Happy Week

April 23, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The last week or so has seen warm temperatures at last. Despite my fears, Forest Green Rovers have had sufficient success on the football field to ensure that a dreaded relegation will almost certainly be avoided. I’ve been able to get started on preparing the vegetable patch and growing seedlings for the garden and managed to fit in another trip to London. It’s been a good time.

Lincoln Fields: Every Green Space In London Fully Occupied When The Sun Comes Out!

There has also been some nostalgia this week. 20 years ago, Boards of Canada, a band producing an evocative brand of psychedelic electronica, released their first studio album called Music Has The Right To Children. I bought the CD soon afterwards and have spent the last 20 years buying their other albums and loving almost every minute of them.

It’s hard to pick a favourite band because there are so many music genres and different music suits different moods and circumstances. But I believe that, at any time over the last 20 years (including today), I would have said Boards of Canada are my favourite band. An example of their sound – with typically off-beat images evoking public service documentaries, childhood and nostalgia is here (Everything You Do Is Balloon).

Boards of Canada are two Scottish brothers who have only produced three more full albums since that first one that got me hooked. To my knowledge, they have never played live. They leave me grasping for more. I therefore jumped at Eldest Son’s (ES’s)suggestion that we go to a jazz interpretation of the Music Has the Right to Children by Byron Wallen’s Gamelan Ensemble at Camden’s Jazz Club in London. It was an excellent event – though inevitably a shadow of the real thing – and so popular that, I understand, a repeat performance is being scheduled.

Byron Wallen’s Gamelan Ensemble Reinterpret Boards of Canada At The Jazz Club, Camden

The gig was a good reason to visit London for a couple of days. I not only spent time with ES – as usual staying in the Barbican flat he rents from us in a very convenient arrangement – but also managed to meet up with Middle Son (MS). I also saw the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, which was a huge and incredibly varied array of often remarkable photos, and then the superb, new Monet and Architecture exhibition at the National Gallery.

Sony World Photography Award Winner: Veselin Atanasov

I really enjoyed the Monet exhibition which recalled the Impressionists in London exhibition I saw at Tate Britain last year. Several of individual pictures were stunning, the information provided was just the right level for me (not too much and nothing highfalutin), and the gallery was busy but empty enough that I could see every piece up close. There was a little personal nostalgia here too since the exhibition sponsor was my last employer before retirement.

Monet And Architecture: The Boulevard Des Capucines, Paris

Since returning to Gloucestershire, I have started longer spells of gardening than I managed before Spring truly sprang into life this week. I have also resumed the interminable painting of the TV Room. Both activities have provided moments of humour.

My vegetable patch is adjoined by a field of sheep that have been fed with hay recently because the pasture is so far behind its normal growth levels due to the poor weather. When I appear in the vegetable patch they expect me to feed them and so rush over towards me. One got so enthusiastic that he barged through the fence, jumped over the wall and started munching the weeds in our garden. Fortunately, we managed to guide the sheep back to his field quickly enough to leave us amused by the experience rather than concerned.

Sheep Intruding Into Our Garden

On the painting front, I have recently opened another pot. As I was leaning over it to dip in my brush, my spectacles dropped off directly into the paint. I felt pretty stupid as I fished the drenched, dark blue spectacles out and rinsed them off. Luckily, the paint is water based so, as with the sheep, no harm was done.

Happy week!

Sunny London: Somerset House, Royal Courts of Justice, St Pauls And The 4th Plinth In Trafalgar Square

The Cost of Entertainment

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

So, still not much Spring in the air and the water-courses have been full. But lambs are starting to pop out and Spring weather is apparently going to finally arrive next week. Such a relief!

Full Local Water Courses and New Lambs

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I went to the Theatre Royal in Bath last week to see Mary Stuart starring Juliette Stephenson and Lia Williams. The last time I went to the theatre was years ago when I saw War Horse in London. I really can’t recall when, before that, I saw a play. In retrospect, it’s surprising that I didn’t do more theatre-going while I was in London – one of the theatre capitals of the world. I love cinema, which is perhaps the closest art form, and I love live music which provides similar intimacy. So why not go to more theatre?

Part of the reason is that a large part of good acting is in facial expression. My eyesight is just not good enough to be able to discern the subtlety of such expression from the distances I expect to find myself away from the stage and so I feel I will miss out. That was true in Bath earlier this week but, in truth, the performance was very enjoyable anyway.

