The band had a gig last night at a wedding, a very long day, met up at 1pm then headed off to the venue, set up, and then ran into problems with the equipment, so the set up took way too long, having sorted out the problems we finally had a break at 6, so we had 2 and a half hours to kill, so we managed it by sitting in the sun outside the gorgeous manor house we were playing. The Gig when it started was good, party goers were all up for a giggle, all went well until Ian managed to wreck his guitar, luckily yours truly had been tuning up the Strat, so a disaster was averted.
Finished around midnight, then packed up and buggered off home, got indoors about 2am. They had a buffet at this do, very nice, a selection of cheeses, Wensleydale with Cranberry..awesome, and some Wild Boar Pate which I rather enjoyed, several members of the band got a shock when they tried the chilli bread!
Up early this am for a bacon buttie and I am now off to play cricket in Billericay, then rushing home for a BBQ...busy day

Busy old day today, bit of work this morning, then over to Ian's for a lesson in how to tune a guitar, and I know how to play the opeing chords of Queen's Tie Your Mother Down, spent an hour in the garden laering it today, of course this was no use for the gig tonight at Brands Hatch, but still it was fun despite the state of my fingers now, one of which has a cracking blood blister! There was a track day at Brands as we arrived to set the equipment up, loads of speed merchants flogging their road cars round the famous old track. The gig went well, and we managed to sit down and have cup of coffee after and look through the band profiles for the website, another gig looms in Bromley on Saturday.
Ian's neighbour has taken a shine to me, nice woman who looked dissapointed when told I was off the market!
Tomorrow after a 4 long weeks, I lose Young Finch for a long weekend, its very dissapointing when his mother does not even have him for a few days during the holiday, you would think she would want to spend some time with him, apparently not, she has hardly seen him in the holiday, too busy obviously....
This SUnday I havr a cricket match at Billericays ground, the ground is used by Essex's second team, we played there last year, the pitch is stunning and the clubhouse is good, here's hoping the tea is better than last year and that I can get a few runs....

Amazing scenes today at the Oval, The Aussies were never going to make 500+ where they? I admit to being a bit concerned with Ponting batting, until Freddie ran him out. It has been a funny series, Australia will say they were short of Brett Lee, but we had Pietersen out and Freddie misinng at Headingly, to be fair the stats point to an Aussie win, leading wicket takers, most centuries, yet when it all boiled down to it England were the better side, Broads spell on Friday that obliterated the Aussie 1st Innings was amazing, helped by Graham Swann who as the spinner was under huge pressure, this was the Aussies bottling it, its all very well making 300+ in the second innings when chasing 500+, but where were they on Friday when the big score was needed. Its all very sweet stuff, after Headingly it looked bad for England, to bounce back afte that with this win is an incredible achievement.

Three Blokes....Three Mountains......24 Hours.....The Challenge!

Well the camp was entirley succesful, the Explorers loved it and the weather was stunning so much so I have a very brown crown (its not a bald spot) and young finch has brown legs, although that may be dirt!
One of the highlights was a scavenger hunt, myself and a fellow leader accompanied our group on the hunt which was our way of livening up a 3 mile walk to Deal, as we got closer to Deal we hatched a plot, we decided we would all act as French tourists.... so speaking no English we entered Deal with some very dodgy French phrases, mine were mainly "the monkey is in the tree" and "the cat is under the table" armed with this we caused chaos including attempts to order 8 99's with a flake, one of the items they had to collect was a photo of them in a telephone box, once the 6 or so Explorers were i myself and my rather rotund companion announced our intention to join them in the box.....chaos......but we managed it.
The site was stunning and the view out to sea everyday was awesome as was the meteor shower we stayed up and watched, to have 14 inner city kids lying out in a field watching something like that was amazing!
Now we are back preperations are in full swing for many events, the Mountain rescue boys are off in late November, we have a walk along the Mumbles and a trip to the rally, throw in a Stag weekend somwhere not revealed and a wedding its a busy time!

More Photos!

Photos from camp at Kingsdown