Tractors, Banjos, Horses, and Man Caves

Malcolm Jones

We had a lovely night at Hobo's Retreat.  It is a country listening club, and I think perfect for us.  We arrived early as we really wanted a good sound check and had no idea what the room would be like.  We were greeted by "Donny" who is actually "Danny" and it took a bit of repeating before I caught on that his "a" sounded like and "o" to me.  If I'm not mistaken there is a subtley to the pronunciation that I just wasn't getting.  He was good natured enough about me mispronouncing his name but truthfully I never felt comfortable addressing him by his name after going through that charade.

We have been traveling with a bass amp for Kristi and our guitars.  We haven't used PA much.  This was a great night though as there was a young musician,Luke Thomas,  a young UK country star who helped us out with sound.  It was the best sound reinforcement we've had for a good long while.  It was a straight ahead pa system with one floor monitor but we could all hear ourselves and I don't think that anyone was overpowering anyone else. Luke was great to talk to, and never have I worked with someone so cooperative.

There was a couple who got there early who were from the Lakes District and had driven over 100 miles (a long way in the UK) to come and listen to us.  Deborah had seen Kristi and I in Conwy, Wales in 2002.  She had a couple of our CDs and had downloaded some tracks off of the internet as well.  We were quite flattered to have someone actually follow us around.

Kristi with Deborah and Eric

This was an interesting night.  We played 1/2 hour sets with a 1/2 hour break in between. It meant that we really had to pick and choose what we played.  Malcolm assured us that we can book the gig back again.

Luke Thomas and his mother Jean

In the meantime we are at Croft Nook Cottages just getting a little rest before we travel again.  This morning as we were setting out on our walk we noticed the proprietor looking over his building materials in his lot across the street from his house.  His name is John and I decided that we (Gen, Kristi, Rebecca, and myself) should have a chat with him.  I wanted to take a picture of him and he decided that we needed to see his shed.  It turned out to be his "man cave" and was a lovely place for a guy to hang out.

John loves tractors, Chevy pickup trucks, rock and roll,and his wife Sue (maybe in that order).  He had a booth from a carnival ride in one of his sheds that he is going to outfit with a glass table top and put in his "lounge" with his jukebox which has a "Cosmo's Dream" CD in it.  He showed us his workshop.  He is a "joiner" by trade and has a full complement of the power tools you'd expect.  He pointed out to us that he is not part of the digital revolution not having even a cellphone, in fact he says he wouldn't know how to answer one.  I really enjoyed him as he has great humor with himself.

The Croft Nook Man Cave

After our chat with John we were off on a Saturday walk.  It has been a lovely day, not too hot, not too chilly.  We walked far enough to get a local overview.  I have been observing how much of the plants here are what I would call indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.  I think I mentioned that in my last little missive.  I've been taking pictures of plants one might easily recognize if one were from the Pacific Northwest.  They mostly do seem like they are slight variations of the plants I'm used to seeing.

Kristi, Rebecca, Gen near Shepley, Yorkshire  UK

Kristi and I had walked part of the route before on a nice rainy day.  This day we went further.  It was just far enough to have a nice walk in perfect walking weather.  There were mountains of Fireweed, buckets of huckleberry, boxes full of thistles, and lots and lots of stinging nettles.  There were mud puddles, horses, sheep, chickens, and one lonely Peacock.  Ducks too were in one field and they had left eggs lying around the barnyard.  We saw a bicycler fixing a flat tire (tyre?) and both the bicycles and the horsewomen reminded me that the 2016 Olympics had just visited and left.  

Bracken

I had a few words with this young woman mentioning the horse events in the Olympics.  She encouraged us to pet her horse letting us know that he was friendly.  She said they were going to a competition on Sunday so she was having an easy day with him.

I think it's time to mention last night again.  The UK microbrewery beers are totally different from US microbrews.  I'd have to be a bit more studied about brewing to explain exactly what's going on with them but they seem to me to be very original.  I think my tastes, which I thought were fairly progressive where beer is concerned now feel quite pedestrian.  Here I am drinking a Cherry Stout with Gen and Rebecca and looking forward to watching an English bluegrass band "The Porch Lizards".  .

