struggle with! And it went down very well too!
We ended the night as always with a late night (early morning!) coffee in the Lido restaurant with Tomas and Maris and then the sad business of saying goodbye to these two lovely people until the next time we meet.
Saturday, 1 June 2019. This year marked our fifteenth appearance at the Heskin Fair organised by Jack Gerrard, his family and friends.
Once again a great night with a wonderful crowd in the huge marquee on the field at Malt Kiln Farm in Eccleston, Chorley.
Saturday 26 January 2019. Our first gig of the year took us on a stormy journey to Ainsdale near Southport to play at a 70th birthday party.
The venue was Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club where we found the best "can do" staff and an enthusiastic audience who kept the dance floor occupied throughout the evening. We kept the dancers busy and were asked to do our version of the Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin which earned us a standing ovation. Thanks to all concerned - we had just as fabulous a night as we hoped you did!
Saturday 8 December saw us out at Fleetwood Cricket Club playing for a Christmas event for a local classic car club. They were joined for the event by members of the Lancashire Morris Minors Club and a good night was had by all!
Friday, 30 November 2018 was an early Christmas date for us as we played following a luncheon for a pensioners' group if ex-British Gas staff.
Many thanks for the booking and for the invitation to join in the meal which was hosted by the Sheraton Hotel, Blackpool. Loved the venue, but breaking down took a while as I kept trying to pick up the white cables...!
Catching up on the latest gig reports, this entry covers two gigs, both for private parties at cricket clubs.
This was a couple of weeks ago on 14 April, a 50th birthday party in the function room at Blackpool Cricket Club.
Unfortunately there was another very loud band playing downstairs - their bass was shaking the floor upstairs and at first I thought that our gear was malfunctioning. One wonders whether the upstairs room should have been let out under such circumstances!
No such problems at Darwen Cricket Club last Friday night where we played for a retirement do. This was actually for an ex-colleague of both David and myself - the band (4 of us then) formed originally in 2000 at Myerscough College. So we got to see lots of familiar faces at this one!
We've had a couple of gigs so far this year. The first I'm featuring here was in Garstang at the Banqueting Suite by the canal.
It was for a Golden Wedding celebration so we were wearing our gold sequinned ties for the occasion. We have gold, silver, ruby pink, blue and black versions of these ties, which means we can usually fit in sympathetically with different party events!
At this event a slide show of the happy couple was being projected over our heads onto a screen throughout the night!
Our second gig was in Chorley and we arrived to find both a scattering of snow and a flatteringly large advertising banner.
At the end of the night someone said "is that your white van outside?"
"No I have a black car," I said. When we got out though it was our white van... I had no gloves and clearing all the snow off left me with very red painful hands! Ah well... David got to take the poster home for his collection of CBG memorabilia!
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...!
Saturday 25 November 2017 saw us back at Coast Riders Diner and Bar for a charity night in aid of Trinity Hospice and in memory of the wonderful Janet Houghton, whose baby Coast Riders was.
There were stalls selling all manner of crafts, perfumes, cakes, jewellery and lots more. Coast Riders was filled to bursting with people. There was a tombola and a raffle. Miss Franny came home laden with handbags and other stuff...
Two old geezers got up on stage and played a bit - a bit??? I think it was getting on for four hours but there was quite a break for food and the raffle. Even so by the end of the night I had some sore fingers after playing guitar!
A fabulous night was had by all though and it was the sort of night that Jan - "Big Jan" as she was known on account of her being ... not that tall really - would have loved.
We made sure we played all her favourite songs and everyone - eventually - went home happy...
...once the vampires had been seen to!
Saturday 30 September 2017. Last weekend we motored across to Darwen to play at a double 70th Birthday Party. One of the couple's birthdays was in June - the other in December. September was the obvious time then!
We had a great night with a full room and lots of enthusiastic people in the audience. Thanks all for the booking and the wonderful feedback and comments. It was a pleasure playing for your party.
This year is the sixteenth year we have played this particular event. We always have to keep a wary eye on the weather as with any outdoor gig, but this year apart from one short but quite heavy shower and a bit of wind which made a gazebo near us think it wanted to be a kite, we managed very well.
You can usually find us opposite the entrance to the college bar - The Stumble Inn - so on a really good day we can have quite a large audience sitting at tables or just standing about, drinking and enjoying the music.
And it even got warm enough for me to get all giddy and take my jacket off!
In the past we have played a few gigs for a local car club so it was nice to get a call from their secretary the other week. 'We are having a meeting and social on Thursday 8 June,' she said 'and we asked the members what entertainment they wanted. They said "those two Creeping guys with guitars!"...'
Isn't it nice to be remembered! Ha ha! But of course, we don't take ourselves too seriously so we were only too pleased to go and play for their event. They have quite a few new members also since we last played for them so they were all seeing us for the first time and we got some great feedback. 'Your voices are great!' came one comment. 'It's quite rare for someone's voice to be so strong after 40...' Well, we'll let you know whether our voices change once we get there...
It was our first time playing at Fleetwood Cricket Club too - a nice venue with easy access and no stairs - that's what I like! I still have nightmares at the memory of having to carry our previous huge and heavy speakers down an unlit fire escape iron staircase one dark night because the club didn't want us on their front stairs. It was throwing it down with rain and the steps were very steep and slippery. We will not be playing there again!
But this night was not just about music - there were cars to be looked at and judged (thankfully by someone who knows more about them than I do...) This Morris Minor Traveller won the first prize, winning a hefty silver cup to be kept for a year by its owner.
I quite liked this Ford Consul Classic - the first UK car to have twin headlights if I'm not mistaken. I nearly bought one once for £60 when I was 17, but it was just that bit too expensive and I bought a Hillman Minx for £40 instead!
