Rock Soldiers (on the Highway to Hell)

My name is .........     and I'm a blogaholic and it's been waaaaaay too long since my last blog, fathers I beg of you to please forgive me for my sins!

This particular blog has been fermenting for a little while, but I didn't have tons to write about, so I thought I would hang on until I had something worth writing about, well I do now so I think I better get my skates on and see what the hell has gone on these last few days ....well since the last blog anyway!

The title is a mash up and also an experiment, simply because I have no idea why a certain blog went to the moon and back, this is my attempt to see if it was just the title that got picked up and it went on its journey because of that! it has had lots of titles (that's usually my starting point) since I started collating notes it was at various points called AFT ( a fucking tenner), WTF (as if you don't know what that  means), Norman Bates, Here comes the flood, Not Responsible, The Fallen, Drastic Measures and last but not least Siberian Khatru. Hopefully I will explain each of them as we go (I do have a tendency to wander so bear with me).

Work was work and as always I just cracked on, I took a lieu day for my birthday, but the day drifted away from us somehow, stuff that was intend to happen didn't, the wife had a hospital appointment and that chewed most of the afternoon up, nothing life or death , well ok the parking or even getting into the bloody car park as always was a nightmare, task complete, we then had to get through rush hour traffic through Durham, it wasn't conducive to a relaxing day, we had plans and thankfully we were nearly on time to reach our destination, just a slight detour by the police and very nearly a Dukes Of Hazard style jump across the Tyne was averted at the last second!

Our partners in crime met us on the door steps with happy smiles and birthday wishes, I was soon ensconced with a cheeky little fellow in hand (oooh I even had one before I left home) we jumped in the time machine and headed to the office to see the wonderful Charlotte Yanni for the launch of her new EP, as we arrived we saw the ever affable Mr Charlton heading across the road, not in a happy mood, I was shocked stunned and worried in all the time I have known him he has always been a happy go lucky kind of chap with a great outlook on life ( I wish I had 5% of his happiness) but his (puppy) Bali was locked In Charlotte's van so "drastic measures" were required. Mr Charlton headed off to see if there was a spare set of keys, but when he arrived back G headed out to see if he could lend a hand in the event of a burglary being needed to affect entry for the poor pooch!

A break in was required to rescue the keys from the van, but little Bali just looked at everybody as though ...."could you please keep the noise down I'm trying to get to peeps here!" crisis averted it was gig time and Mr Charlton could chill, upon entry we all got a teeny little bottle of Jagermiester (safely stored in our fridge in the event of an emergency) The gig was great and it was fantastic to see many friendly faces, mind you I thought the venue shouldn't have had to be asked by the performing artist to turn the TV's off even when there is no sound on them. The boys stuck with the boys and the ladies (I know I will get twatted for that) stuck with the ladies just as well with the amount of panic every time E said something slightly unfortunate, as if I would put anything like that in a blog hahaha...me with my reputation? the night ended with much hilarity about my wife's red spotted fan (don't ask) and her vibrating boobies (oo-er missus) the only bad thing (apart from it having to end) was the beer was decidedly crap , I wouldn't say it’s the best  pint in Shields but it was never that bad, oh well not everything can be perfect but the night was just about as near as it can get, a great (quiet) birthday and the last one I intend to celebrate (if I get my way and not in a unhappy kind of way, I hope to be on this planet for a while longer).

Because we were going away for the weekend I needed to call into work (me full of drink as well, tee hee) to collect my Tablet device for trying to keep connected to the outside world (grrr more of  that later) while away from home, I thought I would cause a minor uproar as I got to work, as people thought I was there to catch people out, but as I got into the building I could an obnoxious person abusing staff, I don't think he was expecting abuse from behind him and I roared as loud as I could both barrels (in my best drill Sergeant type of voice)and then reloaded and went for the knees, informing him he didn't have the right documents to be on site or the right to abuse my staff and he could get the fuck off my site! He went away in the direction he was told to fuck off in and I felt deflated as it had rained on my parade, I hate having to be bolshie, but it appears when needs must I can do it. We headed home and were soon in bed not as soon as expected, tomorrow was going to be a mad dash!

