Some of you may know that every year I organise an event for any girls on their own at this time of year. This year I booked a cottage in Staffordshire and had four other girls join me, Clarissa Daley, Iris Wells, Jady Shaw and Harriet Blanchford. It was a beautiful little cottage, but with five of us and only one bathroom, it needed careful planning for us all to get ready. As always I like to take the girls out to a local pub to ‘scare the locals’. The local pub was The Cross in Cauldon where we received such a warm welcome. We booked to have a meal there on the Friday before we left, and as three of us are musicians, offered to put on a show for them.
We had a fairly quiet Christmas and Boxing Day, full Christmas dinner and buffet. The guitars and flute came out to put together the show we were going to do, each of us choosing a number we could all perform. We eventually decided on Jady doing “Walking in the air” on flute, “The girls are here” with all of us, “What a day for a daydream” with Harriet, Clarissa and Jady, “The wild rover” with all of us and Clarissa finishing with a song of her own. All was fine until we got to the pub on the Friday. The place was crowded and a group of rugby player types started making some comments about us, which put the other girls off wanting to perform. Fortunately, an opportunity arose for me to quieten the rowdies down. The barmaid wanted to make some cocktails and was having trouble separating some frozen strawberries with a hammer. I went over in the midst of the rowdies, took the strawberries, and delivered two perfect karate chops on them separating the strawberries all over the bar. A few dropped jaws later, the rugby-types were shaking my hand and I heard a couple of them whisper “tone it down lads don’t want to upset this lot”. The girls were still a bit worried about performing, so after we had finished our meal I stood up and announced that we had had a great meal but couldn’t pay for it, so would entertain them instead. All didn’t quite go to plan. Jady had trouble with her backingtrack speaker so couldn’t start, so we went straight into “The Girls are Here” and then the rest of our rehearsed numbers. The response was amazing. We brought the house down. Some of the first ones to come and congratulate us were the rugbytypes with a new-found respect followed by so many others all wanting more. We visited another pub while we were in Staffs, The Famous Olde Yew Tree. As usual, it was me pushed in through the door first. Just as we walked in to scowls and strange looks, the owner was winding up an old nickelodeon to show some guests. Mm got to break the ice here I thought, so announced we were just in time - the monkeys are here to dance. Scowls turned to smiles and laughter and we were welcomed yet again.