The other reason for not going to many shows in London was my perception of the expense of the ticket relative to my knowledge of the theatre and, therefore, my chances of enjoying the experience. However, the costs of going to the theatre are lower outside of London and we knew the play LSW and I saw in Bath would be good because we’d seen the reviews and it had already had a successful run in London. In any case, I have been thinking more about the relative cost of the entertainments I choose.

The tickets for Theatre Royal cost £33 each. That is quite a lot of money in absolute terms and, given that the theatre has a capacity of 900 and was packed, that creates a decent revenue stream for the theatre. But then we were seeing a couple of near-top actresses, and a cast of 20 or so, all directed and acting in front of a backdrop and lighting that all needs to be maintained and manned. This production is a success but not all are and so maybe Mary Stuart has to cover losses on other plays. Also, the play was a pretty compelling three hours long – so that’s around £11 per hour of (dramatic, absorbing and memorable) entertainment.

A week before, I had travelled up to London to see Forest Green Rovers (FGR) Football Club lose against our relegation rivals Barnet. The ticket cost £23 which is above average for English Football League 2. For that, over 90 minutes, I saw a poor game of football with a bad result for us. I can’t say I enjoyed the experience and it cost of over £15 per hour. Of course, had FGR played well and won, I would have been overjoyed and very pleased to have seen the game. But FGR’s away form is such that I could have expected disappointment.

Small scale live music gigs are very good relative value. Many I have attended in recent years have cost less than £10 and, with support bands, provide around two hours of entertainment at £5-8 per hour. The latest band I saw was a (supposedly) up and coming band called Goat Girl. For the cost of a CD (£11), I got in to see them live in the intimate surroundings of Rough Trade East record store in Shoreditch, London. It was a lively hour, I liked much of the music and it was very good value (given I have the CD memento).

Goat Girl at Rough Trade (With Goat Props!)

Of course, the quality of music venue (the comfy seats available at Theatre Royal Bath are not an option in the small venues I tend to go to!) and the quality of the music is variable. Generally though, I will have listened to the band on Spotify or CD in advance and have enough knowledge to aim at events I enjoy. The good value of live music has, for me, been pretty consistent over several years.

The other thing I did on my football and music trip to London was go to a couple of art galleries. Both shows, at the Hayward Gallery and the Barbican, entertained me for about 90 minutes. By far the most interesting was the excellent exhibition of Andreas Gursky photographs at the Hayward. It provided a fascinating insight into the work of someone I had never heard of before at a rate of about £10 per hour. Thinking back to other exhibitions I have seen recently, that rate of entertainment cost per hour seems about the norm for me. I like free art shows but having to pay focuses my attention of what I am seeing.

Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Paris, Montparnasse

Further Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Bahrain Racetrack

Exhibition: Another Kind of Life, Photography on the Margins (Here, A Nigerian Man With His Hyena by Peter Hugo)

I might consider further the relative value of other entertainments such as restaurants, cinema, watching catch-up TV, gardening and walking (which is certainly cheapest!) Clearly cost per hour is not the only factor. However, from the past week I conclude that:

Theatre (out of London at least) is better value than I previously thought – I really enjoyed it
Music events are high value entertainment provided I keep my knowledge of what I am going to see current
Art exhibitions are good entertainment value despite the high absolute cost of tickets; indeed, I suspect the fact there is a high cost drives me to concentrate more on what I am seeing and get more out of it
following Forest Green Rovers away from home is bad value unless we win (just twice in the last 9 months!).

Nonetheless, the pain of the football fan is to carry on ploughing the same furrow regardless of results so I’ll be handing over my cash at Cheltenham on Saturday and hoping for value for money and, rather desperately, three points for FGR.

February Ups and Downs

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

Long Suffering Wife (LSW) and I have decided February is the month to avoid in the UK. There are just too many dismal weather days in February. We will escape to Cape Town’s drought at the end of February but will plan next year’s holiday abroad to be a bit earlier.

Actually, this week, the weather has been very variable rather than poor. We have had clear blue skies and relentlessly grey drizzle on almost alternate days throughout the last week. LSW and I even managed to get a pretty massive bonfire going to clear a load of long standing bramble piles, broken pallets and old fence posts.

Bonfire As An Art Work? No, Just A Task On The List Done

Like the weather, my week has also been rather up and down.

The lowest point was travelling to Newport in Wales for a Forest Green Rovers game. It was postponed about 15 minutes after I arrived due to a waterlogged pitch (or the fact that Newport were tired after their FA Cup tie in midweek against Tottenham Hotspur depending on one’s level of scepticism). What a waste of time and money!

