I had a gig last week, which has taken me a little while to write about for reasons that I shall divulge.
There were about 20 people in. They were friendly and nerdy, which is my favourite kind of audience. Although admittedly, I do like an older crowd.
My set could hardly be described as focused and was a little rambly, with some ill-advised ad-libs that I won’t be trying again in a hurry.
But it went well and it was nice to be asked to do that elusive 20 minutes in the closing spot – i.e. on last.
The gig was in Cheltenham, thus maintaining my unintentional record of performing almost exclusively in Gloucestershire this year.
I also took some days off work. I’ve become so conditioned to save up all my leave for Edinburgh Fringe in August, that I need to remember that I have days left available that I need to use up.
I went up to London for a couple of nights to watch two events surrounded by two very different crowds. On Friday night, I went to watch Creeper in Camden. And on Sunday, I went to watch England play rugby at Twickenham. Creeper gave a much better performance.
But then on Monday evening, I started to feel unwell and got a temperature and cold shivers. Thus managing to continue another unintentional record of this year, which is to get ill whenever I take time off. In August, I ended up with Covid. This time around, I picked up a norovirus. I’m fairly sure I got it from a pint of Guinness at Twickenham – when they pour multiple pints and leave them on the side to hand straight to customers.
So, there were a couple of days that were particularly draining – in more than one sense. On the plus side, I didn’t have to travel on a plane for four hours – unlike the last time I had a norovirus. You’ve got to take the wins where you can.