PARTY, PARTY, PARTY!!

Yes, that's what it seems to be at the moment - lots of private parties, weddings etc., and not many "public" gigs, so we need to put that right (more of that later)!!

Since the last epistle, we have been quite busy, having played the ECH Midnight Walk, a birthday party and a wedding, and another wedding coming up on Friday this week! The Midnight Walk was a great experience and, although it was difficult to get everyone up and jumping around (they were about to walk 10km through the Macclesfield streets, after all!), the energy levels were high, and we got some really good comments. It was quite a sight to see 1000+ people lining up at the start, for such a good cause and, happily everybody returned safely!

We played Glenn Clarke's 60th birthday at the brewery - some of you may know Glenn as the big bear of a driving instructor that inhabits the higher reaches of Buxton Road! The party was a great night, with only 1 hiccup when a group of young lads (who were somewhat the worse for wear, for one reason or another) decided they would like to join the party! The assembled males in the room moved to the door to persuade them otherwise - including Glenn, who was all for throwing them in the River Bollin, but Dave S brought some sanity to the proceedings (he does live there after all), and offered them some inducement to leave (nudge nudge!)

The next week saw us up at the Mykita ballroom for Sue Nicholls' wedding to Tim and, once again, it was a fantastic night - even if we did have to ditch half the set because they wanted us out by 11:45 - at least we had an early night! Good to see some old faces that we'd not seen for some time as well - from AZ and elsewhere! Micky Jones and Annette turned up as well - for their second wedding that day! Not sure how they arrived - one minute they weren't there, the next minute they were - you might think it impossible for Micky to smuggle himself into anywhere, but he managed it that night!!

If you check the gig list, you will see that, in addition to 3 provisional gigs for 2012 already(!), we're starting to fill up the latter end of the year. Three gigs planned for December, including what promises to be a great night down in Hertfordshire! Some friends of Andy and his wife Claire are having a 40th birthday bash, and they've especially asked for us to play, so we're going to make a weekend of it - could be a very nice one, just before Christmas!

As mentioned above, we're also trying to get some pub gigs, because we're getting withdrawal symptoms! In addition to Porter's, to whom we offer our sincere apologies for the mix-up over appearing at the beginning of July, we have also been approached by a couple of other venues - including The Millstone at Water's Green!! You may remember (check the blog from September 2009!) that we had a run-in with a previous landlord, and the Milly has been off our Christmas card list since then! However, Ken & Donna are trying to re-kindle the music nights there, and have asked us to help them which, of course, we would be delighted to do. At the moment, it's looking like Saturday 1 October might be the date so, if you're celebrating anything then, why not join us? So, hopefully, after our August break, there will be a number of pub gigs to give folks the opportunity to join us for a right good knees up!

After Friday's gig, we'll be taking it easy during August, because of holidays etc.; if you are going away, have a great time, if not - enjoy the rain with those of us staying here!