We checked out of the B & B in Yorkshire on Sunday and drove to Guisborough.  Kristi and I were given a night at a local hotel, which was interesting.  It actually was kind of run down and after we talked to the guy who booked it for us we found out that he had actually stayed there in the 80s.  He'd only stayed for 3 weeks.  I pointed out to him that it looked like nothing had been done to the hotel since he'd stayed there.  Apparently the Marton Hotel and Country Club is something of an institution in the neighborhood.  When we arrived it looked like a birthday party, or an anniversary was being celebrated by a family who were there for Sunday dinner.

Marton Hotel and Country Club

Guisborough Rugby Clug  - Home of the Guisborough Folk Club

Sunday night was the last night of playing with Gen for this tour.  From here on out we will be Steve and Kristi Nebel. It was a marvelous last night.  The club had more people there than they had anticipated, which means we had a nice crowd.  I think we were something a little diffrerent for the folk club.  Monday morning we were gone by about 930 am and drove up to Scotland hardly stopping along the way although we did stop and I bought a Latte, caramel cooler which was a little bit of an extravagance, but nonetheless very nice to drink and I thought worth the little extra expenditure. 

Gen and Rebecca headed off to London, will go from there to Prague and then they are off to Berlin eventually home to Tacoma.  I will continue to blog.  I hope you'll continue 

to read what I am writing.  See Cosmo's Dream at the Stone Way Cafe in Seattle on Tuesday, September 20th 6-8 pm.  Keep the home fires burning.  

What Does Where You've Been Mean?

I think I've already said that being in a place I've never been before is exciting.  Maybe interesting is a better word.  There are always things to learn about the world even in you hometown.  I have noticed that I often don't notice what's going on around me.  For instance the Tesla station that you see at the top of the page here.  It was at the far end of the parking lot at the Campanile Hotel in 

Washington.  There were a lot of those stations.  If you own a Tesla electric car you can charge your car at one of those Tesla charging stations for life.  I think that's a very nice thing. After I saw that I just happened on a guy who had had a test drive in a Tesla.  He gave the car an excellent review.  The hotel is giving Tesla a place to put its' chargers, and Tesla is giving local Tesla owners a place to charge their cars for free.

We moved from that hotel to this B&B.  I've already mentioned that it is an Air B&B which troubles me somewhat.  The bets are still out on whether my misgivings are justified or not. At any rate it

looks like at this point in time it doesn't really matter what I think because Air B&B is here to stay.  It is Wednesday night, and we have been here since Saturday.  We have met both of the proprietors, a couple Sue and John.  They seem to be very nice people.  I will say for certain that I have enjoyed their company.  I only noticed today that they are building another unit in between their house and this house.  I'm sure the construction site has been there all along, and I have taken pictures of the buildings, seen John on his tractor in between the buildings and managed not to pay any attention to what was actually occurring there

Croft Nook Cottages

Kristi and I  visited a "singers night" at Skipton, Yorkshire.  The club name was "Skipton Unplugged".  We drove there.  Here's my scribbling about that experience:

Singers’ Night

We ran the car through the warm summer UK night.

The air was soaked from the rain that had been falling

All day.

We breathed it in, felt it in our clothes

Like Florida.

The sun was not yet set,

Though the moon was waiting hopefully

In the clear Yorkshire sky.

The engine whined, gears rolling fast in their box.

There was a sense of urgency as we rolled through the towns.

The narrow lanes left no room for error, or that’s what they thought.

The cars, parked along the road

Like UPS deliverymen

Filling half of our lane

Rolled by them having automobile

Intimate experiences,

Mirrors almost touching in the sun falling sky.

I was a man obsessed with gears,

Listening to the engine like it was a small

Bird singing in the Yorkshire evening.

Listening attentively,

Watching the stoplights, road markings,

And fellow travelers.

There is a thrill to not knowing

What awaits you

At your destination.

We wound through the suburbs into

The city

Around the roundabouts

Around and around

1, 2, 4, 5,

3, 2, 1 zero

Around and around

Finding the way out again

Like a garden maze each one,

Words on signs

Bradford, Skipton,

On, and on, Leeds and places

We had never heard of,

Small places with sheep grazing in their fields,

Old people walking in the

Wet evening air.

As the sun prepared to leave us

It left an evening glow on a

Horizon that brought magic to the coming

Night

As we crazily churned, buzzed, whined

Through the wet Yorkshire evening.

Folk clubs can be

Strange animals.

You never know what the herds have

 Been grazing on.

This one was “unplugged” unnerving the

ELECTRIC bass player.

They can be entire rooms filled with

Melodeons, concertinas, ukuleles,

Instruments from the long ago

And instruments of the right now

That we have never seen.

