The North

Had a wonderful time soaking up the sun, sea, sand and Minchellas ice cream while back at home this weekend.



Met some old pupils while I was there. Always a strange thing that seeing people who you spent a lot of time with from the ages of 11-16, then see them again when they are pushing prams or looking so much more mature than you remember them. This is the reason I give for not remembering their names or faces anyway. So I have to say Hi to Karly, Vicki and Ruth ...... and yes I do remember their seconds names ..... Wallace, Williams and English.

Visited Rothbury, one of the most beatiful villages in Northumberland ..... sorry Newbiggen BTS ..... Saw my old school's new buildings which look very impressive. The Tyne Bridge which again made me go all lumpy (in the throat) Cleadon, home of my Fairy Godmother Enid and of course a couple of days with my Dad in South Shields.



We spent an interesting evening at the Riverside Cricket ground at their rendition of Last Night of the Proms with 2 very good opera singers who were unfortunealtey supported by the Riverside Tavistock Band. they used to be the Brown Ale band until they lost sponsorship. It was good to see some familiar faces, but I have to admit to sitting and listen to a fairly sub standard performance. It was a very similar programme to 2 years ago so nothing really that new to listen to.

Hospital

Today, Furry goes to hospital to get a few ribs changed, a couple of dints filled and a general MOT. I have had her for about 18 months now and it is about time she was fully checked out. Fortunatley, I wont be playing with her for about 10 days so plenty of time for her to recouperate. She deserves the rest to be honest after being played pretty much constantly for these past 6 months.

Bernie will be replacing her in the meantime. She doesn't very often like to be higher strung than normal, she is very comfortable in D, but for the next 10 days or so, she will have to stretch a little more to Eb.

Going to see my Dad in the North East this weekend. Haven't seen him swince the week after the honeymoon after everything was diagnosed so I imagine it may be a little bit of a shock to see him. Not planning on seeing anyone else, so apologies to those who we would normally drop by to see.

It is very hot here in Brussels, the temperature looks as though it will be back to the dizzy heights of last week .... 37° - 38°

When will the English Shut up about the weather?

I ask you .... 33.36°s? Thats nothing ... This was taken just outside our work.

Yellowjackets

No, not a blog about odd coloured clothing, but again about music

I have recently purchased the 6th Harry Potter book on paperback and slowly wading my way through it during the 25 minute tram journey to and from work.

Being weak minded and lacking a certain amount of concentration, I cant read without instrumental music playing on my Discman ... (yes, I still have a discman) and so I am currently enjoying a revival of all my "Yellowjackets" CDs. They are an American Jazz / Fusion Quartet from the Mid-late 80's and are still going strong and producing some great material. http://www.yellowjackets.com



Because they have been going for around 25 years, their music reminds me a lot of different times in my life. I was listening to "Samurai Samba" which brought back memories of Newcastle School of Music and my old drum teacher Roger Hempsel who first introduced me to them. "Livewires" was one of my first CDs and was played pretty continously while Teacher training at Bretton Hall, "Like A River" when I was moving to Netherlands, "Greenhouse" (although came out much earlier) reminded me so much of Living on my own in Chester in the Soundproof Bungalow ..... Oh yes!

What music reminds you of special moments, times in your life? Interesting answers only please.

More interesting things are happening ......

...... here

http://persistent.blogs.com/persistent/2006/07/blog_in_the_sty_1.html

Someone who I have never met is currently mimicing other fellow bloggers. This week, he has done me, and a fine job he has done too! This is their dog by then way .... not Ian. Although as I said I have never let him so what do I know.



Tonight

"La touche D'Voire" .... pleased be there to enjoy the sunshine and the music ...... then I will go on at around 21.30 - 22.00.


Tomorrow

"Celtic Ireland", which I am sure will be a long evening as we have a Bank Holiday on Friday.

Busy busy busy PART II

Sorry, forgot to to mention this guy

This guy played about 30 minutes last night to finish off the Jam .... great blues steel player, very funky! Comes from Bali, has the name of Maday (at least thats what it sounds like) and is around in Brussels for 2 weeks.

He is a must see. Hasn't anywhere to play but he will be down next week at the Bizon .... hosted by Roman .... SO BE THERE!!!!

