A Rollercoaster Day

Yesterday started with our best intentions of going onto the Mile to try and convince more people to come and see our show. When we met at the Pleasance, there was a massive downpour that had been there for hours and didn't seem to have any plans to leave.
But suddenly there was a break and we headed for the Royal Mile, hoping it would stay dry for long enough.

At the bottom stage we saw that Woody Sez would be playing at 12.30. I said I'd be surprised if they'd turn up with their instruments in the rain. But I'd only just finished that thought and there they were: a bit early.
The stage was empty so we jumped on, and were very soon joined by Helen, Woody Sez' double bass player. It was great fun.



A minute later David, their violinist also joined us. Our song suddenly had a lot more backing than it usually does, and we all had a fantastic time. Alex felt like he was part of a real band, and we all decided to hang around for their slot on the stage.


Woody Sez are great musicians, and they seem to have a lot of fun together. We'd met some of them last year in Recklinghausen and then bumped into them at the start of the festival, but this was a gentle reminder that we had to go and see their show. So we did. It's a great show. Go and see it.


When I returned to the Pleasance to play My Life With The Dogs, Kjell had some very sad news. My very old friend Volkswagen Caravelle number 1 has officially died. No more cross-European journeys together. We've spent a lot of great times together over the past four years, drove from Oslo to Parma, from London to Prague, from Nykobing to Graz - to name but a few. We went on a lot of ferries together (but never shared a cabin), sat in some traffic jams together, listened to foreign radio together and squashed millions of bugs on his windscreen.

I asked Kjell if I could get the VW insignia as a memento before he gets squashed into a cube of wrinkled metal.

We had a great show (even though I messed up some chords in 'It's Now or Never' - I won't do that again). Afterwards everyone went off for drinks with East to Edinburgh and the Arts Council and I stayed behind to play with the Sues.
We had a bit of a dramatic start last night. It started with Dafydd's wig, which seemed to have a bit of a tantrum minutes before we had to start, and continued with Dafydd nearly pulling the piano over. That bit was quite scary: it all happened in a flash, and in that flash I could see Dafydd's legs crushed under the upright piano. Luckily he managed to push it back up without doing any damage to himself or the piano.


And now we're off to rehearse with Liz.