They can be rooms filled with guitars

From Ireland, Fylde, London,

Far away Martin guitars, Japanese

Fenders from the 70’s,

Or small Washburn guitars from the

Early

20^th century.

The fat man may be singing the blues while

The skinny guy plays the cajon

And the shy woman sings her classical

Piece slightly out of tune.

The young singer-songwriter somehow seems

A bit out of place

Next to the ancient woman singing a

Geordie song that she learned from her

Father on a trip to Southampton

In 1952.

They were going to the Isle of Sky

Then her father

Was lost in the hotel

Came back to their room with

Whisky on his breath

And taught her this song

About men made redundant

In the damp Northeast air.

The young man sings about

A lost love

As young men do

While the ancient Geordie woman

Smiles remembering a young man

In 1960

Who sang her father’s song at a folk club

In Conwy, Wales.

She remembers his blue eyes and soft

Hair as she listens to the young man

Sing about how she left him

In a warm wet UK night,

Never returned, was not forgotten

How his heart hurts.

These clubs can  be filled with

Rock n roll

Wannabees buzzing

With their acoustic guitars

Holding them down around their waist

Playing them like they are pretending

Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters

Feeling the cheap pine box against their

Hand

After all they are all made by the same Chinese

Peasant in a factory near Shienzu.

They growl and sing Robert Johnson,

Keith Richards,

The Beatles, Kinks,

A song about a pub in Barleyville that they

Played long ago.

Some clubs have only singers

And no instruments are allowed.

None of the shring, shring of guitar strings,

Or the honking of the melodeons, concertinas,

Only voices raised in song.

The preference is for ancient songs

Singing about an England long ago

Mythologized, sterilized.

Miners’ songs about a strike, or

A cave in, mine explosion,

Descriptions of the living conditions,

The loo in the middle of the courtyard

The young girl suffering through the indignity of it all.

The path starts to slow.

The car rrrrr,rrrr rrrring as I shift it into

4^th, 3^rd, 2^nd, 1^st, slow at the entry to

The roundabout

Nobody coming

And I run right in winding it up through

The gears again, running out the other side.

It starts to feel like an old English town

And we know we are there.

We wind through the narrow, narrow streets

Being careful not to go into a one way road,

Or a pedestrian zone.

We slow and stay in 2^nd gear

Looking,

Looking,

Looking for the place we

Will know when we see it.

The navigator has written down the name of

Our destination.

We park beside the canal

Which tempts us with a canal side pub

Still lit with sun that is running away to the

West as fast as it can gather momentum.

I want to take a picture of the canal boats

Sitting quietly in a slightly yellow, or green

Scene.

I put it in my head.

Better than a camera, I can see it

Anytime.

As we arrive

Panic slowly fades to confidence.

The first player plays rock n roll.

They allow electric bass players.

They all smile as the Americans

Take the stage,

Then they take it back from them

With their applause.

The black car whines

Through a night lit  by street lamps,

No dark rural driving, but no

Other cars

To watch the black car run through the humid,

Warm Yorkshire night.

We walk someplace every day.  Usually Kristi and I don't walk too far - no more than an hour or so.

We saw a man putting a shale tile roof on his house a couple of days ago.  It looked like his wife and son were helping him.  It looked like DIY.  I can only speculate.  The roofs are different here than in the USA.  Construction in general is quite a lot different.  I've got to say that I'd rather be in an American house if there were an earthquake though as these houses are mostly stone, and masonry construction with a hefty wood frame.  I'm sure that they are mostly quite well engineered, probably more so than in the states where we all take shortcuts.

The flora and fauna around here is very, very similar to the same at home.  There is a version of Himalayan Blackberries, ubiquitous Fireweed, nettle and more.  Of course there are plants that we don't see so much either.  Here's some from a recent walk:

These have smaller leaves and berries than our Himalayan Blackberries.

Kristi burst into a verse of "Wild Mountain Thyme" just seeing this.

Fireweed

I think I better put a picture of stinging nettles up.  Just in case.

Stinging Nettles

We went for a nice walk this morning.  It is a"day off".  Tomorrow we head out for Guisborough to play at the Guisborough FC in the evening.  Gen and Rebecca took us out to Holmfirth for dinner last night and we went to a beer festival.  The waiter at the restaurant said he just did the restaurant job for fun and was an IT guy by day.  He was pretty entertaining.  He suggested the beerfest and as we were doing nothing else pressing went.

