Music in a water tower

I’ve been assaulting people’s ears with my “performances” of songs and tunes since I first clambered nervously on the stage in the back room of the Star pub (long since demolished) in Portsmouth in 1967, but I can’t recall singing and playing in a more unusual venue than we did on Monday night.  Some of you might know Christine on Nb Ketura, a very busy lady.  We first met her in Hopwas when I was noodling away on my mandola on the back of Herbie and she popped her head over the side to say hello.  These days I’m more likely to meet her at towpath ranger meetings.  Anyway I digress.

In the winter months, Christine runs a monthly folk session at St Pancras Cruising Club and she has been sending me and Kath and  invites and info for some time, so we thought we had better put in an appearance this time. Here is the good bit, the session itself takes place in the lovely old Victorian water tower behind St Pancras lock.  I should show you a photo at this point, but I don’t have one of my own. If you don’t know the tower, see it on Google images. It’s a fine thing.  They have a little bar in there and a metal helical staircase leading up to the top of the tower where I imagine the views would be splendid.

The session itself was very friendly and catered for all levels of musical experience and ability from beginner upwards.  The only rule was that it is an all acoustic event, i.e completely unplugged, just the way we like it.  There would be no room for speaker cabinets and all of that guff, we only just squeezed in as it was.  Anyway, thanks Christine, it was fun and we picked up a couple of tunes to learn while we were at it.  It’s made me think that we should perhaps make a list of all the unusual places where we have played music.  This one would rank as one of the most unusual, perhaps alongside the deck of Nb Chertsey during last year’s Braunston rally.

Speaking of London’s canals, we’ll soon have to decide whether to come down south for next winter as our mooring renewal at Crick is due at the end of March.  I think if we can be reasonably confident of the visitor mooring in Paddington / Little Venice, we might do what we did over the 2013/4 winter and take up a mooring at High Line Yachting so we can get more winter cruising in and enjoy London by boat.

 

PS I just did a little quiz on the web. It was supposed to guess the car I drove after I answered ten questions about myself. It reckons I drive a Lamborghini Murcelago!!!!

I don’t even know what one of them is.  For the record I drive a diesel focus estate, so I guess they were close. Not.