The birthday celebrations started well enough. Thursday night was Bill Bailey night and this time we sat towards the front of the stalls. Once again the show was brilliant with more than enough differences to the earlier show to keep us entertained, in fact Mrs H3 and I both agreed that we probably enjoyed the show even more the second time. This time round was the added attraction of Kevin Eldon and their Kraftwerk tribute which I always find funny, and with the show so close to ending its run Bill was obviously in buoyant mood and performed many encores before ending with that still hilarious film.
Friday night was our visit to see Jen and the rest of Rainham Amateur Theatrical Society (RATS) in Mother Goose at the Oasthouse Theatre. I still remember the hilarity of our last visit back in 2005 when I, Andrea and various members of the Sinners spent the evening watching Jen performing as Prince Charming in Cinderella and was looking forward to seeing this final pantomime. Jen was on fine form as Jack, Mother Goose’s stupid son and the rest of the cast did an excellent job, especially Dean Caston who played Mother Goose and Simon King and Andrew Stringer as the evil baron and his gorgeously ludicrous camp son. However, Mother Goose isn’t the funniest or most interesting pantomime ever and it was a little hard to get laughing, although once Andrea started, as ever there was no stopping her.
Unfortunately Mrs H3 didn’t have such a good evening. Unaware that she had never seen an amateur production of anything, let alone a pantomime it didn’t even occur to me for one second that she wouldn’t realise that it wasn’t going to be like the professional ones that we saw in December. In retrospect I should have thought and warned her, but sorry, I didn’t. It soon became quite obvious that she wasn’t really enjoying herself, although to her credit she did try to join in albeit a little less enthusiastically than usual. As for me, I enjoyed it just as much as any of the others I’ve seen, and enjoyed it more than Aladdin, and will be quite happily attending any of Jen’s future pantomime showings in the future.
Now I’d love to have done something exciting for my birthday, but firstly it was on a Sunday (not known for being the most exciting day of the week) and secondly I didn’t get paid until the following Friday and so was pretty much broke. So Saturday night was spent in the Sherwood Oak with my friends, having a meal and drinking copious quantities of wine. Mrs H3 and I took the opportunity to try out some of the weirder features on our cameras (note the fabulous negative effect on her and Lynne) which continued once I got home and opened my presents. As ever Mrs H3 shone on the present front. Not only did I get the sparkliest, shiniest converse trainers ever to walk the planet, but better still another of her handmade masterpieces – this year a rather wonderful doll which looks exactly like her (and yes I can attest that her hair looks exactly like that before all that straightening takes place) – proof positive that she can’t get anywhere near a camera without that cheesy grin appearing!
On Sunday we had been intending to go to Howlett’s as something a bit different (and Mrs H3 had bought some spanking new Cyberman silver wellies specially for the occasion), but of course the weather decided not to be kind and instead it poured with rain all day. After spending most of the morning optimistically hoping for the weather to clear we gave up and went for a nice cooked breakfast at the café followed by a shopping trip at Bluewater and a visit to the cinema to see Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans. I really enjoyed the film, but then I enjoyed the previous two as well and it really is just more of the same. Finally we returned to the Sherwood Oak for dinner and some more wine (quite some more wine). And so my birthday was over, although I did have the Monday off just in case I needed it to recover (I didn’t).
Tuesday of course was the Blue October concert at Underworld and I was incredibly excited by the time we got there. I don’t think Mrs H3 was sharing my enthusiasm for the evening, especially once she found out that the venue was small and below ground, but as ever she tried to get into the spirit of things even when I tried, as usual to get as near to the stage as possible. The place was as hot as hell and heaving, with all 500 tickets sold out before the evening, which I admit surprised me somewhat. Whilst I love the band, I’ve only ever met a couple of other people over here who’d ever heard of them and so I hadn’t really been expecting as large a turnout as there was. Strange really when you think that in the US they play festivals and concerts to 50,000 people. There was some interest in the support act People in Planes and I wondered just how many of the people there were actual fans of Blue October and how many were just there for an evening out.
It became clear immediately when Justin and the guys appeared on stage that almost the whole crowd were there as fans of band. Everyone sang along to the songs; hundreds of hands waved in the air when Justin asked if anyone owned History for Sale and there was as great an enthusiasm for the new songs as for the old. I got the impression that the band was somewhat surprised at their popularity and the reception they received and hopefully they thoroughly enjoyed their evening. I know I, and probably everyone who was there enjoyed it too. Hopefully this will mean a quick return visit as I don’t think I could bear to have to wait another two years to see them again.
By the end of the concert we were, quite predicatably deaf and my throat was raw with my voice croaky, from singing too loudly I assumed at the time. I ached pretty badly too, but put that down to overdoing it at the weekend and it was worth it just for the pleasure of being at such a brilliant concert. Imagine then, my displeasure on waking on Wednesday morning when I found not only were my ears still buzzing, but my voice was almost completely gone, my throat was sore and I had a raging fever.
As I always do when I’m ill I took refuge in sleep – 18/20 hours asleep each day, fighting off the infection. By Friday I felt a little better, enough to actually sit up and watch TV for an hour or so, although then I seemed to relapse with a body temperature down in the hypothermic range and so it was back to bed along with more layers of duvets and blankets and the heating on full. By Saturday morning I had the added extra of dehydration, vomiting and diarroeah; something which didn’t diminish as the day went on and soon I was tucked up in bed for more sleep, although I did manage to listen to the sublime Elbow live in concert with the BBC concert orchestra on Radio 2 while I was there.
By Monday I had to admit that I wasn’t getting any better and I had to visit the doctors. It was of course sods law that it had snowed heavily overnight and there was no way of getting to the doctors but to walk – a journey which was very slow and saw me unsuccessfully trying not to throw up a couple of times en route. Then of course the doctor was late getting in and so by the time I got home again some two odd hours later I was just about ready to die. Sleep of course was the answer and for the rest of the week as well, although food was most definitely off the menu until Wednesday, when I finally managed to keep down a banana.
Now just about fully recovered I’ve finally got round to updating the blog and have just remembered that the UKS cybercrop started this evening too. So I’m off to check out the classes and see which ones I can do.