Busy, busy, busy

Watering plants, cleaning Windows, World Cup, Ironing, washing, drying, eating, food shopping, working ....... I could go on .... but the real reason for no blogging is a combiniation of these projects and no PC at home .... mine too has gone to the Doctor, a motherboard failure it seems. hopefully, sometime this week it will be returned.

Too many gigs this week ......Wednesday, helping out The GAs for their gig, Thursday was of course the Extravaganza at Le Chat Pitre with Roman. A great success for all, I learned a lot fro the great man and the audience seemed to enjoy the whole thing. We repeated the Whole thing at Fat Boys the following night, with one exception ..... I wasnt driving so I could really let go and have a lot of fun

*** WARNING****

NEVER EVER LET ROMAN ORDER THE DRINKS IF YOU ARE GOING A GIG WITH HIM

****WARNING****


Saturday was spent recovering
Sunday was also spent recovering .... but then the World Cup Final happened ... so back to Square one.

Had a great time shouting abuse at French supporters especially at the end, but missed most of the game by talking about sensible things like World Cup Rugby with people sitting next to me.

Monday night was another great Bizon evening ..... but a late finish meant that another night of not much shut eye occured .... zzzzzzz



Louise back tonight ... cant wait ... and another reason why my Blogs entries will be in short supply.

This weekend we go to England for a wedding, looking forward to that as we get to see people who were at our wedding again! Great!

Louise has left me .....

Boo hoo! ....... for 6 days while she spends some time down south in the even more sunny South of France. I am now left alone with a long list of tasks and not enough time to do them. Fortunately, one of the greatest jobs in the World is on this list ..... no, not ironing for those who know me ..... window washing! Something very therapeutic about window washing, making sure there is no lines, nice clean sills, the glass sparkingly in the sunshine .... hmmm. Walkman on, sun shining (but not too much ... never clean windows when it is very sunny).....

Cough cough ... anyway, I will be busy this week with lots of things, Tonight I am setting up and mixing "The Grevious Angels" and trio of my aquaintance consisting of 3 guitars, harmonica and vocals. Very cleverly put together as normally this would bore me rigid .... I mean 3 guitars!!!! But no, they are very pleasing to the ears and a fun bunch of people to be with. Thursday is a gig at "Le Chat Pitre" Feel free to think what the translation could be. I am playing with the great and wonderful and highly talented "Roman" .... who is known by no other name. Really looking forward to this as we have reheared .... down the phone .... for those who know me, I am not someone who turns up and plays along, as I like the organised, rehearsed and structured sort of set up .... so maybe tomorrow night I shall fail miserably! We will see.



Friday - I'm free although my gear will be at Fat Boys ..... Saturday is Celtic Ireland, Sunday is the World Cup Final ...... Monday is Bizon ..... Tuesday, Louise returns YEAH!

It is good that Italy are in the Final, this means I have someone to support on Sunday. I hope to be at Fat Boys with Giovanni ... he of "1000 pictures" fame.

Well, must work ... mustn't I?

Amazing Weather

Its the time of year I really like. Hot weather and the start of the Belgium homidays. Around the weekend of July 1st, it seems as though the entire population of Belgium head South to their little places in France and Spain, leaving the rest of us to sit, breathe in and enjoy the space left in this small country. Today will be the hottest of the year with forecasts of 36° in the centre .....



It is a bizarre site seeing the ring road, completely blocked for around 4 hours on Saturday .... nothing moved. We went to Ikea, shopped, went home, assembled, returned to pick up a missing part, drove back home .... and I swear I saw the same van parked on top of the bridge on the Ring durin ghtis 4 hour period. Madness.

Due to Louises enforced Gardening Leave, she is whilling the hours doing all the jobs that we have been meaning to do, All our papers have been sitting in 2 red boxes since we moved to Brusssels. Now they sitt very proudly and organised in 2 beautifully put togther filing cabinets. I hope to keep Louise busy during this time ... I would hate to return home and find all my CDs in order of colour rather than Alphabetical followed by order of release.



Louise piles off to France for a week to Souliac, I have Brugge, Le Chat Pitre and Bizon Gigs during her absence so a busy week once again ahead.