A long story, not cut short!

It has been a busy few days with quite a lot happening but I will try to condense it down into as short a Blog as I can!

Friday… Lynda and I went into Derby to pick up our new glasses. We spent ages getting them “fitted” - I thought they were going to chop off one of my ears and re-fix it lower down my head at one point! - only to discover a fault in one of the lenses on my pair when I got home! The glasses have now gone back!

We drove up to Rowarth in the afternoon for The Silver Dogs gig. We didn’t get to have a walk up on the moors due to the weather, it rained! Finding the Little Mill Inn proved to be just as hard as I had imagined - we missed at least two turnings off the main road, and then finished up having to reverse down a single-track dead end road! Finding the inn was not only a relief but also a pleasure. It’s a great pub, in a great location and serves some very good food. It was worth the drive out just for that.

The Little Mill Inn, Rowarth.

You can stay the night, in an old Pullman railway coach!

The working water wheel next to the inn.

The Silver Dogs gig was excellent; this band need to be playing much bigger venues to much larger audiences. We sat chatting to our old friend Mark “The Madfiddler” Knight for a while before the band played and also got to know the rest of the band members a little - a good bunch of people they are too. As for Mark, he is still as mad as a hatter! He went walkabout at one point during the set and finished up out on the road playing his fiddle. Luckily, Mark still uses a radio mic setup on stage so, even though the crowd lost sight of him, we could still hear him play! Great stuff!

Mark (The Madfiddler) Knight!

The Silver Dogs!

The Madfiddler!

Saturday… Not surprisingly, we had a rather late start to the day, well it was around 2:30AM when we got to bed! I think it was somewhere around 11:30AM when we finally surfaced! I spent what was left of the morning, and some of the early afternoon, sorting through the photos I had taken the night before whilst Lynda went into Derby to do a bit of shopping and to take my glasses back.

After watching some of the rugby on TV - I fell asleep through most of it - it was time to head off to The Flowerpot, venue for the second gig of the weekend. This time it was Thee na Shee we were off to see. This was another new band to me although a couple of the band members were people I knew from other bands; Mick Doyle also plays with Neverland; John Adams plays with The Rattlers.

As it was St. Patrick’s Day The Flowerpot was packed out for this gig; everyone was in party mood and the place was really buzzing. The atmosphere was helped even more by the fact that quite a few of Mick’s family and friends were over from Ireland for the gig. The evening kicked off with a couple of Mick’s family or friends (I can’t remember which) playing for around ¾ of an hour as a warm up. They played a great set of traditional Irish music and really got everyone in the mood for the rest of the evening.

As for Thee na Shee; it’s something like 11 years since they last played regularly, apart from one comeback gig last year, but it didn’t show at all, they played a superb set. There was everything from slow, haunting, tracks featuring Celtic Harp to full-blown Celtic rock n’ roll. With luck, this band will now start and play a few more live gigs again and I’ll be there as and when they do.

Robin Launder - Thee na Shee

Robin Launder and Mick Doyle - Thee na Shee

Jeff Davenport - Thee na Shee

Sunday… A day of rest! We went up to see my mum this morning to take her Mothers Day card and present. On the way back I called in at PC World and purchased a new anti-virus programme for the PC. We then came home, had lunch, watched some TV and I fell asleep! I did wake up in time to watch the F1 Grand Prix re-run though. Not a bad race I suppose but I missed Schumacher! And, if you watched the race… What on earth was David Coulthard doing? I’m sure there must be something in the rules about trying to decapitate the opposition using your own car!

So, that’s the weekend covered - trying to condense it didn’t work too well, did it?

More photos from The Little Mill Inn gig HERE!

More photos from The Flowerpot gig HERE!