Christmas Parties...

Last Friday we had three Christmas parties to go to. We only made it to two of them.

We started by going to Heather’s work party. It was held in the Central Library staff room in Kensington. It was really nice to meet all of the library people that Heather works with. Libraries seem to attract an interesting assortment of people who are generally well educated, laid back, and a little insane. The insanity seemed to be amplified by the booze that was certainly flowing. Apparently the main function of the Kensington Library Christmas party is to get really drunk. We made our exit around 8:00 before things got too out of hand.

Next we headed across town to my work Christmas party that was being held in a pub near London Bridge. The party was in full swing when we arrived and it was one of those great locations where you have to yell at the top of your lungs directly into someone’s ear to carry on a conversation. The combination of noise and exotic drinks left Heather not really remembering anyone that she met, but we did have a good time…

Our Christmas Tree Was Stolen!

Before you get too worried, it was not the actual tree in our house that got stolen. Even if it was that tree, it would not be a huge tragedy since it is a 4ft plastic tree that we bought for £6.99.

There is a row of shops by our local train station: an Italian restaurant, a deli, a gallery, a chippy, a convenience store, etc. This area is the heart of Honor Oak Park. It had been decorated nicely for Christmas with lights on the lamp posts and a Christmas tree on the island in the middle of the road in front of the train station. It wasn't a great tree, but it was our tree. A few days after it was put up, I was walking to the train station and I noticed that the tree was gone. Well, it would have been one thing if it was just gone, but it was worse than that. The lower few branches of the tree were still there, but it had been sawn off about three quarters of the way down the trunk. Some dirty bugger had decapitated our tree! Welcome to Southeast London.

Merry Christmas!

JE

Open Mic Results...

The open mic went pretty well for me in the end. The evening got off to a rough start when the road I was taking to get to Greenwich was closed off, and I got detoured onto the back streets of SE London. Luckily, I had Gerry (a long time SE Londoner who was playing conga with me) to navigate. He said he knew exactly where we were the whole time, but I was secretly starting to panic a bit as we spent an extra 15 minutes winding around some very dark streets. We arrived at the pub unscathed and only a little bit late.

Unfortunately, there were only about 4 other people there (all other performers). They put off the starting time for the evening, but there was still only a small handful of people there when things kicked off.

My neighbor arrived to cheer me on. This was especially encouraging because he has to listen to me practice though the floor (he lives upstairs), so his presence there indicated that my practicing is not driving him too insane.

A couple of guys from work came to check it out as well. Just as they were arriving, the worst performer of the night was on stage. The poor guy was alone hammering on an out of tune, distorted, electric guitar while howling out of tune unintelligible words. My friends from work admitted that they were nervous that it was me that they heard on stage as they were arriving at the pub. They were quite relieved to find me sitting at the back of the room waiting my turn.
Things seemed to improve from there. A few more people arrived, I made it through my songs without major incident, and there were a couple of really good performers towards the end of the night. It was a good step forward for me. Everyone was very encouraging about the performance (but you never really know how good it is).

Over the Christmas break, I will really start digging into some recording and hopefully set up some new and exciting places to play in the new year. New years resolution #1: Record a full length album. New Years Resolution #2: Perform more often. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself...

JE