Gig # 1

Retro Bar, Sackvill Street, Manchester. Voodoo club night. Went on stage 12am, despite being there FOR EVER. Played a lot of songs. Intro was The Sweeney theme tune. Started off great, fell apart a bit, very good at the end. Incredibly hot and sweaty. Lots of people. Clapping. Broken string. Bit of guitar fell off. Amp appears to be on its last legs.
I enjoyed it. Sold a cd! To someone we didn't know!!
Got to gig in a borrowed van with no front seat - it was a dining room chair bolted to the floor and there were a load of fireworks in the back. First and reverse gear were..erm...reversed (first was reverse and reverse was first.)
I wore a black shirt and a school tie and lots of black eye shadow a la Gaye Advert. Got paid 24 bottles of Becks and £60 (between us, not each).
Drank cider through a straw due to teeth (although almost better now.)
Got in at 4.30am. VERY VERY tired now, hence lack of grammar.

DENTIST HORROR - NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

Not last Sunday night but the Sunday before, I got an abcess under my wisdom tooth. I spent a week of sleepless agony while waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. If you haven't HAD an abcess under your tooth, you can't imagine how HORRIBLE it is.
Anyway, I made an appointment at the dentists for today to have the tooth out (I have been putting it off for 18 months, so the abcess is my own fault anyway.)
Sooooooo I go to the dentist today. Now, I am TERRIFIED of dentists. Absolutley TERRIFIED.
So there I am, shaking and near to tears, and I get called in. She does the injection thing (which I don't mind so much), and then I wait for 5 horrible minutes and go back in. And off we go. 20 minutes (yes, TWENTY) later she can't get it out. I have been yanked and squahed, heard crunching and cracking, and it won't come out. She decides to xray it, and "while we are waiting" for the results of the xray, she does some other work that needed doing: 3 fillings, ANOTHER extraction and a scale and bloody polish!!
By this time, I have lost all fear of dentists and their dental practices - fillings? ha, they are nothing. Scale and polish? a walk in the park. Bear in mind I have been in this chair for an HOUR so far....
The xrays come back, and the tooth that wont come out is "tricky". Mmmmm, yes, I agree, smiling my bloody smile, looking like an extra from Zombie Flesh Eaters, with gore trickling down my face. Another dentist arrives to help with the "trickiness". Dentist number one sits on me, while dentist number two hangs onto her. She shows me one of the things she is going to use. It is a small chisel. A proper chisel, out of a toolkit. I grin again - this is nothing to someone of my calm demeanour and non-fear of dentistry.
Wrench, CRACK, chisel, CRUNCH CRACK CRUNCH, a HORRIBLE pulling sensation which lasts for...oh, another 25 minutes or so.... (yes, TWENTY FIVE).... and FINALLY nothing.
"Won't it come out?" I ask, and she is holding it up in her plier things. I feel cheated. No gut-wrenching final agonising yank, no collosal CRAAACK - it's just OUT.
But this isn't the end of it!!! Its an exciting tooth!
Turns out it has 4 roots and was stuck behind the tooth next to it AND embedded in bone which is why it didn't want to come out. The second dentist jostled me in his excitement at such a unique find. Its going to some dental place to be looked at as its very unusual apparently.
Anyway, here I am , back home, blood filling my mouth, anticipation of impending agony, and I am SOOO proud of myself its untrue.
I am not frightened anymore. Everything that could go wrong or was unexpected HAPPENED to me today in my 2 hour ordeal. It hurt then and it hurts now and it will get worse I expect, but I WENT and I didn't cry or anything and I feel so relieved its unbelievable.
If any of you are scared of the dentist, don't be. It's easy to say, I know, but I was PETRIFIED, went through HELL and now its nothing to me. A filling is a nasty noise and a bit of wincing. A scale and polish is a bit of vibration and horrible mouthwash. The tooth that WASN'T "tricky" was out in seconds (literally - it was pliers in, one yank and its gone!) and it is weird rather than painful. The pain comes AFTER, but by this time you aren't in the dentists anymore so it doesn't count.
So, I am dripping blood, sore jawed and in lot of pain but I lost my fear of dentists, and toothache will never get the better of me again.

I'm With The Band

Actually I am IN the band. After a near two year gap (sacked old drummer and couldn't find a NEW one), we went back to the drummer before last and are now up and running again. We have been rehearsing and we have a few gigs coming up, which is exciting, and we are sounding very good if I do say so myself. The sound is a kind of 70s punk/rock and roll (Stones type rock and roll) kind of style and we do all original stuff except when we go down very well and have to do encores (which happens you know!).
Today we rehearsed in the smallest room on earth, which was a little better than last week's hottest room on earth, and I have blisters on two fingers which is very rock and roll....and very painful.
And now I am at home waiting for Heartbeat to start and knitting a tank top from a pattern in a 1965 issue of Woman and Home. I am a living paradox! Or do I mean quixotic? Or maybe I mean just plain weird...

That was the week that was

I was off work last week. I didn't do very much except potter about, which is proably my favourite thing in the whole world to do. Bit of shopping, bit of gardening, bit of knitting, bit of reading, bit of going out for dinner or tea, bit of doing nothing but more importantly having nothing I HAVE to do.
Now I am back at work and reality is kicking in. I have to get my heating fixed. I have to get my fire fixed. The other car needs £400+ worth of work doing (its failed its MOT for the first time in its history with us, which is not bad considering its a J reg Seat Ibiza which has been doubling up as a gear transporter for two bands) . I have a rather large credit card bill to whittle down, and basically I am not very rich.
Oh well, I am sure it will all sort itself out. S'only money in the end.
Peace!