They had a large selection of British microbrews and a Brit bluegrass band that were very good.

There's lots more to tell and hardly enough time to tell it in.  Until next time. . . 

Not in Kansas Anymore?

Well Toto, apparently we aren’t in Kansas anymore. The grocery stores are just not the same are they boy? And well, speaking of wells we haven’t seen an oil well anywhere have we boy? Where do you suppose they get all that oil? They are driving all over the place in their cute little cars. They rented one to me that gets 50 miles on a gallon of their gasoline. Maybe it’s special fuel? Huh boy? What’s that you’re saying? A lot of the dogs look a lot like you? I can see that. Hey boy, how about that cigarette package? I haven’t seen one like that since we smuggled our CDs across the Canadian border and bought a big bottle of Dramboui in the duty free store on the way back. I guess when you get free health care they are more concerned if someone is poisoning you to death.

 Really though Toto, we do enjoy the grocery stores, the scenery, the people. It’s great to be someplace where everything is exciting. Here in Yorkshire there are some places, like right outside our window that look a little bit like Kansas if you imagine an oilwell, or a fracking station on the horizon.

On the other hand Toto, don’t behave in such a naïve fashion. They have done mining here in the UK for a very long time, and have in fact done fracking here as well. It isn’t Wyoming Toto, but it does speak to a certain commercial mentality that isn’t unique to Kansas. You know Toto, it isn’t too surprising that the tornado put us down here either. England is a very windy place and tornados, though not commonplace here, are far from unheard of.

 Cosmo’s Dream was in North Shields last Friday. We went for a very successful sing-a-round where we were accused of being quite too professional and asked to apologize for the same. The venue was Belden’s at the Exchange and was run by the family of Gerry Belden. Gerry turned out to be a real prince which makes a gig ever so much easier and fretless. We also had our good friend Val Montieth-Towler there to keep us company, always a real pleasure. Gerry took Val, Kristi and me to lunch for fish n chips. We sat in a parking lot on the Tyne River and watched the water, saw a very large ferry head off for Amsterdam and chatted.

Sing-A-Round

 Gerry is a musician and it turned out that his children are quite talented as well. He had lights, a PA and, as I recall, we had a fine time filling that room with sound. There were a few folks who had been at the afternoon sing-a-round who turned up to cheer us on. Kristi tells me we actually have some fans as a result of our adventure there. When we took our break Gerry and his daughter played what is called “a floor spot”. He invited others to do the same but had no takers. His daughter and his son both have lovely voices and family harmonies filled the room with North American songs that you might expect to hear from Neil Young (“After the Gold Rush”), and Leonard Cohen (“Alleleuia”) + more. When the evening was over Gerry assured us that he would be more than happy to book us back. The next day (Saturday) we had the day off from playing.

Gerry  Belden having a chat

We all drove to Yorkshire to check into an Air B and B. Those of you who know Kristi and I well have probably suffered through our little chat about what Air B&B really means to a marketplace, and the people who are participating throughout the world. I won’t put you through that here. I may actually be wrong about how I see this paradigm. That aside, the B&B turns out to be the single most deluxe accommodation we have ever had in the UK. We have two bedrooms with separate bathrooms, a large fully equipped kitchen, parking across the road, a large screen color TV with a DVD player. The kitchen has laundry facilities built-in as well. We would generally think this was more than we could afford, but we are sharing it with the other members of our party and it isn’t that much. It is in the pleasant Yorkshire countryside with stores just a walk away. Great. It is a very restful place to be.

Our B n B in Shepley, Yorkshire

We played at a place called “Joule’s Yard” in Market Harborough, Leicestershire on Sunday.

Kristi talkin' to the boss man

Here is the guy talking to Kristi, Gen, and Rebecca. He is apparently the owner of this establishment. We actually had a good time playing here as the PA was pretty good and nobody gave us any grief about being too loud, or not playing “Free Bird”. We even got a few tips and we didn't even play their favorite songs. They just plain and simply liked us.

Dave - front house manager

 This is Dave and he put up with my initial grumpiness, even taking time to cultivate a relaxed feel in our working relationship. He is the “front of house” manager. I think that’s the title he gave himself. I went away thinking he’s a pretty nice guy who made a sincere effort to make us feel at home. He said they would have us back if we come back to the UK.  There was a jazz guitarist who came on after us. His name is Steve Fearon. He’s a very nice guy and an excellent guitarist.

