The Stables

I picked Martin up at Luton: he was full of cold and we went and did a lightning-speed sound check.
Paul Davey came along to play clarinet and I was glad of his services in Autumn Love. The audience were intent listeners, obviously paying careful attention to the lyrics.
Thankfully it was a night I didn't make mistakes (it's weird, the tireder and more distracted I am, the better I play and sing) and they gave me some goodly applause and even laughed at my feeble jokes. The sound in that place is incredible, and you could have heard a pin drop. It was almost unnerving to be listened to with such concentration but a blessed relief after the cacophony from the audience you get at some London gigs.
Martin was great- even though he was full of cold, he sang beautifully and he chose a really interesting selection of songs to play. He sang a lot of my faves- Lilac Tree, Long Forgotten, Rain, Orange, and Paul joined him for a couple of songs, leaping at the challenge of playing with no dots and thoroughly enjoying playing at The Stables, the jazz version of Top of the Pops! It was a good night- two gooduns in a week, and I am a hippy bunny (that's the same as a happy one, only more psychedelic)
I know I missed The Slits last night. Were they good? I bet they were!

This evening I have just finished listening to about 72 songs, submissions to a song competition. I have whittled it down to 18 and will listen through those tomorrow to get to about ten, before roping in another judge to make the final selection. I have really enjoyed it- especially some of the songs that unfortunately had to be rejected 'cos they were so weird.
I cleaned the cooker and did the washing up while I was going through them, and the knackered old cooker hasn't sparkled so much for months.

Now I've got soft flabby waterlogged washing-up fingernails and shouldn't play the guitar until they've hardened up again. I am too achey to do any more packing (where does all this bloody stuff come from?).
I am totally unable to throw away any of my kids' drawings from when they were little, but curiously able to throw away the pink fired clay stone age woman I made when I was 8, whose feet are in her mixing bowl being stirred, because they fell off about 5 years ago and I didn't want to throw them away, and whose head is so big that it bent right forward under its own weight when the clay was still wet, so now she smiles vacantly and blandly at a spot on the ground roughly three inches away from her pot.