Wedding Singers

Last weekend Creeping Bentgrass played for the wedding celebration of Pat and Beryl Masters.

This took us back to our very early days as a band of four, as we were playing in the Stumble Inn at Myerscough College. Pat and Beryl are both members of staff at the college.

When we first started out at Christmas 2000, we were all four, members of staff at Myerscough. Today we are down to just the two of us and of the original four, only David still works at the college.

We did a lot of our early rehearsing in the Stumble Inn, so it felt like coming home for us to play there again.

These days we play together so often that "rehearsing" tends to be an afternoon at John's house whilst we work out a few new songs. If it works after two plays then it stays in! The third play will be in front of an audience. I have been known to spring a new song on David in a live gig but only if I know it's going to be something he knows. Cliff's The Young Ones and the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon both started out like that and we've never looked back from those two! So despite David's fondness for saying we've never played a song before, it's very seldom true!

Ah yes - formal gigs like weddings usually merit a costume change at half time when the food is served. If we stop at all, it's normally just to suck a lemon or something...

Malcesine, Lake Garda

Saturday 18 August 2012. Well we had a full post just about the ferry trip here so I'd better make this one as interesting as I can!

Luckily there is enough in Malcesine (say it Mal-chess-in-ay with the accent on the che bit) to look at and ponder over.

The ferry landing stage is next to a very small but quite busy harbour. A fairly large masted ship does one hour trips (under motor not under sail) and another firm hires speedboats by the hour. Not the English seaside town idea of speedboats either. They look the real thing! And are priced as such. The basic one will set you back fifty euros for an hour, but I expect that the posing value and a chance to thrash it about on the huge lake for an hour makes it better value than, say, a three-minute roller coaster ride.

Malcesine's castle is perhaps best seen from the lake itself, but that shouldn't put you off walking up the hill through the narrow streets to get there. The host on the airport shuttle who brought us from Verona Airport on Wednesday had told us the castle was the setting for an unbelievable number of weddings a year. I think he said 800!

One such was going on because a little blue golf buggy decked out in flowers and a bride and groom tootled past us as we walked up the narrow cobbled streets towards it. Once you get to the castle, there's probably going to be a queue for the tiny viewpoint under the castle overlooking the lake.

But it is so, so worth waiting to catch this beautiful viewpoint. Turning the other way to look up at the castle is not the best view of it so people tend not to stay here a long time, blocking your access.

A glimpse of one of the narrow streets. This one is at least on the level. Others seem to have been built more with mountain goats in mind, but perhaps I exaggerate a little here.

We came to a small piazza halfway up a hill with the bar cafe shown above. We stopped for a drink and whilst we waited for it to come, the sketchpad came out and I spent 45 minutes capturing the essence of the piazza.

Our latte machiattos had long gone and a beer seemed a good idea after a while... I left the cobbles to do once I got home. They took at least half as long to draw in as the rest of the picture!

Fran disappeared into a jewellery shop to admire the Venetian glass and I got bored enough to start getting all arty-farty, photographing colours and textures.

The shot of the shop front and the fruit by the way is not quite what it seems as this was a pottery shop and all the fruit... isn't fruit...!

And so back eventually to the harbour area and some lunch. Halfway through another wedding party came down and onto one of the boats for their photos to be taken, whooping and looking like they were having a good time.

In fact when we got back to Riva that night this same party had taken over the bulk of the dining area - they were staying at our hotel. Which meant we had to listen to the speeches... The father of the bride's speech was nowhere near as good as mine... Five years on and still some of Eddie's friends and family mention it to me... [blush] Anyway, Rosie and Rich, (Rich?!? Could you not find anyone called 'Jim'?) I wish you a good long and happy life together.

Meanwhile we are still in Malcesine despite that swift bit of future gazing. After dinner we decided to walk it off a bit rather than sit an hour and a half on a ferry so we walked south, finding more shops and a lakeside view missed by many visitors who tend to walk north from the harbour.