Newport In The Rain On The Way To A Cancelled Match. Grim!

The week had started well with a visit to my parents in Nottingham. I travel up to see them too infrequently but, now I have retired, I have no excuse. I will take the rusting old Saab up to them more often in the future. The journey up and back wasn’t without its delays but it’s a relatively easy trip. I drive very little – much to LSW’s annoyance – and I had forgotten how good it is to have the stereo and my favourite CDs in the car; it’s a real music cocoon and, in it, no-one cares about the volume except me.

It was good to see my parents. They are in their mid-eighties but continue to live independently and well. Despite my Mum’s troublesome back and a recently replaced knee, they are still mobile and going to occasional films and concerts.

Mum and Dad At Home

They took me to a local gastro-pub that was a cut above the average. One of the things we chatted about was retirement and my Dad’s experience of going through that about 20 years ago. He thought the lessons I felt I had learnt that I described in this blog in December were fair. Like me, he didn’t miss work after retirement. However, he now works very part time in a charity shop and that is something I might consider at some point.

The only wrinkle arising from the evening in a pub was that I was tempted to drink on what I had planned to be a non-alcohol day and to help my Mum out with her (very tasty) venison main course. This early in the year, I think I can spare a bit of slippage against my New Year resolutions regarding drink and weight. Anyway, it’s not every week that I’ll be enjoying my parents company. It was a very good evening.

I slept in my sister’s old bedroom. Like much of the rest of the upstairs, it contains a lot of books. My Dad is gradually reducing the number but I sense that working in a charity bookshop is not helping with the reduction process; he likes books! De-cluttering is not a focus for my parents and it was nice to see lots of things that I remember from my childhood.

Fred: Not My First Teddy Bear But My Biggest

Back at home, LSW maintains a pretty tight, minimalist ship. I brought back a few old board games with some trepidation of her reaction to having more ‘stuff’. I stashed them out of the way in the top floor cupboards but have promised to do a cull of old toys to compensate.

After my return from Nottingham, LSW and I visited Ledbury in Herefordshire with her Mum. It was one of those grey February days but pleasant enough; we’ll return later in the year. Most interesting was a brief sojourn in an unprepossessing pub while I was waiting for LSW and Mother-in-Laws’ shopping to conclude. The pub just had an unsmiling barman, someone determinedly playing the slot machine, a few near-silent individuals standing at the bar and another, like me, sitting at tables at the sides. The pub was ominously silent for long periods but conversations would occasionally break out that were dominated by references to fights and ‘trouble’; it was a glimpse into a different world…..

Ledbury Church Street

I can sense LSW getting impatient with the lack of TV room decoration progress – I need to make the most of the unappealing February weather by getting on with that in this coming week. I have no excuse there either.

Catching Up With London

February 4, 2018 / fgrtommo / 5 Comments

The effects of my retirement last year are not only about me. Long Suffering Wife (LSW) had to be in agreement that my retirement was a good idea since it was clear that there would be a significant impact on her too. That has proved to be the case since I stopped work and moved back to the family home from my 5-day-a-week flat in London. She no longer has large tracts of the day to herself and the house that she controls so well now has an additional presence (/interloper?). It was therefore somewhat of a relief for LSW when, for the first time in 7 months of retirement, I headed back to London for a few days last week and gave her a bit of space and time alone.

I know that she enjoyed that. I also had a very good time.

Replica Of The London Olympic Flame Mechanism At The Museum Of London

I visited the Museum of London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Temple of Mithras under the new Bloomberg building. I also took in an occurrence of The Lantern Society (one of the best folk clubs in London and one I had frequented regularly until last July) and spent a couple of hours in the Rough Trade East record shop listening to new music. That was all fitted in around a few catch ups with Middle Son (MS) and some old friends. It was also good to go out for dinner with Eldest Son (ES) who put me up in our Barbican flat. It was an active few days.

Tudor Portraits At The National Portrait Gallery (Katherine Parr, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII). Wonderful Vibrant Colours Still

The cultural highlight was the Opera exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It’s a history of opera told through focus on seven operas as they premiered in seven cities including Venice, London, Paris, Dresden and Leningrad. The exhibition shows how each opera was influenced by the events and politics of the time and, in turn, ignited passions in the cities in which they were performed. The magic was in the immersive experience generated by the wearing of headphones that responded to where one stood physically in the exhibition. They played the operas (also shown in videos) but also provided spoken insights into them and other sound effects all of which amplified the historical context in the cities in which the operas debuted. It is a fascinating exhibition.

