In English it's Brill

Friday 5th December 2008

10:00 a.m. Nothing major to report from Monday, despite it being busy, it was one of those evenings where people seemed mainly interested in just sitting and chatting and having a drink, and probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if the piano was playing itself, or if there was a CD on, or even if there were a troupe of morris-dancers in the corner, but even so, it was a good night all the same, mainly because I didn’t have to concentrate as much, I could relax a bit and play more or less what came to mind and not have to stick rigorously to any play-list. As such I played mostly instrumentals.

Tuesday was my last night, and certainly made up for the night before. It got off to a good start when I arrived, there was a couple there who said they were looking forward to hearing me play as they had already heard me a few nights previously. I must have met their expectations fairly well as they stayed throughout the evening and didn’t leave until after I had finished. Towards the end of my second set, Maria from the band (Full Extra) came and sang Autumn Leaves and Killing Me Softly with me, both of which went down very well.



During the day on Tuesday I went down to Brielle along with Maria and another of the band members, Teddy. Quite an interesting place, it is a fortified island set in a thirteen-sided moat, with a large church near the centre (which is visible from the ship and has featured in the distance of some of my panoramic photos from there). We were hoping to go into the church as it is possible to climb the three-hundred-odd steps of the tower and look out, but there was some building work going on so it was closed. It was also the home of an underground supermarket called Jumbo, which I found quite interesting. All that was visible when we arrived was a car-park, with a glass booth in one corner containing a lift that went down to provide access, which I found rather curious! We wandered around a bit, then stopped for coffee at a deserted bar. The whole town seemed deserted actually, apart from a few children on bicycles. I suppose the temperature would partly account for that though. Despite the cold it was nice and sunny though.


[More pictures on my web-space, as usual.]

There is a possibility that I will be returning to the Pride of Hull towards the end of next month, when the ship comes out of dry-dock (coincidentally the same as when I was first on there at the beginning of last year). It’s not definite yet though.