After a wonderful evening meeting long-lost and never before met cousins followed by a great sleep, I was up and about the next day with no particular plans so I spent the day fiddling about at home, talking to my Father and reading a book about Blair “Paddy” Mayne who was a fellow Northern Irishman, Irish rugby international and wartime commander of the original Special Air Service. An utterly fascinating character. It was good chatting with my Dad as it is a while since I saw him.
Nothing much else to report so I’ll pass on to the 4th June.
In the evening I thought I’d take a wander down to my local, the Montague Arms aka “the Monty”. As it was a Monday I wasn’t expecting it to be busy but I thought I might meet someone I knew and so it was to prove. Certainly the bar was far from full but as I walked in the first thing I saw was a guitar case sitting on one of the seats. Hello, hello. A quick glance along the bar explained everything as my mate Ritchie was sitting there with his girlfriend and a couple of other guys I know by sight. Much shaking of hands, welcomes home and so on and a pint ordered, we sat down to the serious business of catching up on all the village gossip. It transpired that Ritchie was literally straight back from the airport having played some gigs in Scotland over the weekend, hence the presence of the guitar which is a Seagull, well over 30 years old and an absolute beauty.
As the title of this piece suggests, it was only a matter of time until someone suggested we get the guitar out and have a bit of a song. That sounded like a plan to me so out it came and we took turn about to sign and play with the other providing harmonies as required.
It was going nicely until I asked Ritchie if he had a capo and he told me that some lowlife had stolen both of his in Scotland. For non-guitarists, a capo is a device used to tighten around the neck of a guitar at a given fret thereby changing the key. I am sure most people have seen them. In a moment of either inspiration or complete idiocy I hit on a plan. I loosed my ponytail to use the hairband along with a couple of elastic bands I always have on my wrist which I teamed up with a stubby biro pen from a bookmakers shop and cobbled together a capo. I really didn’t think it would work but remarkably it did. The images hopefully give an idea.
The night wore on and on and it was quite late when I set off for home through the deserted and silent streets of a small village on a Monday night and off to bed for another great night’s sleep.
Stay tuned and spread the word.
Fergy's Rambles. 