Return to Lake Garda 2012 Index

Blackpool's New Wedding Venue

An unexpected treat today. We went down into Blackpool to meet up with David and Jeannie for breakfast at Quilligan's. Sean provided us with the usual excellent breakfast and we took our time over it, interrupting our eating with plenty of chatter. Then we went down onto the Promenade. The fencing and scaffolding and machinery has now disappeared from the final part of the new Promenade in front of the Tower and up to the North Pier.

On this part of the Promenade is a new rather weirdly shaped building. This is the new Register Office for weddings. The tall narrow window of the upper floor has a wonderful view of the Tower. We hadn't realised but the building was open this weekend for the public to have a look around it. Someone came out to invite us to look round and we took them up on their offer.

Despite the rather odd appearance from outside, the interior is really well thought out. Wood panelling makes it look modern and won't require redecoration every two minutes and the wedding spaces are excellent.

Thanks go to David for the photos - he had his camera on him and I didn't! We couldn't get one with the Tower view as the sun was right behind it and extremely bright!

One room looks out over the beach and sea and from the staircase there are views up the Promenade and over the sea to Cumbria and Barrow where we could see plenty of snow on the Lakeland hills!

Return to Blackpool Promenade and Beach Index Page

A Wedding Gig

Last night Creeping Bentgrass played at a wedding at Garstang Golf Club.

We set up our gear and then managed to have a sit down for a while as the meal was finishing and the speeches and then some family entertainment was still to come.

We played for the early part of the night before resident DJ Ricky took over. Generally the early spot is before people feel ready to dance, but in our case it went up to 11:00pm so we had a few people on the dance floor before we were done. If nothing else the dreaded Amarillo can always be relied upon to get a few people on their feet!

Here David is imploring me to play the next song in "his key!" - whatever that is...

Oh yes... and I've bought those shoes!

Wedding Gig at Windermere

Last night we played in Windermere. It was ages before anyone fished us out... No, we weren't in the lake, we were at the Lowood Hotel, up near Ambleside, playing for the wedding of Kelly and Steve in support of a rock band who took over from us later on.

An early night for us then but a great night none-the-less, as there were a few inflatable guitars being passed round the audience and we got people to come out with them to help us play some rock and roll numbers!

Afterwards we headed over to Kendal to visit David's sister, Elaine and her husband David. They had made a fabulous meal for us and we were in a great frame of mind as we set off back home around midnight!

Wedding Bells in Durham

Last night we stayed over in Durham, after joining in the wedding celebrations of one of my work colleagues, Andy Stewart who married Verity amidst the wonderful setting of Durham Castle.

We motored over from Blackpool yesterday afternoon and met up for a meal with other friends from work. We had an excellent meal then a quick drink in a packed and noisy pub where I expected to be called "Grandad" at any point and then climbed the hill to the castle.

The reception was being held in a hall worthy and remeniscent of Hogwarts dining room! In fact after a few glasses of wine, I wouldn't swear that the paintings weren't wandering about and trying to converse with us...

Verity looked beautiful, Andy, every inch the proud husband. It was a good night.

This morning Fran fancied a swift look around the shops before we came back. I made sure she knew where she was going and then went back towards the river and along the bank to a sheltered spot from where I could sketch the hill and castle from the river bank.

I was under the shade of overhanging trees which was quite lucky as at one point it was raining heavily - the splashes in the river before me showing just how heavy. I hardly got wet and was able to carry on sketching.

This took about an hour to do on an A5 size sketchpad. I left a few details of shrubbery blank to finish later when Fran had found the shops she had wanted to look around were either not open or hadn't got what she wanted. I finished them off once we got home.

A good weekend!

Wedding Gig

Last night we were out in the beautiful countryside of the Trough of Bowland, playing at the wedding of Lee and Gail in Oakenclough.

We were glad of the SatNav as it would have been a job to find it otherwise! We were playing in a couple of marquees put together in the grounds of a country hotel.