I also loved the Temple of Mithras which was a swish and free exhibition of a Roman temple that was discovered in the Second World War and is now re-positioned in its original location under the new buildings in Walbrook. A lot of money has been thrown at the display and it’s well worth booking up a visit.

Temple of Mithras, Walbrook

After all that walking and cultural input, it was important to eat and drink well and I did! The ineptly named Flavour Bastard restaurant provided a very tasty lunch. It was near empty but that meant there was no rush as I caught up with an ex-Accenture colleague made redundant from Accenture with myself in around 2009. The canapes at the Accenture Alumni event I briefly attended were small and tricky to eat but dinner at Flat Iron with ES was more straightforward.

I also had a good evening of beer and curry with two other work ex-colleagues from a project way back in 1977. We have differing views on Brexit but otherwise set the world to rights and discussed the benefits of retirement. One retired 5 years ago, the other has yet to sample the delights.

Old Mates Contemplating Retirement, Grandfatherhood, Beer And Where The Next Curry Will Be

We agreed that what primarily keeps, or kept, us at work were the qualities of people we work(ed) with. In my case the impact of that aspect of retirement was diminished by the fact that, in the later years of my career, most of the people I interacted with were overseas. Therefore interactions were rarely face to face and were, correspondingly, of relatively limited depth. That reduced the sense of loss when I retired.

I think we also concluded that a clean break from work is probably the best option – one can always resume some form of work later if work-less retirement doesn’t provide all one needs. Finishing work abruptly on a stress high may not be healthy but, in my case, the intensity of work had already decreased as I moved into the final work years. So, again, the impact of stopping work was not as great for me as it may be for some.

More of an impact for me was the sudden move out of London. However, that also has been ameliorated by the fact that I can still have weeks like last week when I can visit and stay in my old flat on the sofa bed.

I’m looking forward to my next visit already.

Music At The Lovely Lantern Society Folk Club

Prelude to Spring

January 16, 2018January 17, 2018 / fgrtommo / 1 Comment

One of the enjoyable things about retirement and, consequently, being able to spend to spend far more time out and about in the country, is that I’m noticing the seasons to much a greater extent than before. In the last couple of weeks I have noticed that the late afternoons are starting to get a little brighter (though the mornings seem as dark as they did when Winter set in). I’m not sure I would have noticed this quiet change sitting under the neon in a London office.

The daily walks to Nailsworth are already revealing the first hints that Spring is not too far off. Small birds are singing a little more vigorously. A pair of little egrets has arrived near the lake I walk past. Long Suffering Wife (LSW) has seen dippers and I have seen a yellow hammer. The kingfishers seem more visible and active. Snowdrops are starting to appear in clumps and the local supermarket has started to stock bunches of daffodils – very helpful in supporting my New Year resolution to buy LSW more flowers!

Spring is Coming!

There are few weeks to go before the renewal of Spring really takes hold but, now Christmas and the New Year are past, I can now envision it – and far earlier, I think, than in previous years.

LSW and I plan to short circuit the wait by having a holiday in Cape Town in late February. This idea, and a separate one to spend a few days in Portugal, is not yet fully planned but it’s nice to have the flexibility to be able to think about avoiding the last vestiges of Winter’s cold and grey.

Meanwhile LSW and I are settling back into our domestic routines – punctuated by a very active and pleasant couple of days in London. The trip was primarily to celebrate Eldest Son’s 30^th birthday but also included visits to Tate Modern, the Whitechapel Gallery, a 40^th floor breakfast and dinner for two in one of our favourite restaurants (Morito).

Three Pieces By Ilya Kabakov At The Current Tate Modern Exhibition of His Work (Not Sure Why I Liked It So Much, But I Did)

Either side of the London visit, LSW has been managing transformation of our muddy car park space into a walled garden. I am trying to balance clearing the fridge and freezer of food left over from the Christmas period with the need to lose the half a stone I put on during it. I have also resumed decorating the TV room; the brush strokes have become more rhythmic since I set up some music facilities in the room but are not necessarily delivering higher quality.

We are both striving to keep up to date with several catch-up TV series, stepping up reading, trying out new venues like the rather characterful Stroud Brewery Bar and getting out to see bands (This Is The Kit were marvellous) and cinema (we can now recommend Brad’s Status starring Ben Stiller and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri in which Frances McDormand is remarkable).

This is fun and I think Spring will be better!

First Daffodils of 2018 – An Easy Way to Maintain My Record of Flower Giving!

