Friends...

Lovely Day out with our friends Pete and Donna.  We had first been for a drink in Pave, then the intention was to go for a bite to eat at Thai House Restaurant but as it appears to be no longer open on Saturday afternoons, we went across the road to The Persian.  What a lovely surprise that was.  A very small, family run restaurant offering traditional meze and kebab type fare.  There was a lunchtime special menu for £12.95 which we all chose from.  The boys opting for mixed kebabs with bread, rice and dips and Donna and I going for the 'meat stews', chicken for me and lamb for Donna.  Again with bread, rice and dips.  Everything was beautifully cooked and very tasty.  You can buy wine from the menu but the owner positively encourages you to bring your own because it makes it cheaper for you!  A lovely 70 year old man, who chatted to us and couldn't do enough to help.  We will definitely be back for an evening out sometime.

After our meal, we went for another few drinks in the fabulous 80 Days Bierhaus where the above photos were taken.  This is one of THE places to be in Hull for a great variety of beers from around the world and is one of our favourite bars.

Dog Walking

I've been saying for ages that I intend to volunteer for Oakwood Dog Rescue in a dog-walking capacity.  As I'm not in a position to have a pet myself, I thought it will serve two purposes, some time spent in the company of lovely doggies and a bit of exercise at the same time.  So in March, I made the effort and I'm really pleased I did.

If anyone is considering helping out, I would highly recommend it.  You can just go along any day, I think between 8am-12noon and 5pm-9pm (give them a call to confirm those times).  Remember to take some photo ID with you on your first visit.  You can do as much or as little as you want.  I tend to walk one dog, one evening straight after work each week.  I'm out for about 45 mins.

I've walked three different dogs so far but my favourite has been the beautiful Madge. She is very affectionate and walks nicely.

Madge

Madge

Smokie was also a lovely girl and very well behaved, although I struggled to get a photo of her!  She just didn't want to play with the camera.

Smokie

Florence was the first dog I walked.  She was lovely, quite timid though.  Again, very well behaved, sat when told and walked nicely across the road.

Florence

Florence

All of the dogs you can adopt from Oakwood are trained and socialised beforehand.  If you are looking for a pet, I would encourage you to check out their website and get in touch.

There are other volunteering opportunities, from admin roles to fundraising and kennel assistants.  They are entirely self-funding and always grateful for any donations, monetry or food for the dogs.  All information is available on the website or you can follow them on Facebook.

More Music in March.

One of our favourite pubs in Hull is The St. John's on Queen's Road.  It's a proper pub, separate rooms, characterful locals, sports teams etc.  Every Tuesday they host an Open Mike night, an opportunity for various local musicians to perform a short set.  The format is such that prior to the open mike session, a 'professional' act will perform a 45 minute set (to warm the audience up I guess).  I'm not sure of the wisdom of doing it this way round as, a. after watching someone good, the amateurs could sound bloody awful and b. Like us, people may watch the main act and then bugger off without staying for the open mike session.  However, that's what they do so it must be working for them.

On Tuesday 13th March, we popped along because the opening act was a favourite of mine, Ched Cheeseman.  Ched has a long history of performing in Hull and back in the 1980s I used to go see him regularly as the frontman of Ched's Booze Band.  Performing with Ched at St. John's was Bobby Joyce, whose work I wasn't familiar with until seeing him in Turn and Face the Strange along with Ched.  With Bobby singing and both of them playing, it was a great set.  At one stage they were joined onstage by a young woman I think was called Marie.  What a voice she had!  I did record a little video of the performance but I'll be buggered if I can find out how to upload it to here!  When I figure it out, I'll do it.

Next up was one of my favourite artists, Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze playing at Fruit.  The night of the gig, 17th March, the weather decided that a blizzard was in order! It had been snowing a bit on an off but when we set off to catch a bus, it wasn't too bad.  We got off the bus on Lowgate to Arctic conditions and by the time we had walked across the road to Humber Street, we looked like snowmen.  I wasted no time at all in booking a taxi for the return journey after the gig.  Once inside we soon warmed up and the beauty of a gig at Fruit is that the bar always has good craft ales on keg and in the fridge.  There's always bound to be something we like on offer.

I loved Squeeze back in the day but they were one of those bands that I didn't buy any of their stuff.  I have their Greatest Hits but that's all.  There are a few bands like that, I guess it was just at a time in my life when I couldn't afford to be buying records or something.  Anyway, I was really looking forward to seeing Glenn perform and I really enjoyed it.  I think mostly because I could sing along with a lot of the songs but I understood what Patrick meant when he said he was a little bored.  It wasn't a really engaging performance and during some of the songs that I didn't know, I found my mind wandering a bit too.  I'm pleased I've seen him though and overall, I had a great time.

The Overtones at Hull City Hall

We had a few things booked into March and the first of these was at Hull City Hall on 9th March when we went to see The Overtones.  Coral and William are big fans so we had seen them a year or two back in Sheffield and thought they were amazing.  We didn't enjoy the show quite so much in Hull but Coral said they usually sing with a live band but it was just backing tapes.  Some things didn't run quite smoothly, the segue between songs for example.  With the news now of Timmy's recent passing, we realise that he must have been feeling really quite ill which probably explains a lot.  So sad, far too young to die at 36 and my thoughts are with his family and friends.