Joules Yard is something of a complex. There is an indoor restaurant and then the place where we played which has a window at the back to order drinks. What is really amazing is the back room where they have wood stoves for sale.

 Here’s a picture of the stage where we played at Joules. Like I say, they had a very reasonable PA system and people were polite on the Sunday afternoon when we played. We even sold a few CDs. The drive to Market Harborough was easy and reasonably uneventful. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the B&B in Shepley. More about that later. Keep the home fires burning.

New Day

It is a new day.  We have played a couple of times now.  They were both all acoustic which is not by my estimation the best way to experience Cosmo's Dream.  We did have a good night at the Iron Horse. There were some old friends which was bittersweet as it reminded us of the friends who have passed on.  It was a good crowd though.

As I have mentioned before, jet-lag has been a concern but is now tapering off and not so much a problem.  We were concerned enough that we made sure we arrived at John Snowball's house early enough that we could take a nap before playing.  John and his wife Janet fed us and entertained us before and after we played.  We enjoyed them immensely.  They let us stay until after noon on Tuesday.

We didn't have far to go on Tuesday, just up to Washington where we have rented a hotel room for a few days.  On the way we stopped at Tesco and purchased some groceries and things to help us with our modest lifestyle on the road.  Gen and Rebecca are staying at an Air BnB in Darlington.

Yesterday we played outdoors at a park.  A friend, Jim Wigfield, had arranged it. Jim and his wife Allison made us feel welcomed and appreciated.  I don't really like to play outdoors where people are talking, not close and there is a lot of other ambient sound in the area but we did play.  We got about 15 pounds in tips.  Jim played a couple of his very funny novelty songs that were both set in a rural setting.  We made chicken sounds along with him on the solo part of the song about chickens.

 Kristi and I spent our share of the tips on dinner that night.  We went to Darlington and spent some time with Gen, Rebecca, and their lively Air BnB host Martin.  We wandered around the very pretty Victorian town center.  He wanted to take us to a pub which had an event going on and lacked seating for us to stay comfortably.  We went to a very good Indian and Bangladesh restaurant for dinner.

Darlington B n B

Kristi had looked up places for us to attend sing-a-rounds etc. and had found Tynefolk in Blaydon for Thursday night.

These days getting ready for bed has become very procedural in that we have a lot of digital devices that use rechargeable batteries. That means that we spend some time finding electrical outlets, figuring out how to get everything plugged in so we have a working computer, phone, camera, movie camera etc.  It can take up to ten minutes extra to get ready for bed.

Kristi @ the Washeteria in Chester Le Street

Some days we just have to get varied errands done.  That's part of what we did yesterday.  We went to Chester le Street (odd name for a town?) to use the Washeteria, do some grocery shopping, and go to a bank.  Visiting a town high street is always interesting to me.

It was a busy time of day, kind of warm.  Our first chore was the grocery store.  Our GPS didn't find the Tesco there so we had a postal code for Morrison's which is where we did our shopping.  We found everything that we were looking for.  If you have never been to a UK grocery store I can tell you that a few things are different.  For one thing when you get a grocery cart you shove a pound coin in a coupling to get the cart.  The pound is returned when you bring the cart back.  You get someone else's pound when you shove the coupling back into the socket on the next cart in line.  I'll have to take a picture next time so I can show you.  

We bought laundry detergent at Morrison's.  The way they package laundry detergent here keeps changing.  Now it comes in little plastic capsules that dissolve in the wash.  It used to come in solid tablets.  They still dispense powder at the machines in the laundromat. 

After the laundromat we returned to Washington and prepared ourselves for a trip to Blaydon.  We had heard from Gen via text message that he would meet us in Blaydon.  The time on the text was 1:14 am.

We rely on our GPS these days to get us from one place to another.  It usually works well but can occasionally have some glitches.  We are also glitchable.  In this case it was a combo.  We didn't follow the directions of the GPS exactly, and it couldn't find our new location.  We were only lost for about 5 minutes, but it seemed much longer as we were on a deadline.  As it turned out I need not have fretted.  Gen and Rebecca were waiting at the Black Bull when we arrived.  The four of us were alone.  Kristi had called ahead and so we were sure the sing-a-round was happening.  We just were not in tune with the personal rythyms of the Tynefolk FC.  We were expecting to start at 8 and sure enough just a little after eight people started arriving.

