A stack of pointless bike reservation tickets
The GSB at a Twinning Anniversary, Hartismere, Eye, Suffolk - 24th October 2019
It's the thirtieth anniversary of the town-twinning between Pouzauges, in the Vendée department of Pays de la Loire in France, and Eye, the Suffolk market town. The Gislingham Silver Band is playing, so Nosher and Fred pitch up to help out on cornet and flute duties, respectively. The band doesn't actually get to play that much, as there's a lot of speechifying going on - more so as everything has to be done in both English and French - but there are a few nice canapés floating around afterwards to make up for it. The signing continues the twinning partnership for another year, whilst this time there are also additional guests from the German town of Meitingen. The highlight was probably when all the French half of the audience stood up as we started playing a tune called Bouquet de Paris - its opening refrain is loosely based on the French national anthem, the Marseillaise.
next album: A Trip up a Lighthouse, Southwold, Suffolk - 27th October 2019
previous album: A Trip up the Big City, Norwich, Norfolk - 18th October 2019
Adrian is installed in his new-ish stool
It's a small turnout as it's a working-day gig
Gov's dad and Merlin discuss the running order
The signing table
Merlin checks more paperwork
Merlin - a former mayor of Eye - does a speech
The Mayor of Eye gets her speech translated
Fred in the Hartismere car park
The Hart of Hartismere outside the school
The band descends on the few remaining canapés
There's a post-signing schmooze in the library
The canapes have all been scoffed
Mingling guests with some sort of fizz-in-a-glass
A bottle is waved around
The library is fairly full
Meanwhile, Fred roams around
We head off looking for the bogs
Fred points at a bunch of lockers
Autumn leaves outside the Lines Hall at Hartismere
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A stack of pointless bike reservation tickets
A stack of pointless bike reservation tickets
Adrian is installed in his new-ish stool
It's a small turnout as it's a working-day gig
Gov's dad and Merlin discuss the running order
The signing table
Merlin checks more paperwork
Merlin - a former mayor of Eye - does a speech
The Mayor of Eye gets her speech translated
Fred in the Hartismere car park
The Hart of Hartismere outside the school
The band descends on the few remaining canapés
There's a post-signing schmooze in the library
The canapes have all been scoffed
Mingling guests with some sort of fizz-in-a-glass
A bottle is waved around
The library is fairly full
Meanwhile, Fred roams around
We head off looking for the bogs
Fred points at a bunch of lockers
Autumn leaves outside the Lines Hall at Hartismere