Monday July 12th
Parked up, I am, on the side of the road so they can go to London again! Apparently this is why they came over here this time, to go and hear Mo play with his brass quintet at the church. So they drove me to a quiet private road just off the base and near the house they had been staying in and set off to catch the train to London. Patariki has jumped into the bag so he will have to be today’s reporter. Hopefully I will be safe with my steering lock bar on.
Patariki’s Day out in London
These oyster cards burn through the money fast, so it was straight off to the top up machine before getting on the train. Summer is over, it lasted about a week. It is still warm but trying to rain today; rain jackets and umbrella weather. They decided to get off at Piccadilly Circus although Mary was a bit confused as she wanted to go to Weatherspoons to get the free WiFi. So a short walk was needed to Leicester Square but it is always an interesting one. There she found a nice leather couch and settled down to update her blog and check the emails.
They set out towards St Clement Danes on the Strand (oranges and lemons) in plenty of time to set up the video camera for the concert. They got a seat near the front with an unobscured view. By 1.10 the church had filled with people, which was a nice surprise for the boys, as these free lunch time concerts are hit and miss. A class of children arrived with two teachers as well and although they had quite a long wait they were exceptionally well behaved.
The programme was ambitious and diverse. And it was loud! They stared by placing themselves in five different places across the front to play Music from L’Orfeo by Monteverdi. The effect was amazing and I could see Mo waving his trombone around trying to be a conductor as well as a player.
They then came and sat in their seats and played Henry Purcell’s Sonata for Two Trumpets. The others were allowed to play as well. They have a French horn, tuba, trombone and two trumpets. Now the next one was a really big blow and you usually hear this one on the organ. I knew this tune; everyone has heard this tune somewhere, because Paul who plays French Horn said so. It was Passacaille Toccata and Fugue by Bach. It was loud and fast and high and low and very exciting. Mo’s friend Michael who is also from NZ got up and did lots of talking. I reckon he was giving the boys a chance to recover after such a big blow. He did explain though that they were going to play a piece that had been especially written for them in a jazz style called Humouresque by Simon Whiteside. Mo had pinched another plunger from somewhere, and used it to play a wow wow jazz solo on his trombone. ( Every plunger ever bought to unblock drains ended up in his trombone case when he lived back in NZ, but this one is beautiful red and shiny so probably came from the music store not Mitre 10 Mega)
Mo in his spare time had put together an arrangement of famous air force tunes for the quintet to play. If you listened carefully, snatches of all the great tunes associated with the air force are there including the Dam Busters, 633 Squadron , RAF March Past and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. I liked the bit when Mo turned his trombone into plane and it sounded like a spitfire was flying inside the church. Apparently some older gentleman didn’t like the Readers Digest version of the great RAF tunes and muttered the Ron Goodwin would be turning over his grave right now listening to this. Mo’s mum and dad who got mentioned in dispatches as having travelled the furthest to the concert today, thought it was pretty good.
And then it was nearly over, but Michael suddenly leapt up and played a screamer of a solo; Amazing Grace. It was a great way to end the concert and the audience would have loved more, but the guys were looking hot and exhausted. Everyone was invited for tea and coffee in the crypt and then it was off to the NZ pub called The Down Under where they sell Speights and Steinlager. The guys call Mo, Hamo, so that is how he became Mo. Hamish, Hamo, Mo.
Mary and Alan didn’t have time to sit in NZ pub for the afternoon and got back on the tube to check out the largest shopping centre in Europe at Shepherds Bush. It is huge and has large spacious areas for sitting in very comfortable furniture, so it is very man friendly. Here they bought some up to date road maps of Britain and Europe. The Tom Tom is fine but it is useful to be able to actually plan where you are going.
There are two interesting shops there called All Saints; one for men’s clothing, one for women’s. Stacked up floor to ceiling in all the windows are dozens of old sewing machines, mainly singers. They look amazing. Inside they have fittings from old sewing factories and it is done out to look like a warehouse/sewing factory. Endless shops selling clothes and shoes and handbags, mostly on sale, and people seemed to be spending but not these people.
So after a quick bite to eat at one of the many eating places along the boulevard, it was back on the train to Ruislip Gardens and off to pick up Hemi and drive him back on the base because tonight they are sleeping in Mo’s room again.
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