The next morning came and the wife awoke with the S.A.R.S virus and a strange version of George Takai's voice, it wasn't sexy in the slightest, I was a tad concerned about the spread of the disease so I got the wife a lovely builders face mask, we were heading off to that sunny part of the country Wales (sorry sarcasm button stuck in) I didn't want to get any sheep infected! I wasn't feeling fantastic I was putting it down to the decidedly average beer from the previous evening but the longer it went on I knew my blood pressure was sky high for some reason. But I cracked on with tasks in hand, making sandwiches and hovering the place and all the other bits and pieces that needed some care and attention. Just before 11.00 Lady J and Ignatius were on the phone to say that they were nearly there, the wife in her excitement to show off her mask (!!!!!!) rushed to unlock the front door and then destroyed and flooded our front porch by knocking over the de humidifier and sending a flood of biblical proportions (Here comes the flood) to which stopped all departure activities, until we had watched the waters recede into paper towels and the such like, upon the devastation being cleared up we then played Tetris getting stuff into our mode of transport, once settled we climbed aboard and as we pulled away someone said "and so it begins"....ooops!

I was soon blinking all the way through Durham and as we passed Catterick, I awoke bleary eyed (it doesn't take much for me to snooze) I stayed awake and partook in some adult conversation, well we gossiped and had a laugh does that count? we decided to make a pit stop just outside Manchester and it was the same one we used, as we took the youngest to her audition earlier, and I know I griped about people playing on bandits at five in the morning I swear to god one of those peeps was there filling the slot machine and between goes, heading off to the cash point (WTF!) we retired to eat our sandwich's and watched all the freaks out in the car park. including the female Warrick Davis who could not see over the steering wheel, we are sure she hit a couple of cars on the way in (WTF!). Once fed and watered we continued on our way and soon the red spotty fan was out in public (again) being wafted! We crossed the border into Wales, how did I know this? Well it started to rain and it has rained every time I have been to Wales, so yes we were in Wales!

Roundabouts and sheep as well as rainwater seem to be the natural resources of Wales, as they have them in abundance, fecking millions of roundabouts, but we made good time and we had a good swear at the sat nav from time to time, truth be told we only got lost navigating from the gatehouse of the place where the festival was taking part and the car park a distance of about....oh I don't know.....maybe's twenty yards! Go figure hahaha at least it only took us a little over four and a half hours, some people went by train (WTF). passes retrieved (and at least one person well and truly fucked off …yippee) we headed off to find our little piece of paradise, one thing we all noticed entering Wales was the lack of coverage and it was even worse on the camp site (grrrr) we unpacked and soon realised that the electric heaters didn't work and that we were in fact going to be sleeping in an ice box (Siberian Khatru) we soon had the gas fire going full tilt, and we were all struggling with the coverage for wi fi and telephone (grrr) we did receive a nice surprise when we got a call from SMOR saying that he was on site working for a band (Black Star Riders) and an nicer surprise when he showed up at the ice box, he didn't stay long as he was (cough splutter) working so we headed up the road to see the first act of the weekend (for us anyway) Bernie Torme and let’s be honest he was, ok let’s not beat about the bush ....shite! he isn't a singer and the songs were pretty poor, mind you he was still better than Uli Jon Roth who we could hear his hippy drippy crap and we could see people streaming out of the venue (Yawnsville) mind you I was getting an eyeful of the crowd that was here and damn it looked like all the extras from the Bad News episode of The Comic Strip Presents! I was looking like an Adonis in amongst all of these freaks oh dear oh dear oh dear.

