Week 3 (27th July – 3rd August)

This week contained some very important social events.  Mostly gigs.  Seeing the Smyths back at the 100 club almost a year on from their last appearance was always going to be a great night.  Then, we had to check out how our old band were getting on without us.  Turns out…. Quite well!  They had a gig at the end of Southend pier.  I should add it was inn a function room, not just playing on the wooden planks!  I would’ve liked to be able to say I’d done a gig on Southend pier…  Anyway, it was a windy but fair day for a stroll long the mile-long landmark and the gig went well despite the turnout not being great.   

 

Start them young... Jude enjoying his Dad's singing

They now do an awesome version of the Eagles classic ‘Hotel California’ thanks to their new guitar and bass players having far better skills than Simon and I. It was good to see them enjoying themselves and doing well.  They even get PAID for most of their gigs now, a radical idea that we never experienced!

It had been at least a month or two since we’d last seen the movie ‘The Goonies’.  Those of you who followed our American adventures will be aware of our visits to relevant film locations in Oregon and our efforts to recreate important scene backdrops to compare with the originals. AND visiting the Goonies museum in Astoria.  So why on earth would we turn down the opportunity to go and see it, yet again, but this time in the great outdoors, namely Hockley Woods in Essex?!  Maybe the unreliable British weather should have put us off.  Despite some heavy showers forecast, the showing went ahead with the organisers warning people to be prepared.  We were treated (again!) to our tickets by Stu and Jo who had also taken the pilgrimage to Oregon when they joined us, despite it being a very very loooooong day for them from Seattle!  It was a very different experience to watch a film in the open air and we managed to keep warm with the assistance of hot chocolate but if they could have arranged a clearer night I would have preferred it!

Enough socialising.  It was time to knuckle down and do the work we had promised to do for Simon’s parents in lieu of paying them any rent.  We had made the offer whilst they were staying with us in Canada.  Despite having paid to get some of the walls in the entrance hall and stairway of their home plastered in mid 2016, they had not had the time or the workforce to get the decoration finished.  We knew when we returned to the UK that the hallway would look exactly as it had done nine months earlier.  We felt it was only fair for us to pull some weight whilst living for free in their house.  It rapidly became clear that Ray has very high standards of decoration so this would never be allowed to be a ‘bodge-job’!  The preparation of numerous doors and frames and covering the new plaster with two base layers before it would be ready for the final emulsion layer went on to take up most of our spare time over the next couple of months.  But hey, if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, right?!