Getting Moving Again

November 23, 2017November 23, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The anti-climax since the trip to Australia via stops in Singapore and Hong Kong remains palpable. I miss the almost daily imperative of having to get from one location to another and to ‘tick off’ the sights. I just haven’t got fully back up to speed in getting to grips with the more mundane things in my retirement routine yet.

I am starting to get the to-do lists moving again but what has struck me in the last two weeks has been how fortunate I was to be able to retire in summer when the weather was much less of a constraint (and excuse) than it is becoming now. Also, a brief spell of illness last week reminded me of how lucky I have been to have been fit and well through the last 5-6 months.

In reality, I have no excuse not to get on with as much of my plans and to-dos as possible. I must, for example, restart my Italian for Absolute Beginners. I’m hoping I haven’t forgotten all I learnt in the first three units of the course!

I have been keeping up attendance at local music events. In the last week or so LSW and I have paid a couple more Sunday afternoon visits to a local bar (The Vault) which hosts a series of singers and small bands each week. We also made it to a venue we hadn’t tried before, the nearby Ruskin Mill College, and saw The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc. These are a triumvirate of fiddlers from The Shetlands, Sweden and Norway. They sustained a full evening of quality fiddling with a remarkable variety of styles and considerable talent. It was intimate, foot tapping and fun and I’ve signed up for more events of this type.

Nordic Fiddlers Bloc Explaining Fiddles At Ruskin Mill College

Next week, LSW and I are in London for a couple of days. That should help shake me out of my relative torpor.

Post-Holiday Lull

November 9, 2017November 9, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

It’s been about ten days since LSW and I returned from our trip to Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong. The logistics of our holiday were such that we changed location 17 times in 27 days. There was almost always something significant planned for the next day – either a move to the next place or a bit of interesting tourism or both. The holiday flights and accommodation were pre-booked and so there was no option but to get on with it. Fortunately the plans all worked out perfectly (until the train returning us home from London was delayed – typical!) and the holiday turned out to be tremendously exciting and enjoyable.

Since our return, it has taken a while for me to get used to the lack of imperative to do anything. It has almost felt like retiring for a second time.

It was such a joy not to have had a mountain of work email and meetings to attend following the holiday. But the absence of any tasks, meetings or instructions set out for me on my return felt almost as strange as it had done when I first retired from work in July.

That is not to say that I haven’t done quite a lot since returning. I got back just in time to see Forest Green Rovers win and have seen them play twice more since. LSW and I have increased our understanding of our community by attending meetings on the local town’s climate change action plan and the local council’s housing strategic review. We have sampled the local pub’s Curry Night (very yummy) and I attended the village Men’s Night (and acquired my first hangover in months).

LSW and I also went to the newly opened The Marshall Rooms and saw an interesting and impressive band called Syd Arthur. The venue has a long history – apparently the Beatles played there in the 60s – but has required a complete refurbishment. It is part owned by Keith Allen who lives locally and is famous for his roles as Sheriff of Nottingham in the film of Robin Hood and in Game of Thrones. It’s great that he is investing his success back into the local community.

Syd Arthur at The Marshall Rooms

Slowly, my routines are falling back into place as they were before our holiday. The daily walks into Nailsworth are autumnal now of course, but still very pleasant. The availability and digestion of the Guardian in hard copy and completion of the Quick Crossword with LSW has resumed its place in my day.

Layer of Wood Smoke Over Nailsworth

Also, Christmas is coming. That will bring a new diversion and dimension as our sons return to us. I’m looking forward to that but also think that LSW and I will have to start planning another trip soon!

Two New Music Venues For Me

October 1, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

I am always interested in going to new venues for gigs. By the time I left London I had been to lots of different venues and knew the logistics of many of them pretty intimately (when to arrive, where to stand, what if anything to drink). I had my favourites (Café Oto, St Pancras Old Church, The Lexington and so on) and tended to follow them rather than bands when selecting where to go.

Having left London, I am now building up a new list of local venues. This week I added two more to the list: The Stroud Goods Shed, which was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Prema in Uley.

The venues had similarities – for example, both had ancient open beam structures in the roof – but they were also very different. The Stroud Goods Shed was rather cavernous and verged on cold – not that that affected the high quality of the music. Prema was smaller and more intimate and the audience was far older.

At Stroud Goods Shed we saw Mesadorm and at Prema we saw Habedekuk. Again, there were similarities (for example, both bands had folk roots and both featured an 8-piece band). But while Mesadorm played complex English tunes with deep and meaningful lyrics, Habadekuk played jazzed up Danish dance tunes with complex titles.

