A LOVELY DAY

We were all meeting in Farnham, Surrey to attend a Band Concert given by the RASC/RCT Musicians Association Band, comprising ex-Army Members of the Corps bands of these fine army regiments, of which Steve is a member. His Regiment was the Royal Corps of Transport and you will all know that he was a percussionist, playing all types of percussion instruments. The RCT has been re-named the Royal Logistics Corps.
William picked me up in his car from K/S at 10 am and we headed for Farnham, via a route to avoid. (as we thought) any very busy bottlenecks like Motorway holdups. Our first bottleneck was only a few miles away, The Country Fair in Chipping Norton. If you remember after the St Giles' fair in Oxford small fairs travel out into the country like Haddenham, Princes Risborough, Abingdon. etc but we didn't count on Chippy. So, unable to negotiate through the town, we retraced our steps and drove towards Woodstock, to connect with the A34 from Oxford to Newbury.
We were supposed to meet Gem and Clive in the Chievely MSA at the M4 and A34 junction, but Will could not get a mobile phone connection, so we continued through Newbury on the A339 and before long we met bottleneck 2 as there was a major road accident with ambulances, police, helicopter,etc which there was no way of passing, so we re-routed through Basingstoke, then along the A 30 and so to Farnham. We eventually reached our goal, which was in The Maltings hall; parked the car and searched for the nearest pub where we met Gem and Clive. As luck would have it we also met Fay and husband Pete and we all went into the Hall and found 6 very good seats in the centre of the hall and only five rows back. The concert started with a drum corps of the local Royal British Legion, all uniformed in splendid gear with Royal Marine type white helmets, giving us a foretaste of what was to come from the Association Band. After they had marched from the Hall, the concert began with a selection of popular and military numbers, including Suppe's Light cavalry, exerpts from Dvorak's American Symphony, called 'Coming Home'. beautifully sung by the daughter of one of the bandsmen. Many more musical numbers, including a bit of fooling about by two expert trombonists, playing 'The Acrobat' which raised the roof; One of the big numbers which included a variety of percussive sounds from Steve, was Pirates of the Caribbian, which was well appreciated. Some of the musicians had traveled great distances. One from Scotland and another from Germany. They were a happy crowd of friends who kept their friendships from previous occasions and from regular rehearsals and concerts like this one. Of course we were all treated to Land of Hope and Glory, admirably sung by the soprano lady. The concert was greatly enjoyed by us and by all the audience in the Hall.
By now we were ready for something to eat and after finding car parking spaces on a busy Saturday evening we met in the town at a Pizza Hut and we were able to satisfy our needs for us to eat and drink at the restaurant. Time for us all to leave and after a fast run from Farnham to K/s I was able to turn in having had a very enjoyable day, thanks to Will for driving me to Farnham and Steve for returning me safely home