It was a lovely night.  Gen and Rebecca left at the break.  We had played three songs, one sung by each of us.  The club is a very traditional singers club so we got to hear a lot of songs relating to life and culture in the Northeast.  There were at least two songs about being "made redundant", or in American vernacular being laid off.  There was the "national anthem" of the Northeast written in 1862 about a trip to the "Blaydon Races".  I hope that they felt that we shared some of our culture with them as well.  Kristi and I sang four songs at the end of the night.  We felt very well received.

Tonight we play in North Shields.  It should be a very good night.  I'll let you know.  In the meantime keep the home fires burning.  

Where we are?

Monday morning and jet-lag remains.  Jet-lag is an insidious thing if you are expected to do anything. That's even if you expect to do anything for the first couple of days after 

arriving at your destination.  As a tourist expectations in this regard may be relatively modest.  Therefore we temporarily lapsed into tourist mode last evening.  It got us out of our room, into the sun, and exercising, however modest that may have been.

Kristi planned well for us, having been in this rodeo a few times before.  When I started driving yesterday things seemed to be going well for the first bit.  Jetlag hits me like someone threw a rock at me and hit me in the head.  I'll be innocently firing a rocket down the local motorway, alive with the moment, ready to take on the world when suddenly this rock hits me in the side of my head and I want desperately to go to sleep.  I'm in my rocket, in control and know that if I don't remain conscious I will fall out of orbit and find myself wandering in space for eternity.  "Steve to mission control - I am fading, afraid that I've taken too many Gs.  Please take remote control of my ship.  Mission Control, Mission Control I am falling out of orbit.  We are headed for the planet.  Someone help me!  Mayday!  Mayday! We are out of control."  Suddenly.

I have discovered energy drinks, but it would seem that they are only good for one round.  The next one doesn't have the same affect.  The first one, however - first 

"Monster" drink brought me around only to find that the thugs had me tied to my seat and were giving me a break from beating me into unconsciousness and soon enough they were hitting me again and the race car I was driving was suddenly shaking and threatening to spin out of control in the long curves as my competitor came up on me and threatened to take my winning spot in the lineup.

The last time we stopped before reaching our destination I would swear I fell asleep on the exit ramp.  I managed to bring the car to a stop in a reasonable parking place and knew that if I just held out for awhile longer the thugs would tire of their game, untie me and let me rest for awhile.  It does hold some serious danger for those who believe that they can operate a motor vehicle.  So far I have survived.  Like I say, it isn't my first rodeo.

Not a pretty sight to see

When we first visited the UK in 2001 we had read Rick Steves and made an effort to not stand out from the crowd.  With every return to this country the world becomes smaller and similarities in dress and mannerisms are notable.  As the mega corporations gain a larger, and larger foothold in world society we become a picture of the same person everywhere we go.  Like the visual homogenation of

America you see the same McDonald's, Burger King, and in the UK Marks and Spencer signs everywhere you go.  I have to admit that Mark's and Spencer is a breath of fresh air compared to their American brethren.  It reminds me a bit of Trader Joe's only classier. I've been watching this metamorphosis here since 2001 now.  I loved coming into a town that was still uncorrupted by the big corporation in the sky.  There would be a high street with the "butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker".  There was a charm and as an American you knew that you were someplace foreign, strange, and beautiful within that strange.  I sometimes wonder if people see the changes happening around them.  Does the caterpillar know that he will sometime be a butterfly?  Does it just happen and then one day the lifespan of the butterfly is over, used up, and the creature vanishes from the planet?  Is that where we are headed?

I've been communicating with my UK friends and I'm anticipating catching up. Soon.  People ask us why we make these journeys.  If we look closely we see the grim reaper slowly walking in our shadow waiting for his moment.  I whistle as I walk, ignoring him, trying to be as disdainful of him as I can, hoping to offend him and send him off to follow someone else.  I am alive and I am doing my best to remain vital in this life.  Tonight will be our first performance here.  Our phone woke us up with a text from our phone provider.  Kristi told me she had only slept for two hours.  She has gone back to sleep and I'm hoping that she isn't jet-lagged like a drunken sailor tonight.  Hell, I feel pretty good and slept through the night but I know that the gremlins of a clock turned on it's head will take their toll as they please and I may not be able to fight them off.  

The truth is that the UK is still very much a foreign country to me.  You'll never find an American bragging that he is still living on land that has been in his family has for 600 years.  Whether that person is being entirely truthful or not is pretty much irrelevant.  The point is that people who look like me have been living here for thousands of years.  There is some psychological connectivity that goes on and I feel like I have a better awareness of just what it means to be human just by being in this different place.