"It'll be in tents tonight..." said David as we glimpsed them from the car. ("intense" - puns don't always work written down...) Then he said it again as we sat in the bar waiting for the speeches to finish. Oh yes, and again over the mic later on. Likes to get his money's worth out of a pun, does David! Ha! "That's what I like about you, John..." he'll say after reading this, "...nothing!"

It was a breezy night - apparently the marquee had had to be re-erected that morning after it blew down the previous night and it was certainly getting up a bit as we say up north! (note to southerners - we don't say oop for up in the northwest!)

We played for a couple of hours, filling the dance floor, then handed over to a disco. Then - disaster - the disco had technical problems. Their amp blew and we had to set back up after having almost broken down completely and we gave them another hour and a half whilst the DJ drove back home to bring another amp. Our amp didn't have enough phono inputs as we use standard jack plugs for everything except the mics.

We were wearing matching white t-shirts with suits instead of our usual black shirts and I thought it looked quite professional too! Anyway the bride, groom and guests were very complimentary about the band's performance and our willingness to step in after the DJs' technical problems. Poor couple, it's every performer's worst nightmare!

Rachel and Dan Marshall

The Friday night before last we were at the wedding reception of Rachel and Dan Marshall. It's certainly been a year of weddings for us!

Somehow I managed to forget the camera so we had to wait until Jeannie had her films developed.

We weren't able to get to the actual wedding as it was on a weekday and I had made appointments to speak to people for work, but I've chosen a photo from the wedding itself, which was at the glorious Ashton Memorial in Lancaster.

This shows the main wedding party. Ian and Vicky (on the left) were married last year and we played a most memorable gig with the band at their reception. Will and my little flower, Gemma (on the right) were also married last year.

All our best wishes go to Rachel and Dan for a long and happy married life.

Wedding Photos at Flickr

I've started to upload the photos of Gill and Eddie's wedding to Flickr

Unfortunately they appear in reverse order as Flickr puts the most recent at the front but I'm sure you won't mind too much!

I've got as far as the reception and there are still over 100 of those to crop and brighten where necessary so more will appear over the next few days and then Jeannie has had her 4 films printed which I am told have come out superb! Stand by for a few more pix then!

The ones up there at the moment were taken by my brother, Frank, who did an excellent job. Many, many thanks.

Gill & Eddie Statham

The pictures tell the story!



Married!



Family and attendants



In the car



Gill's dress



Father of the Bride



Excellent Best Man's speech from Joe



First dance (to an excellent band!)

Wedding Day Arrives

Gill's wedding day dawns and as I face the prospect of being a father-in-law (Eddie is a solicitor after all), I thought it could be a time to remind myself of the day Fran and I married in March 1976.



Only six of the people pictured above, apart from Fran and myself will be at today's wedding, although I'm sure several of them will be gathered somewhere looking on!

Fran was twenty minutes late - long enough for the vicar to clap me on the shoulder and say "I don't think she's coming, lad...!" Though he knew she would because a few rellies had turned up from the house muttering about hems becoming unstitched and frantic repair work going on.

Ours was an older church with a fascinating legend of a were-rabbit haunting the churchyard. Gill's church is small and modern but with a nice "feel" to it, if you know what I mean. St Nicholas Owen was a carpenter in the 1580s who, at his own cost, travelled all over the country, building secret hiding places for catholic priests in houses. Catholicism at the time was being suppressed under the rule of Elizabeth I; a catholic priest who had been ordained abroad could expect torture and death as a traitor, if found.

That was Nicholas Owen's own fate in the end. He was arrested in 1606 and tortured on the rack for 6 hours at a time day after day until he died under torture.

And on that cheery note, we are getting ready for the day! Fran and Gill are upstairs, with tubes of make-up being batted or carried off by the cats, who know something is "going on" and are both highly excited! We were given some extra flowers by the florist and Tigger has claimed and chewed those as her own...

I'm standing by ready to rush Fran off to the hairdresser. Gill is having hers done here. I'm having the usual spit and polish...