Mesadorm at The Stroud Goods Shed

LSW loves all things Danish so we couldn’t go wrong with Habadekuk but both were very enjoyable. I’ll be looking out for more music events at Stroud Goods Shed and Prema.

Habadekuk at Prema

First though, Australia…. Hopefully I can get the mobile version of the blog software to work and keep you at least somewhat up to date with our trip to see Youngest Son.

New Experiences

September 6, 2017 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

I have been encouraged by the variety of things I have found to do out here in rural England having retired from job and metropolis.

Clearly there is far less variety than in London and we often have to drive rather than walk, as before, to get to it. But what I am finding is that the relative lack of choice is actually creating a refreshing expansion of my experience by forcing me to see and do things that I would probably not have considered pre-retirement.

There have been a few very enjoyable examples in the last couple of weeks.

Last week and this we ventured to a local, independent, single-screen cinema I have never visited before in Wotton. It turns out to offer a limited but attractive programme of films about a month old that are in the tier below the Hollywood blockbusters that dominate, rather tiresomely, the local multiplex.

Wotton Electric Picture House

In both visits I saw films (Maudie and The Big Sick) that I would not normally have chosen to go out for but which turned out to be very good. More predictably, given that Maudie is a gritty biopic about a painter of naïve pictures in Nova Scotia and The Big Sick is a rom-com with a happy ending, Long Suffering Wife (LSW) also loved them, so they can come recommended. Had I still been working in London, I would have missed both.

Saturday evenings have long been the only ones that I usually spent fully out of London. Post-retirement I can afford to use them less sparingly. Last Saturday we went to a concert of classical Spanish guitar in our local village church. It wasn’t well publicised or particularly well attended. Pre-retirement, I wouldn’t have spotted that it was on and, even if I had, I doubt I’d have used a precious Saturday evening on it. But I was so glad I did – it was a remarkably high quality performance by a relatively local chap called Alan Brinley Shaw.

Alan Brinley Shaw at Horsley Church

I’m looking forward to more of the similar.

Music, Music, Music

August 23, 2017August 23, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Very nearly 10 years ago today I went to a gig at Kings College London to see a Scottish miserabilist singer called Malcolm Middleton. It was the first gig I had been to for a very long time but it was terrific and it re-kindled my excitement for live music.

Since then I have been to see over 300 gigs in London (I know because I’m the sort of bloke who keeps records of these things). Indeed I have seen Malcolm Middleton another 4 times since that wonderful evening 10 years ago.

I love the music itself (usually), the intimacy of the smaller venues and the anonymity. I’ve turned up after work in a suit to several of these gigs and no-one cares about that, or my grey hair, or that I am usually 2-3 times older than the fellow audience members.

Now I am retired I have more time to attend music events. However, I have been concerned that, having had to move out of London, I won’t find the opportunities to do so and will miss the variety and quality on offer in London.

In the last week or so, I have started to explore local venues with LSW and I’m much encouraged.

There is certainly variety. LSW and I have been to a local village festival featuring bands adept at 70’s and 80’s cover versions. That was great fun, though the pub car park we were standing in got a bit cold after a while – it’s an English summer after all!

France Lynch MusicFest

We then went to a fundraiser in aid of a local church roof repair with experienced opera singers, young musicians just starting out and, believe it or not, the Stroud Ukelele Band. Fun for a good cause….

Concert For Pitchcombe Church

Then, after a few quality checks on Spotify, LSW was persuaded to come with me to see Sam Brookes at The Prince Albert pub a few miles from our home. Co-incidentally, he was on a bill for a gig I went to in London over 4 years ago. He was very good and I am sure I will be a regular attendee at this venue, alongside its very mixed audience where, as you will see int he picture, I will no longer be the oldest.

Sam Brookes at the Prince Albert

Finally I am already now a regular Sunday afternoon attendee at The Vault which is just a pleasant 30 minute walk away from us. Here the well named ‘Super Chilled Sundays’ comprise of a beer or two, perusal of the Sunday paper sports pages and magazines, completion of the Guardian Quick Crossword with LSW, and local musicians doing their stuff to create a comfortable ambience. It’s all very relaxing and a wonderful change from having to pack up and leave for London on a Sunday afternoon as I had to do until retirement.

The Honeymoon Trio at The Vault

My musical investigations will continue deeper into our local town of Stroud – I have high hopes for a new venue opening there – and into Bristol. Plans are being made and tickets being bought for both. There will be more on my revised musical journey in due course.

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Music