Bat, Bands and Happiness

So, the other night I took a picture of the oak tree (as you do) and thought no more of it. Then I had a look at the night time batch and added a bit of fill light and thought, Oh what's that...it's a bat!
It is, don't you think so too? (you'll need to click on the bigger picture to see it)
Crap picture but still...a bat!!!!
My camera is so clever :)

Oh, better upload the picture!


We had a band practice tonight...we have a plan to make a CD and we thought maybe we ought to practice stuff we're going to put on it. Yes indeed we ought to practice ...at all!
Still it was a good practice and we had fun (though it started with us all sitting limply around saying "hot...hot..water...yawn...)
We played my tunes and Max's tunes and Jan's tunes and Barney got confused as always when we played my tunes (I change key a lot more than is common in folk music and sometimes have key changes in mid bar...he likes things regular).

This band began a long time ago as a group of beginner folk musicians who played together on tuesday nights. At the same time Barney started up a juggling club. After a year of these separate activities, the juggling club decided to have a jugglers ball and the two sets of beginners twanged together as if they were attached by an invisible rubber band (that's me and Barney I suppose).
The first juggler's ball was a hysterical affair (I will never forget me and Phil, each balanced on one of Barney's legs, playing the dance of the sugar plum fairies on our violins((Tchaikovsky would not have been amused)) and there was also a human pyramid...some of the bricks still reckon their backs have never recovered).
Sensible Shoes (which boasted 3 fiddles, a guitar, a concertina, a melodeon, a flute, a double bass, a penny whistle, and a caller sans compare) took off and never looked back. We were really not very good but by God we had fun!

From the original line up, there's only me Barney and Jan (fiddle, guitar and concertina) left and Max has added keyboards. We're a much more polite and balanced ensemble than in those days and it's all a bit less er...freestyle. But we still love playing. Which is what counts and people still seem to enjoy us. Fran, who calls for us these days, is lovely (though there's something about Geoff, dryly funny, slightly Spike Milligan-esque headmaster who played flute and called with us for ten years, which we miss a lot. Along with the tiny and brilliant Double Bass, Sarah, who for god's sake left to get married and have babies!).

Whatever. It so happens that tonight I am very wise. I know this because I am happy. (I wish I could leave all my typos in...some of them are so funny). I am happy because I played fiddle and it was good and what more do you need (Oh, OK, a glass of wine, good company, music...). I am wise because I know I am happy. Now I am going to look for a happy picture. For tomorrow...
Yeah well, tomorrow can look after itself.

Be wise. Know when you are happy. The more you know it the more it happens. Honest :)

Barney took this picture of happiness. I believe the chocolate sauce was better than the crunchie chocolate things. So who cares :)