Music and beer, north and south.

 I love live music, well at least most of it, and I also love beer, particularly real ale. And sometimes I get both together. Take a recent Wednesday evening at one of Oxford locals: the Bookbinders Arms. The session is run my Lee Bo, himself a very talented musician and singer and there is always a selection of ales at the pub. The place was pretty well packed by eaters, drinkers and musicians but we managed to squeeze ourselves into a space pretty near to the action.

Regular performers Julie and Mark gave a great performance of two of their own unique combinations of strings, percussion and voice. They had a hard act to follow. Two chirpy young girls of about eight years old gave a giggly but rather nice performance of a couple of songs accompanied by recorded background music. They were great and loudly applauded.  Next, an extraordinary young man called Luke gave his guitar a thorough beating whilst pumping out choice vocals. It was a most unusual performance and musically very exciting. He uses his guitar as a drum whilst striking the strings and sliding the notes. I found it quite thrilling. A group of three young men then gave a great upbeat jazzy number on keyboard, trumpet and guitar. That done the the smiling keyboard player vamped out a number based on an odd but infectious song concerning poisoning pigeons in the park! This was followed by a big man doing a solo on guitar whilst singing, very, very powerfully. He sang two songs that were completely new to me. Riveting. And the beer was good too.

Later that week we travelled up to Wick to visit Margaret’s ailing aunt (they are the same age) and broke the journey at Inverness. We had been there before, predominantly then to take our sons to Loch Ness. This time we arrived so late that the hotel called to say that we would have to let ourselves in – so we took a circuitous route searching for food, beer and music along the way, and we found it all. The place really throbs and is also rather beautiful especially near the River Ness. And yes, there was live music. Quite a few pubs in Church Street advertise it and the one we ended up at, the Highlander, featured a man playing the piano accordion and singing very enthusiastically whilst accompanied by an electric guitar. It was powerful stuff with a good admixture of Scottish folk. The beer however was awfully cold and fizzy. Quite a few of the Inverness pubs had decorative handpumps, but, disappointingly, very few of these actually dispensed real ale.

However, we liked Inverness so much that we spent another night there on our way back. This time we started in the Hootananny where a constantly expanding group of musicians played folk music on a selection of instruments. It seemed very Irish to me, but there are of course strong connections between the Highlands and that island. There we ate Balmoral Chicken, which is chicken breast stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon and served with a whisky or peppercorn sauce together with mashed spuds. Great, my sort of food. Again we finished off at the Highlander where there was frantic dancing which included crawling between women’s legs. I was not allowed to do that.

 

 

Spain and home again

My last blog left things pretty much in the air, as we arrived in Spain. Our arrival could have been a real come down after whistling through twelve countries in the motor caravan, but for various reasons it was not.

After happily leaving the ferry following a crossing which was both dull and without incident, we were thrown into the madness of the race track which is outer Barcelona, and it was getting dark. However, we survived and soon left the southbound motorway for Sitges. I knew little of the place so here’s a quote: “Renowned for its LGBT-friendly atmosphere as well as its world-famous horror film festival”. Yet we loved it, but not for those reasons. Rather for its attractive narrow pedestrianised streets near the beach, the beach itself, the nearby church and one of the best meals of the whole trip.

After Sitges, we passed over the coastal mountain range via L’Hospitalet de l’infant, then crossed the River Ebro where it makes its last surge towards the Med having traversed most of Spain, then on to our little village of La Fresneda in the province of Aragon.

That might have been a bit of a down-swing after dashing through twelve European countries, but it was not. We both felt happy to be there once I had carefully negotiated the narrow, steep and curvaceous tracks that lead to a carpark which is fairly near to our home. It is clearly signposted “No campervan” but we, after all, are locals and we both felt very pleased to be “home” again.  Here's a rather special view from the little terrace at the top of our house.

There were things to be done to the house and the caseta, as ever, but they were jobs that mostly had a beginning and an end and that nursed a sense of achievement. We spent time with our old friends, Willy and Dolores, we drank in the bar and greeted and were greeted by other villagers. Strangers in the village smiled and said, “Buenos Dias”. The bakery had ceased operation, but a friendly young woman now sold bread there which was baked in a nearby town and was just as crunchy. Sadly Ramon, one of the characters of the village had died in a fire in his own home, a house stuffed with “antiques” most of which were flammable. There were also many items of less sad news to catch up with.

Though we were there for three weeks, it seemed no time at all before we were on the road again - this time crossing Spain with stops along the way but always heading for Santander where we would take the ferry to Plymouth. And, though we had to spend one whole day in the motor caravan because of the pouring rain, we were well away from the chaos suffered by the poor people of Valencia.

We left the ferry in darkness at Plymouth and had no wish to drive all the way to the Cotswolds in pelting rain. So, I found a pub called the Skylark to the north of the city and the landlord was happy to have us sleep in his car park – provided we supped and drank in his bar. And what a bar, the perfect English country pub serving perfect real ale – nectar. I had three pints before I could be persuaded to eat.

Home the next day, having had a wonderful two months of travel and adventure, I patted the bonnet of my aging motorcaravan. We had driven 7,500 kilometres together without a major hitch and my notes of the adventure amounted to 35,000 words. What on earth am I going to do with that lot?