Catch up post

Date: 27 March 2007 14:05:24

Lets start with a pretty picture.

This is another Northern Cross photo, taken by my good friend Anne-Marie. I grew up visiting the West Coast so always associate the sun over the sea with evenings and glorious sunsets. This, however, is on the East Coast, so it is a sunrise. I was very much still asleep at that hour, so I had to borrow A-M's photos.

As we come nearer to Easter, do pray for all those people who are on pilgrimage, that they would find what they are looking for amid the wind, rain and sore feet. My call to the priesthood came while out walking on pilgrimage - it was a special week.

Right, the Martyn Joseph concert from a week ago. We (Mr F and I) drove to Worcester for the evening, meeting with my sister K and some friends. Somehow, we all ended up parking in the same car park, despite K saying vaguely that she parked by the river last time. After tussling with some rather complicated parking metres, we headed to the nearest pub for food.

At that time on a Sunday afternoon, there were few places open so we ended up in a Wetherspoons clone. There was a distressing sign on the bar giving a read out of the current temperature of the beer: 2.9 degrees C. My sister-in-law (works for a brewery - very useful relative to have) assures me that this is too cold for real ale so we did not sample the beer. Food was excellent, with K proving once again that she can eat an entire mixed grill without breaking a sweat. The mysteries of bluetooth were then explained to me and we had fun sending pictures to each other. Marvellous.

On to the concert, which took place in some hall which was a converted Methodist chapel - not very converted in that there were still pews to sit in. However, there were cushions a plenty and exciting little cupboards for husbands to play with. Interesting all-age audience (nearly wrote congregation) including a tiny baby in a sling and many older people.

The support act was Martin Sexton. He had an amazing voice including an astonishing yodelling ability. Some older people in front of us were not particularly keen on him, but I thought he was great. I'm sure I had more to say about him but it has been a few days now and I have forgotten.

After the interval there was - oh joy of joys - the raffle. The compere was unintentionally hilarious: K and I were reduced to stuffing hankies in our mouths to avoid inappropriate guffaws. The crowning moment came when he announced that the final prize was the...

... piece of resistance - that is piece pronounced peace, not pi-ess; of not de and no attempt at a French pronunciation. Genius!

After that, we were ready for Martyn and he did not disappoint. Political points included a song (Dreaming of Swansea tonight) for all the soldiers serving overseas, a song for refugees and another for Zimbabwe. Musically, he was great, with the support of Miranda Sykes on bass guitar and double bass. Martyn stuck mainly to his normal guitar, but included some harmonica (not as good as Martin's yodelling, but a fair attempt), some steel guitar and some piano. I recognised most of the songs from Deep Blue and Whoever it was that brought me here will have to take me home, but hearing them live (and not in an arena with thousands of other greenbelters) was special. He sang for ages and I could have stayed there for days.

His new album was recorded live at Greenbelt last year. If you were at the front of the crowd, you are probably on the album cover.

So, we meandered off into the night, after K had queued for some autographage, driving through thick snow to get home. Mr F was still singing random bits from the show this weekend. It was great.