The Crimea for the last time at Jazz Cafe, Camden - 30th July 2013

It is such a sad sad day, made even sadder that I could not persuade a single one of my friends to come and join me.  I listened to the entire discography on the way to London, cried a few tears (ok I sobbed like a baby) and remembered the great gigs I was lucky to be a part of.  I do have some awesome memories of  my time with this band, but why oh why does everything have to come to an end!???

It was Davey's birthday yesterday and I baked him a cake, but when I got to the venue I felt stupid and ended up leaving the cake in the car.  Davey was the first person I saw and I got a lovely long hug from him and he said he would see me later.

In the venue saw nobody I recognised but I didn't care.  I didn't really like either of the opening acts, but that might just have been down to my anticipation as it had been some years.

The gig was immense and can be enjoyed here over and over again!

I bought some vinyl and a CD and all the lads signed it and I held up pretty well.  But it was when I talked to Owen I started to cry.  When I relayed this story to Davey, his reply was "Well Owen will do that to you".

Said my goodbyes too Davey and cried all the way to the car and much of the way home.  The end of an era...

House gig number 1 - Liverpool

I send Rob a text on Friday night to see if he wanted me to come to the house gig as I had nothing to do with sorting it out.  He told me to come if I wanted to and to meet him at his house so we can go together.  We sat in Rob's house for a while discussing new management and everything that has cracked off in the last week.  I am a happy bunny and hope that new management can make things happen.

We arrived at Doug and Sue's house at about 8pm and no guests had arrived yet. They were lovely hosts and Sue being a child minder had lots of signs stuck all around the house, but the ones tonight referred to people helping themselves to booze and making sure the put money in the tip jar.

Talking of money we saw these lovely napkins lying on the counter and this was the result.

People started arriving and it was lovely to see so many turn out.  I think the final count was 29 but the best bit of all was that you could hear a pin drop as they were most attentive.  Rob made some reference about how weird the situation was and that seem to break the ice.

He played for over an hour but in all honesty it didn't seem like it at all.  I even commented to him that it was short!.

Got chatting to some lovely guests as I was making my way through the crowd to sell some CDs.  I sold 6 in the end which was very good odds considering the amount of people there.  Most seem to enjoy it and it was really nice to see Rob enjoying himself.  

Gemma joined us for the gig and later on went to fetch Charlie.  He was then the star of the show.

Looking forward to more of these.

Here is "Burns" recorded unplugged.

Ice Cream Loaf

Well Facebook has been full of posts for this recipe to make an Ice Cream bread and of course curiosity  got the better of me and I just had to try it!

It is a simple 2 ingredient recipe.

2 cups of ice cream - any flavour
1.5 cups of self raising flour

So I went looking for interesting ice cream flavours in Tesco, plus I also wanted to find something that was around the 500ml because it would melt on the way home.  So I opted for Haagen Das Creme Brulee flavour.

The ice cream was lovely and liquid when I got home so I mixed it with the flour and it was quite a dry mixture.  I must say that I did not trust the recipe and decided to add an egg.  I also thought with using creme brulee flavour I would add a couple of drops of butterscotch essence and I added some fudge chunks to the batter and sprinkled some on top.

I baked it in the oven for 30 mins on 180 degrees Celsius. 

Verdict:
Surprising not as sweet as cake but nicer than bread.  I think it would benefit from either a glaze or some kind of filling just to add some flavour.  I liked the interesting texture of the cake/bread and it was quite moist.

Brant Broughton Village Hall Gig

I have been looking forward to this one for quite some time and after last night's great gig in Chester I couldn't wait.  But first there was the simple matter of an afternoon at work to contend with.  Jackie very kindly offered to help me sort the notes cabinet.  OMG it was like being in a sauna with all the windows, we were sweating cobs!  I got changed and we left work, fetching Jen along the way.  We stopped off for some much needed sustenance at McDonalds in Newark before getting to Brant Broughton.  Got to the village hall and Rowan told us that the boys were at the pub, so we drove back to the pub.  It was Rob, Dave, Gordon, Martin and Doreen.  I remember Doreen telling me that she had never camped before but how they were camping this weekend.  I think we may have mislead them that we were camping too.  So I found myself giggling every time they mention camping.

We went to the village hall to secure our table up front.  I was trying to sneak a picture of Jackie, not the most flattering one of Doreen bending her ear.

Dave and Rob were at the table too, I couldn't help thinking how confrontational this pic looks.  Dave looks like he is gunning for Martin.

Well Dave finally took the stage and I loved it, preferred it much more than last week with that girl singer at Camp and Furnace.  Dave had such a fab blues voice.  My favourite song  is definitely "Dirty Little Secret".  I was selling CDs for Dave and we managed to get rid of 8 as he was very well received.

Lovely smile!

Next up was the turn of the main act.  I had informed Rob earlier in the day how the description on the facebook event said that it was an intimate evening with story telling.  No pressure there.  Rob was fabulous though and very talkative indeed.

Rob gave me a very sweet dedication of "I'm still here" which was beautiful even though a little embarrassing.  We had all the songs and "Stand by me".

It was so lovely to see people dancing to "Life in Easy Steps" and "The Passage".

Rob finished the night with Demons and it was lovely to see his cousin's boy Finn sing along and then doing some break dancing during the chorus.

Doreen was adamant that she was gonna have her picture taken with Jackie.

 Rob's second cousins posing for picture.

I told Rob how I didn't think the picture on the leaflets looked anything like him.  He then produced this for the pic.  It was very funny!

We all went back to Willem's for a drink and I mean everybody!  There were far too many people so we congregated just outside the back door and then both Dave and Rob joined us along with Willem and we had fabulous conversation.  Including  me telling Dave how much more I enjoyed it tonight since he didn't have that whaling woman with him.  Rob said "Dave meet Margi, she says it as she sees it".  Dave seemed a bit on edge as he kept talking about smoking his Moroccan Woodbine but wasn't sure of etiquette.  I told him to go for it and Willem joined in. 

 Most left after one drink but we stayed a little longer.  Had an in depth conversation with Mr Vincent senior and was getting worried about an increasingly drunk Jen.  We were having a fab time until Jen demanded to go home.  Jen slept for most of the way home.  What a fabulous night.