Last night, Rachel played a gig at St Canna's Ale House on Llandaff Road, co-incidentally a hundred yards away from the Apothecary Tea Room where she did a gig in July last year. Clare did all the organising and emailed friends and associates to let them know. Rachel borrowed the three guitars she needed (each with a different tuning) from friends, and installed herself in a corner of the bar room to play. It wasn't the best location, as it was adjacent to the way out to the toilets, but she's so used to working in awkward environments that it didn't seem to bother her.
There were around twenty people there, including people from church, friends and colleagues of Clare. It wasn't one of my better days, so my only contribution was to video the first hour of the gig on my Sony HX300, from nine until ten. I didn't have the energy to stay for the second half, and went home early. St Canna's Ale House is a warm friendly place, dedicated to good beer and conversation, so not surprisingly there was too high a level of audience chatter in the background for the recording to be of much use for distribution, but I figured it would give Rachel an opportunity to monitor her performance critically.
I rose early to work on the videos, to be able to upload them to YouTube before we left for my cousin's Lindsay's wedding in Ascot. The job took just a couple of hours, as I didn't bother editing the raw footage, since it wasn't for public consumption. Since I edited footage of her last Cardiff gig, I've done videos of two choir and one eurythmy performance, so I've not forgotten how to use Windows Movie Maker. It's a slow business with an average speed internet connection and a not particularly powerful computer, but I've trained myself to start processes and then get on with other tasks in the meanwhile, like making and eating breakfast and packing bags.
We succeeded in leaving at our planned departure time. The trip up the M4 as far as Reading was plagued by wind and rain, but we drove into better weather. It was a race day at Ascot and Google's itinerary re-routed us on a circular route through leafy suburbia along roads line with exclusive and very expensive houses. Our destination was the Royal Berkshire Hotel, once a huge Churchill family mansion, now an even bigger country hotel with golf course and tennis courts. The wedding reception was going to be held there so Clare thought it would be a good idea to stop there overnight. It was an expensive B&B for the night, but an enjoyable experience, well worth the indulgence, as several of my cousins and members of the bride's family also stopped overnight, and a special breakfast room was reserved for wedding guests.
We had an hour and a half in our room to rest and dress up before taking a taxi to the Parish Church of All Saints Ascot Heath, just past the racecourse, in the London Road. It's a beautiful ornate gothic revival building dating from 1864, with frescos and mosaics, where Lindsay attends church. His bride Lynne lived in Bromley, but she was happy for the service to take place in the area to which she'd be making a new life. Her parish priest gave the homily, while his performed the ceremony. There was a small robed choir leading the singing, and a soloist sang Mozart's 'Panis Angelicus'. It was moving to hear then plighting their troth for the first time, he 70 and she 65 and recently retired from teaching. Lynne was born and raised in Natal, South Africa, and is one of triplets, a brother and a sister who is an Anglican priest, living and working here for over 25 years.. What a lovely occasion it was!
We set off for the reception after the post-wedding photographs, just as racegoers were leaving at the end of their day. It was slightly surreal at tea-time to see women in party clothes staggering in high heels down the London Road while others were staggering drunk with excess of Pimms or Champers. It's a strange foreign world to me. The Royal Berkshire hotel, in contrast, was sedate and quiet. The reception and banquet were delightful, accompanied by a life string quarter, who played for the best part of the four hours it all lasted. So many interesting conversations with family members and guests with whom we shared a table. A day to remember with much pleasure, and a capacious comfortable bed in which to bring it to a close.
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