As Mr Torme was wailing away I had a look around and found a second hand music stall which had some good stuff at reasonable prices (but being fiscally challenged I had to be careful this weekend so I did the right thing and behaved) but the vinyl was in shocking condition for the money being asked and I did have a small "conversation" about his Queen collection which was "FAKE" it was at this point I realised without intention, that I had decided to be the responsible adult (Not Responsible) for the weekend, I wasn't feeling great, nothing serious just a little rough around the edges and my blood pressure wasn't helping so I was a good boy for a change, it was nice to see the wife have a little fun, I was actually hoping it would do her more good than me. We headed to the bar close to our caravan and met up with SMOR and his work mates with one or two members of the band in tow (no names no pack drill I’m not a name dropper) we had a few beers and conned SMOR into buying some Pizza’s (Mexicans – phew a tad hot for my liking…..and yes I still had some I said they were hot, not that I didn’t like them) we borrowed (ahem) a bottle of sauce on the way out of the bar, as we had had limited storage for supplies and of course we were looking forward to our bacon sarnies in the morning, Breakfast being priced at £8 (WTF) me and the wife decided ………no!

We left just before midnight and with the help of the wife’s latest boy toy (I’m sure I got that the right way around)we got some hot lemon which we supercharged with a bit of southern comfort once we were back in the ice box, Me and Ignatius were looking for furniture to burn, yes it was that cold. The day coming to a close we climbed into our pits and drifted off to sleep, all the while the last of the bands were doing their level best at going out with one last bang!

I was the last one up and soon caused consternation as I said I had been listening through the walls(I hadn’t I just needed my beauty sleep) to everybody talking (Norman Bates) as obviously Lady J had been saying some right humdingers, that look of panic is quite good, shame I was asleep and I’m pretty much deaf anyway hahaha…..oops did I let that slip, Ignatius that ignorant Geordie Bastard served breakfast, not before cracking peoples back (yet another fine service offered by this ignorant Geordie Bastard) who required and we had a great discussion about days of old (a fucking tenner) and the wife did a dirty trick as she left the TV on (and she was the only person watching shite) and went in the shower only after hiding the remote, it was enough to drive Lady J to drink thankfully we found it before too much damage was inflicted!

Being stuck in a caravan offers its own challenges to many things that we normally take for granted I wasn’t fond of the bathroom facilities when I found  the angle that I had to sit in the bathroom, it all felt……..different! My blood pressure was up and my knees were giving me some problems, luckily I came prepared and borrowed the wife’s stick, we headed up the hill to see the first band of the day the Tygers of Pan Tang, we went with derision in our hearts but were pleasantly surprised by the band being rather good and choosing what I thought was a cracking set (WTF do I know) after their set we wandered about having a look at stuff and it was so bloody cold, when it got too bad we dived into venue two, but it seemed like everybody was just playing Sabbath covers or what sounded like slowed down Sabbath type music some of which was actually OK, but the there was a distinctive lack of vocalists, but an abundance of freaks, it was potentially going to be a long weekend! Again we bumped into SMOR and arranged to meet before his band came on, we were both starting to gripe about the lack of phone coverage (and we were damned if we were going to pay £10 for the weekend for wi fi coverage WTF) We headed back to find that Lady J had succumbed to some disease and was being looked after by her man servant, we headed back out onto the site and the wife was decidedly more sprightly than me, the stick was helping but not by much, we caught the last of Logan who I had read some great reviews about, but I didn’t have a clue why there has been some money spent on this particular five piece, style yes but how about some songs, yes songs would have been nice, five nice looking blokes playing some offensive clap trap…..next!

We needed sustenance by the this time so we had had a sneaky burger king, We left Iggy looking after the wounded (The Fallen) not before we fed ourselves hot dogs and onions (yum yum) and headed up to see Black Star Riders, we caught the end of Phil Campbell’s all Stars (that’s his fucking kids, I hope they all informed the dole) which were average, which if I’m brutally honest was better than 80% of what we had seen up to date. We settled into our places and enjoyed the band, afterwards the wife needed a Starbucks and we found that we couldn’t use their wi fi either (grrr), not wanting to watch the headliners Skindred (cough splutter WTF) we headed back to the public house only to have it spoiled by a bunch of scousers (no reflection on scousers but that’s what they were) who had a chap with them who was either retarded or had had a stroke and they were feeding him beer for fun (it wasn’t) and the staff decided to close the bar rather wait for the bomb to go off we headed to our super warm …..sorry sarcasm button still stuck! And were soon in bed only for SMOR to ring saying he had brought all the band down for a pint before they headed off to their next destination, we explained about the pub and we wished him bon voyage it would have been good to finish with a pint or two with the cheeky chappy, but it wasn’t to be…..there’s always Newcastle this weekend ooops!

