Summer, the sunny bits...

Traditionally we start a blog with apologies for not having blogged for ages so…oh, you know… The formalities dealt with, here we go. Returning to London and to rude health we had the suits nicely pressed and packed lemon squash and sandwiches enough for a whole weekend under canvas. With the Hope Festival site at Biggin Hill as base camp, we’d planned to range as far afield as Hay on Wye for a couple of other events. We were thwarted in this on three attempts. Firstly, our aging Hewlett Packard had a nervous breakdown: I had to sit with it the whole of Thursday as it moaned on and on about the pressures of work, being under appreciated, its feelings of inferiority toward our Mac and finally how we never take it anywhere! Second, we spent all day Friday on the M4. After seven and half hours in the car we finally abandoned all hope of reaching the Hay Literary festival in time for our slot and all because, completely out of the blue, the Queen had a Diamond Jubilee and in celebration they’d boarded up Wiltshire. We got as far as Severn View services (home of our favourite Travelodge) bought coffee and headed back. Our Hope Festival appearance. Saturday night on the main stage. Great crowd, great sound and it didn’t start raining til we were driving Bob to the station. Result! Sunday afternoon found us at The Old Neptune, Whitstable – brilliant! Nothing can go wrong here. Convinced that our crowd would all be at Hope or with family raising arms to the Queen we expected a fairly quiet session, but not a bit. The rain was sheeting sideways up the beach aand gradually the pub filled up with wet hair, wet coats and wet dogs. All the windows steamed up and it felt fantastic to be part of such a warm happy atmosphere. Three glorious sets and much smiling occurred. The rain continued and put paid to any idea we may have had to pitch our tent that night – strike three! Wednesday, June 6th. The Transit of Venus. To celebrate, and as part of Brockley Max, we curated a gig at The Wickham Arms. Mr. Rock Loves Mrs. Roll – three bands consisting of married couples. Dune Lake (soothingly downbeat and sparse), We Ghosts (like sunshine in your ear) and Bruise (ahhhh). An uplifting night of music made of love and nothing like as cloyingly sickening as this makes it sound (ha ha). Thank you Jim, for your remembrances of gigs long gone. A nostalgic trip into the past when Summer was young and behaving like winter. Isobel here and it’s my turn now… 7th June we were down at Belushi’s on Greenwich High St, though sparsely attended Jim and I had a really lovely time, Julie and Rupe were two friendly faces in the ‘crowd’ and we played for them and we played for ourselves in the back room of a pub that used to be a theatre. No pressure, just beautiful acoustics and a distracting wall of spirits. When our friends Steve and Val invited us to play ”Someone Else’s Garden” Party we jumped at the chance. It was Steve’s birthday and just to prove that the sun does shine on the righteous, the sun did shine for the first time in ages. We played 3 sets, I had a couple of beers which gave a giddy glow to the whole event, and we finally stumbled into a cab in the company of Pychwood and Clamp in the wee small hours after a long and possibly genius jamming session in the conservatory, I’m not sure, I was a bit worse for wear. Hurray! 14th June we were at The Chambers in Folkestone, they had tempted us down there with the offer of money, food and by calling us phenomenally talented. Frankly they had us after the fee but all other perks were appreciated. On top of that, what a scene! Glorious audience who danced and roared, and laughed and body-popped, yes you heard me right. Any time you like Chambers because we had a great night. Still in Kent, a welcome return to The White Horse in Chilham. Imagine an idyllic village square, with an imposing country manor at one end, a church opposite and a proper country pub on the corner, then make it a Saturday night and put us in there, with the drum kit, the sampler, the works. Sounds a bit unlikely doesn’t it? Well let me tell you, odd as it is, these nights work really well. We love them, they love us. Deep in the heart of the bucolic Kent landscape lies a bohemian enclave well worth a vist. The Summer Solstice! The sense of anticipation for this gig was huge and the night itself was no disappointment, a free flowing, graceful evening of traditional folk in a beautiful church, with a pause in the middle for wine and sandwiches: what’s wrong with that? Nothing, that’s what! It was an utter pleasure to sing this midsummer repertoire in such great company. Gush. Gush. Cathy Lesurf and her partner were extremely complementary about our reworking of Derwent Water’s Lament, and I’m still proud to remember their words when they said I was “writing perfectly within the idiom.” I am Folk, hear me roar! Thank you, Isobel, for your impressions of recent triumphs. The Windmill is a funky, funky bar and venue practically keeping itself a secret in an uninteresting residential street off Brixton Hill. An outfit called, aptly enough perhaps, Group Therapy invited us to play but forgot to invite an audience. We entertained the sound man (Paul of Sound – great name!) and Tim who runs the place and they showed their appreciation generously. Watch this space for more gigs at the Windmill. It’s very funky. The Brasenose Arms in Cropredy, Oxfordshire. A wonderful country pub run by the very wonderful Karen and Alan. Music is properly important to these two and they book Bruise regularly even though they’re under tremendous pressure by major agents to fill their dates with famous people. We love playing a couple of sets here and on this occasion Africa Link was running an afternoon mini-fest in the garden so we warmed them up with a short acoustic set. Excellent! OK, now we’re really on the road – The Channel Islands! Major thanks to Andie Fuller for putting us up while on Guernsey. We couldn’t have made this trip without her help. Thanks, Andie. Thanks also to Mark Windsor for sharing his contacts. First up, an acoustic gig at The Captain’s in St Martins. As we loaded the gear in the locals were riffing on us in a “you’re not from round here” kinda way and very funny they were too. As the gig progressed we gave as good as we got but I have to say, they really were funny (one of them fell asleep standing up at the bar. Superb!). However, this gig goes down in history for the astounding dedication to the cause shown by Steve and Val Taylor who made the trip to Guernsey especially to see us play. We were just hanging out waiting for showtime and there they were. BRILLIANT! We were very moved. The following night, an electric gig at The Cock n Bull in St. Peter Port (the big city, eh?). A young groovy crowd and much appreciation from the young groovy bar staff. All good. The next day the weather was beautiful and we took the boat to Sark for the Folk Festival – quite a bouncy crossing but no disasters, if you know what I mean. Leaving the other passengers to be dragged up the hill behind a tractor (no cars on Sark) we walked up the scenic winding path to the village and found our billet. We were to stay with a cabinet minister and his wife in their gorgeous house ten minutes from the festival site. We were on at 2pm Saturday ish electric set and the grand folkies were open armed about the odd folk influenced prock…rop… we dished out. Next day we basked in the sunshine outside a café with our acoustic guitars, singing like angels, cracking jokes and developing lopsided tans, it was paradise, Paradise! Thank you Jim and all I have to say before I post this is, I didn’t get sea sick on the ferry home YES! And thank you and thank you and thank you!