weeknightsfieldmusic, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Went to see Field Music at the Harrogate Theatre last night. Such a polished act. Thousands of hours worth of practice boiled down into an hour or so.  Interchangeable drummer / lead vocalist / keyboard kept things very interesting.

The two support acts were very good as well. Simon Wainwright from Hope & Social did an acoustic / unplugged set. Nice stuff – great voice. He demonstrated just how good the acoustics are of The Theatre’s main stage by doing a song  sans PA. He also give everyone a kazoo to emulate what is normally his brass line – an interesting experiment!

2×2 twins from Ripon called The Weeknights were the surprise highlight for me.  Young lads but they don’t sound it. The fact that they are so in tune with each other as twins really came across in their highly original almost Fleet Foxes / Sigur Ros sound.

It’s a while since I’ve been to a music gig in theatre – not since the (good ‘ol) Theatre Music Party days – where everyone who could play, played. The entire creative community of Harrogate got together for a one day celebration of just how good we are. It really was the flagship event in Harrogate’s rich musical calendar. Perhaps this Fringe Crawl day tomorrow will take over where that left off?  Hope so.

See the set of photos from the night here>>

Here was the mid punk gig raffle last Friday. Yes, you read that right. A raffle at a punk gig. Henry (featured in the hat) had the idea to have; a birthday party, 5 bands, cake, 4 DJ’s all to feature on the same night.

What a success! £524.60 for Médecins Sans Frontières was raised on the night. This is going towards Henry’s total, for when he does his next trick – runs 110 miles across The Cleveland Moors in September.

Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him Sponsor Him

Felix’s very last day at Grove Road School today. What a lovely school it is. We’re so happy with the way they have cared for, educated and inspired our Felix and given him such a solid foundation. As far as the formative years go, we we’re lucky enough to chip him off in that direction. Still got our other two there so we’ll be friends of Grove Road for a while.

It’s quite good having a blog that’s been around for a few years sometimes. I just looked back on the blog that I wrote all those years ago on “Felix’s first day at Grove Road School” Full circle / Start of a new chapter.

Had a fantastic weekend at Deershed. A very slick production indeed – Loads going on and they really did cater for the family. Stacks of quality entertainment for us, for the kids for everyone. Sold Out – I think about 1600 or so – a good number. Not too big, certainly not too small. Perhaps too much going on to squeeze into one day really – would have been good if it was an all weekeneder perhaps but no complaints – if I’d been relying on the beer tent there may have been – they ran out of beer mid/late afternoon! Can only take this as a sign of success.

The video here is a timelapse of The Art Wall (click here for the longer, bigger version) organized by www.artists.ltd.uk. A fantastic idea that loads of people seemed to enjoy! Art for everyone / Everyone IS an artist.. officially!

A few more snaps from the weekend here>>

I’m as far east in England as its possible to go without getting your feet wet. Lowestoft. I’m down here on business. It’s the furthest east I have ever been in England. Two new county bags. I think I have now run out of English counties that I have not been to apart from that anglia one, if it actually exists.
Observations so far. It’s very flat. The restaurant at The Victoria hotel is quite good. Kite boarding is good sport round here. Its a good place for spotting a super tanker or 5.
My hotel is a mile away from town. Beach walk to digest the 3 courser soon me thinks.

Big beach are the best.

One of the many highlights of Jaygo’s birthday weekend extravaganza. Here we are just before the second dip at ‘ The Ultimate’ – a rollercoaster at Lightwater Valley theme park – North Yorkshire, UK. I smell wild garlic.

Having a little breather for a couple of hours before we carry on with Jaygo’s birthday weekend. We started on Friday night with a game of rounders on the stray that we were invited to. This was really good fun for everyone.  Rounders, BBQ, cake and catching up. This photo shows the line up – little to big selection process. We had a few spare kids with us as Jaygo was having a sleep over. J & H and their brood were there also as well as a whole bunch of lovely others.

I was looking forward to the morning of his birthday (yesterday) nearly as much as he was. We’d put the feelers out for an electric guitar and amp. My old friend McParty was selling a Marshall amp, meanwhile a guitar came our way and the serendipity of it all couldn’t have been better. He’s been having guitar lessons at school now for a while and he’s just at that age when he’s really discovering music – he particularly likes ROCK. Here’s a picture of him doing the birthday dance.We had a lovely day of pottering about, playing guitar! the evening rolled into a rather impromptu BBQ – we’d planned on having a couple of people over and it expanded a little to be somewhere between a gathering and a party. Some old friends that we’ve not caught up with for years.  Some splendid attendees and some nice bbq chow which merged into a chilled choons,  fire bin and wine type night.

Lots more batting to come in this B’Day weekend – we’re off to Lightwater Valley today and we’re supposed to be going to another BBQ this evening! A BBQ hat-trick no less. A few more photos of the weekend can be found in this flickr set here (which I’ll add to with any photos I take today)

Got back last night after a lovely camping trip to the Lake District. We didn’t see a single Lake though.

Fisherground campsite – lovely spot – part of this set of photos>>

Fisherground Campsite is reputedly (and I can confirm) one of the best campsites in the country for kids to enjoy. It’s got a really good adventure playground  complete with zip wire. It’s got a pond with an island and rafts. It’s got a train station with trains that go to the coast or up to the village to the East. It allows fire – a massive plus point in our book – an essential part of camping that so few campsites allow these days. It’s got a 3 acre mowed field for games and sports. It’s got a green team that really do look after the place and its residence – perhaps a bit to Victorian Dad about it at times, but at the end of the day – they do a really good job.

We’ve stayed at Fisherground campsite before – when we were there last time it was rather cold but this time we had the weather on our side. After grouping up on Friday night and imbibing a modest amount of alcohol we got up bright and breezy on Saturday. We made a check list of things to do – Play cricket, look at the trains (perhaps go on one), collect wood (they sell it there, but the Yorkshiremen in us knew best) , eat some nice food, have a few beers and play lots of Boules and Frisby. We did all of the above and added ‘game of rounders’ and ‘fly kite’ to the completed action list. The evening consisted of silly story time from the kids round the fire then we all turned in fairly early after all the days excitement.

Sunday – we got packed up just before the heavens opened. Rainy day activity plan kicked in – Museums. Barrow-in-Furness has The Dock Museum. This was fascinating. A converted dry dock, mainly on the history of (the biggest cul-de-sac in England – ) Bowness. Ships, Trains, Grimness, Engineering, Determination. We all really enjoyed it.

After that, almost by random I discovered that there was another museum on something quite close to our hearts – The Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverstone. This consisted of part of an old cinema with anecdotal and historical reference to the comedy duo, as well as memorabilia and a mini cinema showing back to back Laurel and Hardy classics all day long. A very pleasant end to a very pleasant weekend.