Saturday Singaround

I had a terrific weekend. Nothing particularly momentous happened; it was just one of those weekends that flow in a relaxing way from one enjoyable activity to another; the sort of weekend I increasingly enjoy. I used to like more exciting weekends; jumping on a train on a Saturday morning after a heavy night on Friday, not knowing where we’d end up; meeting Bob for one of his mystery pub crawls in Oxford or Birmingham or ending up in London where we’d have to get the last train home or else sleep on the street. This was living on the edge and sometimes I came unstuck, but nothing too terrible ever happened and I always got home eventually. These days I’m more cautious (not to mention tired) so the weekend consisted of shopping, meeting OH for coffee and reading the Guardian, home for lunch and then to the singaround. This was terrific; a full house with about 20 different instruments; violin, bodhran (if that’s how you spell it) percussion, bass guitars, electric guitars, recorders, piano accordions and something called a ‘straight pipe’ which I never got a chance to find out more about. All this and storytelling with poetry from myself and Scruffy Pete who is a legend in his own lunchtime. As a tribute to International Women’s Day I did ‘When I am Old’, a take on Jenny Joseph’s Warning (https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/warning/) and the Victoria Wood tribute ‘Let’s Do it’. I used to call it Is Vic There because there was once a song with that title and because her friends called her Vic – but I don’t think anyone remembers the song now so the reference is lost. It was a brilliant afternoon, perhaps all the more poignant because sadly the pub is closing when the current owners leave. Another one bites the dust; pubs are closing all over Britain at an alarming rate and I don’t know what can be done about it. There’s only so much beer a person can drink… Still, at least the Moonface is doing well.

I didn’t make it to Loughborough Beer Festival in the end; it cost £10 to get in and these days I don’t drink enough beer to make it worthwhile. Besides, I can’t really afford it. On Sunday I went to Meeting as usual and received a lovely visit from The Son in the afternoon bearing chocolates and beer (always preferable to flowers, though OH did get me some daffs and a card as well.) We almost made it to watch a couple of singaround musicians at the Organ Grinder but decided to stay in as we were both knackered and because of the need to save money.

Kirk out