June 1st:
The Three played an outdoor gig at the Northumberland Arms in Marple Bridge near Stockport. It was a bit of an occasion for two reasons: The route to the venue made me drive past my late wife's house, the places where we held our wedding reception, the mill where she worked and a number of pubs we used to meet in, plus several other places that hold a great many fond memories. The weather was wet and windy (enough to blow the large pagoda we were playing under before we arrived into the road, leading to some frantic anchoring down), then we got blazing sunshine. It couldn't make its mind up. When we had finished packing up and were about to leave, a chap came up to me, who said he liked what we did, but weren't we a bit loud? How do you respond to that? Graham got through the gig, but was struggling. He's having some aggressive treatment at the moment. There was also a percentage chance at this point that this could have been the last gig by The Three, dependent on how our search for a guitar player goes.

The scaffolding has now been on my drive for a month and I have let the contractor know that I want it gone in the next few days and that they have no right of access to our property at all from now on for any other work being done. I have also let the brewery know this.

No reaction from anyone yet to my departure from the Whatsapp chat group related to the exhumation of 70's band Shabby Tiger. I'm not very surprised. Seeing as nobody is able to talk about actually doing anything and the chat group has become a platform for the new singer's erratic rants and swipes at other, senior members and some devious plans which make me uncomfortable, I have decided to exit. I can't be doing with people who have to resort to subterfuge and trickery. A bit of a waste of my time....

June 2nd:
Our jam night saw us audition four guitarists in a row, one of whom seems to be the right one for us. We have offered him the job and he's accepted. Phew. We now need to knock a set together to be able to play in July.

Funnily enough, our former guitarist got in touch asking me for his delayed payment from a gig that I've just been paid for, so I sent that on to him. Before he left the band, we had arranged that he would get two friends to cover the jam night, while I was supposed to be away at the end of this month. I think he lost any rights to expect to take part in running our jam night ever again when he left the band and didn't even respond to us when we asked if he would help us out until we got a replacement guitarist in, leading us to cancel a hell of a lot of our work in May and June. Perhaps I should have invoiced him for our lost earnings. Talk about being hard-faced, asking if he was still running the jam..... Or just plain not understanding what leaving a band actually means.

Graham found the opening 'Hope all is well' in the message he sent rather amusing. I now have a band to get together in time for July, so I now won't be taking ANY time off. I also will not be giving my jam night over to him at any point in the future. Ever. I contacted the two guys who were supposed to be helping him out with the jam. They'd understood that they wouldn't be doing it, even if the ex-guitarist hadn't.

June 3rd:
I met my friend Mike for lunch and on the way I took a detour and fortunately found a reasonable solution to the problem of my dead studio mixing desk which is currently residing in our waste bin, waiting to be taken away. I returned home to find that I have been bribed with wine and beer to apologise regarding the scaffolding on our drive.

June 4th:
It looks like the scaffolding will be leaving our drive on Monday. I live in hope.

June 5th:
I went to the dentists at 2.35 and we held a very productive band meeting at 8pm.

June 6th:
My step-sister Joanne's funeral today. I'd never been that close to my step-family over the years, even though they are nice enough people, there always seemed to be some sort of awkwardness as I wasn't 'one of them', but instead the 'other' son... and on top of that, my Dad had left my Mum for their Mum. I never pushed it, as I had lived long enough without them.My fault as much as anyone else's. Joanne and her husband Jim lived across the road from me at one point and we got on well enough. Our daughters have remained good friends since childhood. When my Dad passed away, Joanne was there with my Dad's second wife and myself at the end. After that, we drifted apart. They didn't feel the need to keep in touch and I certainly wasn't going to force anything. I was back among them today and a couple of ladies - presumably my two step brothers wives - enquired (in effect) to see if I was Ian, the stepbrother. Yup. One brother came up and spoke to me, one didn't. A hard day for them and I really felt for them all. Fortunately, I had Rachel and Lyra to be with. Rachel took our granddaughter home after the service had finished and we'd hung around for half an hour afterwards, so I passed on going to the wake. Maybe I should still have gone, but I felt rather awkward and a bit like an intruder.

 

June 9th:
Last night's jam night was good fun. Our new guitarist, Paul, played a good number of songs with us and they all went quite well. This looking promising. We are rehearsing on Thursday evening. We've had to cancel a couple of things because of pre-booked holidays, but the sense of relief is overwhelming.

In other news, the scaffolding next door has FINALLY come down, to my complete and utter joy. There's a load of crap on our car port, which will need getting off. I swept up the devastation that they left on our drive. The scaffolders stupidly left their long ladders lying in the road for absolutely ages and while I was sweeping all of the remaining debris and bits off my drive, some random bloke passing in his car gave me an angry and rather loud mouthful about it. 'Nothing to do with me mate,' I said, then returned to my sweeping up. I can now get my car back on my drive again. It's the small things in life that give me the most pleasure. A cardiac nurse came and checked Lynda over. We weren't expecting her. It didn't interfere with our day at all and was very positive and productive.

I did a trip to the tip in Bolton and then to Tesco for some shopping and after a very brief stop at home to drop the swag off, I was at the local dentists prompt for my appointment at 4pm and home by 4.30pm, slightly brutalised, but there you go. She was pleased with my brushing.

June 12th:
A band rehearsal pleasingly saw us get through about two sets worth of songs, played to what I hope was a surprisingly good standard. Here's a bit of footage.

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June 14th:
Lynda wasn't feeling well enough to go out for a curry this evening. Her throat's a bit swollen, so we will see what we are like on Tuesday. We watched Diane Morgan's episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' and it was nice to see some of our mutual hometown, Farnworth, during the programme. She seems really nice. I haven't watched any of her own shows, but will probably give them a go.

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June 15th:
After our rehearsal on Thursday, we were all feeling pretty good about things, band-wise. Paul and his good lady turned up at the jam night and the band got up and did about half a dozen songs, including a version of Highway Star by Deep Purple, which I had written out a few days before and sweated over ever since. We got that just about right. Everyone's saying that our new guitarist is a really good fit for us. I'm so relieved. It was nice that my wife pulled herself up to her full height and had a rare night out and came along with me. It's a long evening, away from the dogs, as I get there to set up at 5.45 and we got home after 11pm. She did really well. Bed at about 2am.

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June 16th:
Up at about 8.30am. So... I have had an EP by a Rochdale band on Ebay for a while and some chap in France was desperate to get it. Since I had some issues with lost stolen or strayed items going abroad, I have stopped selling things abroad. But this guy was quite insistent. I ended up re-listing the thing a few times as he couldn't pay for it. I got customer services at Ebay invloved a couple of times and they finally suggested he buy it through ebay.fr and that worked. Result.