Boy I’m Getting Old

Last night Kay and I decided to pay the Bell Inn a visit in the local village of Haughton, as it was advertised that they were having a 60’s night with live music…well that’s our era, so off we went hand in hand down the lane to the pub.

It was a balmy night with a bit of a cold wind and the pub was fairly heaving with customers, so it was a bit of a fight to get to the bar, I ordered a pint of Mild for myself and a pint of Bitter Shandy for Kay and we sat down to enjoy the music. 

The advertising was spot on, the band was, (you guessed it) all over sixty years of age. I have never seen so many white haired old guys thumping out the old songs. It was a pity that the vocalist had a pronounced stutter, so "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbra Ann" took on a new twist as did "Do Wah Diddy Diddiy Dum Diddy Do". I couldn’t wait to hear their rendition of "I can’t get no s-s-s-s- satisfaction". 

Kay kept on giggling to herself remembering the sketch form “Only fools and horses” where the singer couldn’t pronounce his R’s so they came out as W’s and his rendition of Roy Orbison’s "Crying" was a real scream.

Watching the left handed drummer thump out the rhythm on a right handed drum kit made me realise why I'd decided to give up the drumming lark at fifty. Old drummers look so sad trying to emulate Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones (remember how sad an old fart he looked thumping the skins?) they should all have their drum sticks taken off them and have them publicly snapped in front of them to remind them to give it up (Trev Bathem if your reading this this applies to you as well..LOL)

Charlie Watts

To be fair to the old guys (Listen to me…. old guys!) the lead guitarist was a fairly accomplished player and they did put together some reasonably good harmonies, we did enjoy the music though for some reason I kept seeing the farm manager Elgin Sparrow-hawk from Green, Green, Grass on the mike (Ohhh Arrr Farmer Boyce).

Elgin Sparrow-hawk

The land lady (a very nice young woman) had risen to the occasion of the royal wedding and strolled around in a nice outfit supporting her NATO medal that she had been awarded for her time in Bosnia. But some of her female customers really do need to be aware that a gallon will not go into a pint pot the dresses were so tight that you were in danger of having your eye poked out just getting to the bar (which I visited a couple of times) so all in all we had a nice night out but Kay did wonder why I had a stupid grin on my face and kept rubbing my eye.

This morning although the sun shone brightly it was really windy with last night’s flags being fairly ripped off their poles. So we popped out to Hanley to do a bit of retail therapy and had a nice midday lunch a Trentham Gardens before returning back to the RV.

So now we have the two warning triangles that we need for use on the continent and a large map of Spain and four packs of factor thirty sun tan lotion (we live in hope).

More Anon