Wedding Rehearsal

It was the wedding rehearsal last night.

Just one week now to my daughter's wedding. Scary thought!

Fran has blue pencilled my speech. I thought it was quite funny but she just kept saying "You can't say that!" and now all that's left is "Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen, join me in raising your glasses to the Bride and Groom..."

The rehearsal went well, the Deacon is very nice and we went through our bits and pieces. David went through his reading and the Bidding Prayers and it all became somehow much more real instead of something that "is going to happen sometime in the future". Hmmm - seven days!

We went round to Eddie's parents for a quick drink and then went out for a meal with Gill and Eddie and Joe the Best Man and David and Jeannie. An excellent night.

Craft Workshop

It would make Dawn Bibby proud...

The house has turned into a craft production line with Gill's wedding Order of Service churning out at the rate of knots.

I've been drafted to do any of the computer bits and my printer has run out of magenta ink at least 20 times during the printing of the Order of Service, Place Names, Table Maps, Invites and so on.

I had to buy a long-arm stapler to do the Order of Service and the ladies of the household are now sticking fancy bits to the front of the cards. Gill moaned that the new stapler came without staples but I had a supply, bought in a moment of extravagence sometime in the 1970s before we even moved to Blackpool or had a daughter at all... 5000 staples, size 56, of which about 4900 still reside in the box despite Gill's best efforts - sheesh, she's refilled the stapler twice! In a single day!!! At that rate my great-grandchildren might need to buy another box...

There's only 5000 in the box you know! And it was expensive! One pound and fifty pence!

Bridal (what a) Shower

Gill had her wedding shower last night - something about a "butterfly theme"...

Strange the things women get up to on their own and probably best not to go there. It resembled what I imagine a meeting of a Freemason's Lodge to be like from the photos...

Anyway, this was supposed to be an understated affair with mainly the women from the family and just a couple of friends. Though anything involving wine and my mother and sister-in-law can't ever hope to remain understated for all that long, so Heaven only knows what they got up to.

Mum stayed at Gill's last night and at 11:00am Gill rang to say "Nan's head has stopped hurting now..."

Joyce (sister-in-law) managed to open a bottle of pink cava in true Grand Prix style, soaking herself and half the occupants of the room. There were strange articles - feather boas and masks and when David and I turned up to bring our wives away we unfortunately trod where no male should tread unless in a troupe of entertainers along the lines of hunky, toned and not unafraid to have clothing ripped off. Oh yes... well that's us...

We were never going to escape unscathed and thus...

We had up to then, spent a relatively civilised night, recording more of the band's album. There's only two tracks left to make a start on now but still a number to finish off. Last night almost finished us off!

It took a lot of persuading but David will not be wearing this outfit at the next gig...

The Preacher Man

David and Jeannie are round at ours for a meal and brought a load of photos up with them of various Creeping Bentgrass gigs and also this superb pic of David in costume for Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. (See the entry for 29 April)

Anyway, Gill - this is the outfit he's wearing for your wedding, providing that he's been able to catch up with and despatch Count Dracula of course...

A Welsh Morning

I've been in Wales this week, going down on Monday afternoon in some rather abysmal weather, but the view from the hotel car park yesterday morning was certainly nice.

The village is called Chancery and it's just outside Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. I missed out on most of the scenery driving there as it was dark by the time I turned off the main north-south road to head west. There was one bit where a river ran alongside the car behind a bank and I was hoping the bank held out because the water level was about halfway up the car doors...

Clive turned up around 11:00pm having driven from Motherwell in Scotland. We were in Aberystwyth at the university, running a Risk Management workshop which went well and the drive back north took us over the mountains to join the M56 at Welshpool. More spectacular scenery - including a lorry perched on a narrow bank of earth 6 feet above the roadway. Either a tyre blew or he went to sleep... He was lucky not to roll down sideways - the drop on the other side was the longer!

Got back to find wife and daughter frantically writing out wedding invitations. My daughter gets married in June so I'd better get out now and earn another crust!