Kristi is up now and it is checkout time here.  I am in a foreign country.  Life is good.
You have a simple task.  Keep the home fires burning. 

Anticipation

    Kristi and I spent yesterday packing for the U.K.  We leave tomorrow night.  In the meantime it seems there are a lot of loose ends to tie up.  Wish us luck on that.  I just remembered something to put on my "to do" list.  OK.  That's done.
    We've been talking to friends in the UK.  I am looking forward to seeing them.  It has been a couple of years and mostly what I've seen of them in that time has been on Facebook.  At the same time that I'm embarking on a new expedition, I am abandoning ship on projects at home for the time we'll be gone.  I have given myself permission to do this.
    It is the next day and we are in the airport.  We haven't been flying for awhile and we are not used to the procedures.  It turns out that we are a good deal more efficient than is necessary to get on board an airplane.  It is only 6:50 pm and the plane doesn't board until 8:20 pm.  I don't think I've ever been this early for a flight, but as I say, I haven't been flying much.
     Kristi managed to get us seats that are together.  She just went up to the guy at the gate and he helped her out.  That will be nice as we were placed quite a distance from each other in our original seat assignments.

      This kind of travel is somewhat surreal as we were there, and now we are half a world away in the UK.  We haven't had any real sleep yet, but are safely in our hotel room.  We ran into "Fools Gold",who we know from north of here.  They just spotted us as we were checking into the room.  I was so surprised and didn't recognize them for a bit.  I think we'll see them tomorrow morning.  By sometime tomorrow we should have a phone that works as well.  The network that we are signed up for doesn't reach to this particular location.  

     We haven't seen any news today which is totally out of character for us.  Maybe I should say for "me" as I'm not sure Kristi would see as much news as she does if I were not around.  Driving to this hotel was fine.  I'm slightly surprised that I'm not already asleep though.  It is about time for that.

There was a memorable incident on the airplane before it took off yesterday.  Kristi and I have been discussing all day what we saw and what it meant.   I'll tell you about it in the morning when I am more awake.  Suffice to say that it involved a woman and her baby being kicked off of the plane.

for now say good night.  We'll blog you in the morning.

     About the woman on the airplane I can only say what I saw and heard.  She and the staff gave enough information to discern that she was Nigerian.  The staff on the plane were trying to tell her exactly what facilities were available for her and her baby.  She didn't like what they were telling her and it sounded like she had some experience carrying a child on an aircraft, certainly had some expectations which were not being met.  As the staff explained, showed her another woman who had a baby onboard she became more and more agitated.  We didn't know whether she was used to getting some kind of special treatment for being a mother, whether her demands were reasonable, or if she was simply trying to intimidate the staff into meeting her demands.  It seemed to me that there was some kind of disconnect going on, that she didn't understand what the staff were telling her, or they didn't understand what her needs were.  At one point a large authoritative man came up to her and told her to calm down or she would be removed from the aircraft.  She became even more agitated and they removed the woman and her baby from the plane.

     We are at a Travelodge near Bishop's Stortford.  We are getting ready to head off to 

near Sheffield today.  We are taking our jet lagged time about doing anything right now. We had a nice visit with Steve and Carol of Fool's Gold Acoustic at breakfast.  We have seen them perform a number of times on other trips.  It was good to have a chat with them, and so serendipitous that we would actually connect with them.  They are here visiting with Carol's parents.

     So it is a small world.  It doesn't seem that way to me most of the time as we travel across the planet for this reason or that.  We have a phone that is working, and we are back into our old ways.  We are looking forward to playing for people here, and experiencing them.  Keep the home fires burning..  Steve Nebel

Comso's Dream at Anelia's Kitchen and Stage, La Conner, WA

We had a busy Saturday this last weekend.  We played at the Proctor Farmer's Market in the morning from 9am to 11am.  We played a straight 2 hour set there.  It was very enjoyable as we had a lot of friends who stopped in to hear us.  I really enjoy singing with Kristi and Gen.  Gen is a wonderful guitar player, songwriter and gets such a nice blend with our voices.  We have such a great time playing his songs because we know everyone will love them.

Kristi and I got to the market early.  For a change we drove in and unloaded at the entertainment canopy like we were regular vendors.  That was kinda nice as it is often a bit stressful carrying all of our gear for a block or two.  It doesn't seem like much gear as long as you don't have to carry it too far.  It has been an overcast July this year so far.  Saturday was no exception, but it was just warm enough to be comfortable outdoors.  It has been just wet enough that the entire state is pretty, and green now.