The photo below isn't that great, taken with my phone on zoom as it was but I just love the mood and feel of it.  I don't know if something had gone wrong, someone sang the wrong part or whatever but the way they are laughing together shows a great camaraderie not only between themselves but with their fans.

RIP Timmy Matlett.

A bit more February!

Oh dear!  I'm really not doing well on blogging regularly am I?  What I really want to do is to blog thing just as they've happened. You know, so the memories and feelings are fresh in my mind and heart.  With that thought, I've remembers a bit of February that I missed from my last post.

Knitting - I completed a cowl for Mason.  A chance to practice my colourwork technique which I've been really enjoying.  Just a simple zig-zag pattern but with aran weight yarn, the double thickness fabric makes a lovely cosy cowl for him for walking to work in the cold.

Before the cowl, I had knitted a hat for Joshy, the 6 year old son of a work colleague.  Lucy was telling us how Josh had been to The Deep and loved the penguins, one of which was called Ralphy.  Their surname being Ralph, Josh thought it was super that a penguin had the same name as his.  This little tale gave me the idea of knitting a hat with penguins on.  Josh loved it and apparently wore it all night, including whilst eating his tea!

It was a great project for me because I was able to practice colourwork techniques of knitting with both hands, catching floats and latvian braid.  I felt I had made real progress and enjoyed it enormously.

So, onto March...

February Round-Up

Here we are in March so I thought I'd better catch up with February before I forget it all.  It was quite a busy month events-wise with a couple of volunteer shifts and a fair few social shindigs.

I decided in January that having had a bit of time off, it was time to get back into some City of Culture volunteering.  So, on Saturday 3rd, I did an afternoon shift at the Brynmor Jones Library on the University of Hull campus at an exhibition called Painting Power - The Art of Terence Cuneo.  I intend posting more about that on my Hull2017 blog but here is some information about the artist.  I thoroughly enjoyed my shift with another lovely volunteer whose name I can't recall and we spent most of the time searching for the little mice that the artist used to hide in his paintings.  He is most famous though for his painting of trains.

Whereas I am most famous for taking wonky photos!  So, to remedy that and the fact that I feel I am outgrowing my phone camera, I decided to go into Jessops the next day to look into buying a reasonable compact camera.  I wanted one that would do the Auto thing but also that had enough manual controls so that I could learn to take better photos.  After some advice, I ended up buying a Panasonic Lumix TZ60 and have enrolled on a course for beginners digital photography at Hull College which starts in April.  I actually enrolled on one starting 20th February but it was cancelled due to low numbers.  Hopefully the April one won't suffer the same fate as I am really looking forward to learning how to use the camera before we go on our Scottish Highlands holiday in May.

The next weekend we were at the wedding of Patrick's nephew Andrew and his fiancee Julie.  I took a few family snaps but was a bit too self conscious to go around snapping everyone. 

Before that, on the Wednesday night, I went to Hull City Hall to see Erasure with my work colleague and good friend of 28 years, Debbie.  Debbie has been a fan of the band since the 1980s and has seen them too many times to count over the years.  It was my first time and although I enjoyed it, I'm not enough of a fan to be too fussed about seeing them again.  I'm pleased I've seen them though and they were excellent.

The next Wednesday, Patrick and I were at Hull Truck to see The Culture - A Farce in Two Acts.  I'm afraid this was a bit of a let-down for me.  I am aware of what a farce is but this was just too much door slamming, talking too fast and unbelievable mistaken identities to be funny, it was just silly and irritating.  The second half improved thankfully and we ended up rather enjoying it.

My next volunteer shift was The Feren's on Sunday 18th, again more about it over the page but it was basically invigilating the Open Exhibition, which is an annual event showing the work of amateur and professional artists of all kinds.

Next up at Hull Truck (told you it was a busy month), was Turn and Face The Strange, a show about our very own Mick Ronson.  Former Spider from Mars (along with fellow Hullensian Trevor Bolder and Driffield lad Woody Woodmansey), Mick went on to work with many other musicians over his career.  The show originally ran at the Freedom Centre last year as part of Hull2017.  I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to see it again, truly one of the most enjoyable shows I have seen.  Part live band, part film archive all wrapped up with anecdotes from friends and family it is a feast of entertainment and I think all those present learned a lot about the vastly under-rated Mick Ronson.  This review from Yorkshire Post about covers it.

Finally to close off a very active February, my sister and two sister-in-laws and I went out for our monthly meal date.  My sister Ann and I started it off last year, meeting up sporadically as a means of keeping in touch with one another's lives as since mum died, we don't really see each other or even speak to each other very often.  Lynne and Chris joined us in November last year but then our arrangements were in danger of falling by the wayside again until Ann text me to suggest meeting on 26th February.  We went to Dukes on Princes Avenue, so named after the streets opposite which are all named after Dukeries, Welbeck, Thoresby, Clumber, Belvoir and Blenheim.  We had a good old natter, catching up with one another's family news and some lovely food.  Between us we had the fish and chips, the baked haddock and a veggie burger.  All were really lovely and the chips were real, proper chips.  Highly recommended all round.

Phew!  Bit of a mammoth post there and I promise I'll try to keep up with March with more regular posts.