Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Quiet – Band At Work

by Russell Turner - 16:30 on 09 September 2018

City Limits is hardly a thrash metal band, so a venue which routes on-stage power through a decibel limiter, which switches everything off if the band is too loud for too long, is a nuisance but shouldn’t cause insurmountable problems.

But the threshold of the limiter at last night’s Nairn wedding reception venue must have been set at barely more than a whisper – which is why we lost power during the first verse of Ed Sheerin’s notably quiet love song, Perfect, the first-dance tune of choice for half the weddings we’ve played this year. Then again. That the power-cut happened even before drums and bass joined in didn’t bode well for the rest of the evening.

The management took the controversial decision to bypass the limiter, but despite playing at half our usual volume we were still asked to turn down twice. Residents of nearby homes were complaining, it seems. Why the venue allows bands at all is a mystery.

Another mystery is Nairn’s, or at least this particular set of wedding guests’, aversion to ceilidh music. After spending time and effort learning the tunes we had very few dancers. Fortunately, Irene the fiddler has played long enough not to take it personally.

And the wedding cake was sponge. And I missed the Strictly launch show (which I recorded). All in all, a disappointing evening, even if the band (still currently a three-piece) was well received.

Earlier in the day I’d completed the latest easy run, covering 4.5 miles in the allotted 50 minutes. My breathing was good and heart rate low; if I could keep it up for another 250 minutes I’d be round the marathon course in a very respectable time. For me, that is. Mo Farah covered 13.1 miles at the Great North Run today in 59 minutes. I obviously don’t eat enough Quorn.

Further athletic news came from Triathlon Cathy who tested her dodgy ankle today (UltraPaul has a dodgy knee – I misinformed you recently) with a 15-mile run, completed without mishap. The chances of both of us reaching the Yorkshire start line look promising.

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