Singing For The W.I.

Wednesday 3 November 2021. After going down well at the Over Wyre Social and Activity club I was asked to perform for the Women's Institute in Knott End at their AGM this week.

I had been contacted through my old school chum and long-standing friend Janet who is a member of both organisations. We first met when we were eleven and that is [ahem - CENSORED!] years ago now!

Janet made me laugh when she told me afterwards that one of the group had said to her 'When he went on stage I thought "Well... he doesn't look like a rock star! But boy! Can he sing!"' Agh - I don't look like a rock star???

Performing in Knott End

After not being able to meet for eighteen months due to the COVID pandemic the Over Wyre Social and Activity Club held their first comeback meeting at Knott End Working Men's Club on the afternoon of 16 September 2021.

Having been asked by the organisers who rang round the members to see what they would like to do at their first get-together, their response was to mention me!

Coming over all humble and shy, I jumped at the chance. After all, all those lockdowns gave me time to put several new sets together and learn lots of new songs and I gave them a trip through the 1960s with dips into decades on either side. I seemed to go down well and the organisers have since told me that feedback has been great. Phew! Happen as well seeing as I am due to play again at their Christmas party!

Care Home Gigs

After 18 months with only a single gig, it felt good to be back playing music to an audience again. My Mum has had to go into a care home following a bad fall and a spell in hospital and was eager to get me into the place to hear some of her favourite songs again.

She had to wait until COVID rules were relaxed but my first visit went down so well I was asked back in short time to do another session, this time adding a few older songs by the likes of Frankie Laine and even Bing Crosby (which went down so well, I'm having to learn some more!)

The gig I did for the Christmas party of the Over Wyre Social and Activity Club back in December 2019 has spawned another three solo bookings for later in the year and we could do with a few for the duo Creeping Bentgrass if anyone is looking for a night of sixties music. Contact details are in the right-hand column - please specify whether it's a solo or duo you would like.

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.

Hidden Gems Cruise - Final Night and Maris's Birthday

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.

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Hidden Gems Cruise - Tides Bar, Water's Edge and Palamos

A short one this time starting with our evening on Saturday , 21 September 2019.

We spent the night (as we always do when 2 Intense are onboard) in Tides Bar, listening to Tomas and Maris do their thing. They knock the socks off any other act I've ever seen on a ship.

>.

With a friendship going back nine years now, I usually get invited to do a couple of songs a night. I don't take this for granted and it's a privilege to be able to do it. Tonight my two numbers are an instrumental: Wonderful Land, originally by The Shadows and Roy Orbison's Penny Arcade

Sunday, 22 September 2019. We were due to be in Sète in France today, but Captain Steve has been keeping an eye on some bad weather and as it is hovering around Sète and added to the fact that there are limited tugs available in Sète in terms of both numbers and power, we are diverted to Palamos in Spain.

We have been to Palamos before and it has a small centre with shops and a great beach. But it is Sunday so most of the shops are closed except for those catering to the cruise and tourism trade. We have a long walk up the sea front and there are several of these old cannon set in a framework of curved white walls. We sat on a bench and I sketched as best I could, whilst people stood in front of the gun and kids climbed on it. From the state of them I'd hazard a guess that they have been lifted from the sea bed at some considerable time since they fell there! It's our sixth day out of seven on the cruise and we are both ready to fall asleep... We made our way back to the ship and spent the afternoon doing just that for a couple of hours! Going on holiday should be restful? What a strange thing to contemplate, ha ha!

Anyway we are back up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for another night in Tides. My two for tonight are another Shads tune Shindig and then Gerry Rafferty's Stuck In The Middle With You.

Tomas and Maris finish their set and we head for the Water's Edge bar where Tri-Vibe persuade Maris to do a number.

Tomas, meanwhile, is showing off his new handbag...

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Venetian Vistas Cruise Final Night

Wednesday 26 September 2018. It is the final night of our cruise and, having come on an early flight, our return flight is also early. We have to be off the ship by 07:15.

We have a full evening planned - dinner with Tomas and Maris and then singing in Horizons, so the afternoon is spent packing as (sob!). Off the ship for 07:15...? Yikes, will we have got to bed by then?

But we are packed apart from the clothes we are wearing (and a few for tomorrow!) when it comes time to head to the Kora La speciality restaurant for our celebration dinner with Tomas and Maris.

This restaurant provides both Indian and Chinese styles of cooking and we are in for a treat.

A small pot of tiny cubed melon and pineapple serves as a mouth freshener.

Miss Franny nods off for a while... I think she was just in ecstasy at the food, of course!

Ah yes... I was there too! Some exotic flavours and a lovely meal to celebrate Maris's birthday and our friendship which has so far spanned nine years.

Then there's a few last songs to sing - tonight's repertoire includes Billy Fury's Wondrous Place and my sing-a-long for the evening is Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.

Then a late night catch up with King in the Lido as we have to say goodbye until our next cruise with these talented people. King gives Miss Franny a hug, "Goodbye Mommy!" he jokes. Bye for now folks. Catch you again as soon as we can!

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A Day in Zadar, Croatia

Sunday 23 September 2018. Marella Celebration docks in Zadar in Croatia. Another of several places we have not been to before this cruise.

Zadar has a traffic-free medieval and Roman centre and a shuttle bus takes us from the ship to the seafront so that we can explore on our own. There is a sea organ here with the pipes leading to holes in the paving along a 70 metre stretch of the coast. Wave action blows air through them so that random notes sound as you walk along.

We ignore this path that leads into the town in favour of walking the full length of the seafront which our map told us would lead to one of the old city gates.

The latter part of our route took us alongside the medieval city walls and a couple of times we thought we were heading for a dead end only for the path to reveal itself almost at the last minute.

You can see what I mean here. The gate itself is now in sight, but how to reach it?

Not until we reach it is the path revealed, narrow, but passable.

The gate bears the almost inevitable Venetian winged lion symbol. To the right of the photo atop the wall are five wells, but we missed them this time.

Instead we passed through the gate immediately looking right to the walls of the Svarog Bar and the Captain's Tower.

Narodni Trg or Peoples' Square. The building is the home of the Town Guard. It's ok, I wasn't causing trouble...

We turned right 90 degrees at the Square and, passing through a gate, came to a waterway with a pedestrian bridge to the opposite side. It turns out that the old town of Zadar is built on a peninsula or promontory, so the water on both sides of it is the Adriatic Sea. Over the bridge was the modern part of Zadar. In this view we are facing back towards the old town and the two figures on the banner over the gate are Zadar's medal winning rowing team from the 2016 Olympics.

Looking towards modern Zadar over the inlet of the Adriatic Sea.

We returned to the Peoples' Square and once again turned right 90 degrees thereby continuing in our original direction through the town. We were now walking along a well-to-do shopping street. At the far end, the bell tower is that of St Anastasia's Cathedral, which dates from the 1100s and contains the saint's relics.

Next to it, once we reached it, is the unusual circular Byzantine church on the left; St Donatus, dating from the early 800s CE. It is one of a very few Croatian churches to survive the Mongol invasion of the 13th century.

So a Mongol invasion, the Ottomans and Venice. Before them all were the Romans and these two churches stand over the site of the Roman Forum.

Some original Roman stonework is contained inside the churches and in the pavements and gardens to the west.

Making a selfie was a tough proposition in the Roman days...

We sit admiring the Roman remains and gardens then walk back to the pick-up point for the shuttle bus back to the ship. The bus leaves as soon as we have sat down.

Songs tonight include Halfway To Paradise by Billy Fury and I Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles.

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