We played my new song "California" at the market.  It was only the second time we had played it.  It went down well.  I think it has a nice sound, and people who are from California just like hearing the name of their home state repeated in a song.  Although the song is a fiction it has a slight ring of truth to it.

After our two hour set we packed up and went home.    Gen and (his wife) Rebecca schmoozed with one of our fans after we finished playing.  That is good as I'm not really sociable in these situations. The truth is that I sometimes cannot imagine having fans as I just enjoy making that sound and I'm often oblivious of whether someone else is interested in the sound we are making. It is good to be playing with someone who is good with the people who come to see us.  Kristi has been good with that too.  It's good that those two are good with  that.  Frankly, I always have a job to do getting things broken down and packed up.

We followed Gen and Rebecca through the market on our way out.  By now we know a few of the vendors.  It is a really comfortable situation for us.  There were people who actually stayed for most of the two hours listening to us play.  That is very gratifying, and I think it is a bit unusual.  Put it this way.  I don't think that Kristi and I ever had anyone stand for the complete two hours listening to us sing at a farmer's market.  There was at least one guy who did that, and there were an exceptional number of people who stood and listened for an hour or maybe more.

After the farmer's market Kristi and I went home, had a little bit of leftovers for lunch and we took a nap.  That was a good thing to do because our Saturday wasn't over yet.  It was a good long nap.  We had booked a party in the Olympia area for Saturday starting at 6 pm.  We picked Gen up from his house.  He brought his QFC powered speakers.  I brought a mixer, cables, mic stands etc.

The first part of the drive there was uneventful freeway driving.  We got off of the freeway at exit 111 which is pre-Lacy/Olympia.  We had our GPS running and I didn't think that it would be far from the freeway, but as it turned out there was another 10 miles to drive after getting off of I-5.  The first part of Marvin Road is  fairly new development.  We have been there many times as there are a couple of businesses out that way that we use now and again.  I was also reminded of an adult community out that way that we played a few years ago.

The development just keeps getting more developed all the time and as houses grow, so do businesses.  That always bothers me as it seems like a little bit of hypocrisy when someone moves out into the countryside having been sold on country living and then finds they don't like the inconvenience of being 10 miles from businesses who sell them groceries etc.  Then the businesses move out into the countryside and you no longer have only houses, but you now have miles and miles of strip malls, and concrete.  Ah well, such is life.  I guess.

The latter part of the drive was gorgeous.  It was green, lush, and the houses are zoned to be on very large lots (five acres).  There was a river we drove by for awhile, and there was forest everywhere. The  lots filled with Douglas Fir seemed like a fantasy to me.  It was all so green, bright, and alive.
We spend too much of our time in the city, and where we live is something of a desert.  It seems like more of a desert after that drive on Saturday.

The place where we were playing had a long driveway and obviously was on a pretty large property.  We drove past pens with chickens, and turkeys all under the shade of giant Douglas Fir trees.  As we got further up the driveway you could see a large workshop kind of building looming in the near distance.  There was a house that obviously a bit new and a pen with floppy eared goats.  There was a person working on a chicken house who introduced herself as the sister-in-law from Oklahoma.  We soon met Seth, the man of the house and we backed the car over the lawn to the porch where we were give a space to play under a shelter.  There were canopies set up on the lawn and there was a gazebo.  There was a mother duck with ducklings that we saw traversing the property for one reason or another all evening.  There was a black and white short haired dog named Charlie who was friendly and left the ducks alone.

Once we were set up to play we were pretty much all business except when we had a break.  We played one hour then took a fifteen minute break.  After that we played two more 45 minute sets with a 15 minute break before the last set.  At break time we munched on the food which was pretty good.  They had bbq ribs, bbq salmon, bbq chicken, potato salad, chips, and marshmallow covered brownies.  They had beer too but we did not partake anticipating a drive home and a long day on Sunday.

Kristi and I had a great time playing with Gen.  We feel like we are much more than we are as a duo, or as single performers.  I hope that Gen feels the same way.  On Sunday Kristi and I had a dance to play in Wenatchee and Gen played in a bar down in Oregon.   Gen took the pictures of the goat(s).
We had a good gig in Wenatchee and I'm sure that folks in Oregon enjoyed hearing Gen play his songs.  You can check out our schedule at http://www.cosmosdream.sknebel.com