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

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

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