We were up early and caught an early train back to Bath. On arrival at Bath I needed to go to the bank to get some money, so left Kathryn at the station and set off. Suddenly I saw some instruments set up and a set of panpipes on the side and came to a skidding halt. I spoke to the young girl - Claire - and bought their Tropical Music from South America CD. On my way back past after visiting the bank, I saw another member of the band with her - who was obviously Peruvian! - stopped to chat and bought a further three CDs. During the course of conversation, having ascertained that they were close friends of Dante, I asked if they had anywhere to stay and they said no, not yet, so I invited them to stay at my house. I then had to dash but told them I'd be back a few hours later to hear them play and show them the way to my house.
Sure enough, later in the afternoon I went back, and saw that there were three of them - Aquiles on panpipes - Claire on electric violin - and Ronal on flute and/or panpipes. I really enjoyed their music which was unusual with Claire's violin added to the Andean equation. In the early evening they packed up their instruments and they followed my car back to my place. I rushed around and cooked a meal, which we enjoyed in the garden along with some of my Andean music CDs and a few bottles of wine. With Colin still away, I was really glad of their company and we all got on like a house on fire and had a wonderful evening. Next morning they went into Bath to play again and I said I'd join up with them later.
I drove in during the afternoon and listened to them for a few hours. Whilst there I met a Bolivian friend of theirs - Ruben Cordero - who proved to be a good contact as he promised to help me get some CDs by Awatinas that I'd been unable to find anywhere - he said he could get them direct from Bolivia for me. I was thrilled about that. I had to rush off early evening as I was going out with my sister Kathryn and her husband to attend our nephew's fiance's 18th birthday party. I gave Aquiles a key and said I'd see them later.
The party was great - all my family were there - and I had a wonderful time dancing all evening with my nephews. I didn't get home until nearly 1 am - to an empty house! Not for long though. Claire, Ronal and Aquiles had taken my boys Adam and Tristan over to Bristol, for a night at pubs and clubs and they'd all had a wonderful time. As their mood was so festive, I got some more wine out and put on the music and we were up best part of the night, really enjoying ourselves, even dancing. Gradually we were crashing out one by one - I tried to stay up all night as I had to wake Tristan up for work at 6 am. I succeeded with difficulty, which proved a waste of time as he only went to work for an hour or so and then came back again! I woke Claire, Aquiles and Ronal up at 9 am as they'd planned to go to Oxford to play. As it happened by the time they all had showers and breakfast it was too late to go so far and they decided to go to Cheltenham instead and they invited me to go with them.
Despite being really tired I couldn't resist going and we set off in two cars. On approaching Whitchurch in Bristol we hit an enormous traffic jam, tried to avoid it by going cross country and ended up doing a vast detour and arrived back in Bristol again. So at my suggestion (they'd not been there before) we decided to go to Weston-Super-Mare instead. On arrival there we parked in the carpark at the Royal Hotel, loaded up the two trolleys and trundled the equipment through to the shopping centre. It wasn't until that moment that they realised they'd left the microphone stands back at my house so had to improvise. They ended up tying the mic to a thin tree. Ronal tied it on with the red cord used to secure the equipment on the trolleys. He tied it on with a big bow so consequently every time I saw him playing flute or panpipes into it I fell about laughing and he could hardly play where he wanted to laugh as well.
It was a lovely hot day and I found that I was struggling to stay awake! In the end I went to the grassed area behind them where people were sunbathing, sat down leaning against a tree and managed to sleep like that for a couple of hours which was enough to revive me. Later in the afternoon we loaded the equipment back into the two cars and went for a drink in the hotel. Then walked along the seafront looking for a place to eat and all had roast dinners at a cafe which was a laugh in itself as the veg were disgustingly overcooked and the whole dinner quite a disappointment - I was hysterical at the expression on Aquiles' face when he saw the bright blue-green mushy peas on his plate!
We then had a couple of games of pool in a nearby pub and then set off back home as we were going to the Bell Inn at Bath that evening to see Ruben in his new Latin jazz band's (K'Chevere) debut performance. We got lost on the way out of town so by the time we got to my place it was just a five minute stopover and then a mad dash to Bath. We got to the pub just in time for the start of the show and were lucky to get a table to sit at. During the second half Claire got up and did a few numbers on her violin with the band, and her unusual and innovative style of playing went down a storm at the pub. Everyone loved her and the band actually show-cased her talent. Aquiles looked so proud of her! Ronal got up and played his flute in the last two numbers but we couldn't persuade Aquiles to get up with his panpipes! It was a truly wonderful evening and even when it was over, friends of the band were invited to stay behind for more drinks. I enjoyed that, especially meeting Ruben's lovely sister who told me she was planning a big South American barbecue complete with Andean musicians, games, fireworks, authentic Andean food etc, and that she would send me an invitation.