Saturday morning was just as cold, I also had another problem I had tonsillitis and was suffering, thankfully Lady J who was no better herself, advised a remedy that was supposed to be like angels floating on my tongue actually it was angels in hob nailed boots kicking shit out of my tonsils, but it worked (woo hoo) while we waited for the accumulative amount of drugs to kick in (my blood pressure was still banging away) we sat and watched huge zombie seagulls, huge in size with big bright yellow eyes, freakish was the word of the hour! We set sail to catch the first band of the day which was The Treatment who were brilliant, not very original (who is these days) and one of  the cast of the Hobbit was playing bass for them (very small person) but still brilliant until the bass player threw a bottle of water into the crowd and I couldn’t duck, the little shit if I could have got a hold of him he would have been school for a fortnight, the set concluded we headed outside for some fresh air and wandered around the site again, we came back into see the Pat McManus Band who were great, not what I expected but Pat was the happiest person on camp and out of everyone we saw at the weekend (for me anyway) the best surprise a great set, we then headed back to see our friends who were a little better but not by much and I whipped up some chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce with rice and I didn’t poison anyone (I think) food eaten, dishes done we headed back up the hill to see Snake charmer comprised of musicians from various bands (Whitesnake, Thunder, Magnum, Wishbone Ash, Sheena Easton……WTF)  and again I enjoyed them without much incident, until they started to play some of the old classic Whitesnake stuff then the arseholes appeared, the wife went into kill mode while I kept leaning on his foot with my stick, he wasn’t the worst but in reality he spoilt the set for the people around him, all the while oblivious to the unhappiness he had caused in those last five minutes.

All the bands we had wanted to watch finally watched, we headed back to the pub to be joined by Iggy for a few beers and while he headed up the hill to watch Mike Monroe and Airborne, we headed back to chill in the caravan (we had had the gas blasting all day while somebody was in)finally it was warm (notice I said warm not hot) Lady J went off to bed, while we both read and chilled, Iggy turned back up and before The Answer came on stage we were tucked up in bed!

The last day we got up and did our chores did the dishes, made sandwich’s, made beds and played Tetris again, all the while keeping an eye out for zombie seagulls, we headed out and handed keys in and hit the road, stopping only to swear at the sat nav from the off! At least we didn’t get lost from the car park to the gate house on the way out, The ladies wandered off to do the keys, so me and Iggy sat and chin wagged (I always knew he was an ignorant bastard) but upon their  return we discovered that Lady J loves Iggy as she brought him breakfast in a sandwich and I didn’t even get the sugar dust off the wife’s douffin ( a mixture of doughnut and muffin ….yuk)  speaks volumes I think (sniff). once we hit the road the wife had her phone to act as a sat nav and the silly woman tried to take us back to the campsite (have a word with yourself will you) with the exception of thinking Santa was following us (oh no that would be the beer in the back) the rest of the journey wasn’t that eventful (thankfully) cue more reading, Iggy did take over the reins off the carriage as he thought that it was man’s work (the ignorant Geordie bastard)we were soon home to our house and the land of the roundabouts was soon forgotten, well that was until we spotted some people were still travelling (the beauty of the train service)back from Wales after 11.00 at night …go figure!

Today I have been waiting for the Sky repair man (just as well as I have been at this blog nearly four hours) and still no sign (the bastard, he must be a Geordie) and generally just chilling, late at work tomorrow and then a romp towards the weekend, hopefully my blood pressure will have calmed down although today it’s been like a slow marching band dancing about in my skull) my health is starting to bug me at the moment and I’m aware that I really must stop pontificating and I really have to pull my finger out at some point. Tonight we all intend to curl up and have a nice meal and then to watch the Hobbit (I intend to see if I can see the bass player out of the Treatment). I hope you have enjoyed and it won’t take as long for the next one to arrive, watch the skies incoming and until then ………Toodles!