Jawbone at the Green Note Cafe

Camden, London. Thursday 14-June-2018

Being a great fan of Marcus I was pleased to see that he was playing in London while I was back in the UK. We have seen him many times but the first time with this band. Here in "Jawbone" he is teamed up with the brilliant Paddy Milner, who we have seen several times at Ronnie Scott's as part of the support act, on key boards. Rex Horan on bass and Evan Jenkins on drum complete the line-up.

Got a really good seat with only the sound engineer between me and the stage.

They did not do so much original material but more a set comprising a variety of covers from their favourites: Memphis Slim, Leon Russell, The Band, Little Feat, Tom Waits.

Interesting to see Marcus dialling it back from the main man to front man as part of an ensemble of equal. Unsurprisingly it was an evening of excellent music. I spoke to both Paddy and Marcus afterwards and I fear I may have gushed a little but why not? Bought the CD and vinyl of their latest album as a treat for later.

All sorts of thoughts wander through my head during gigs. I got a momentary flash of cat guilt - I've left the cat home alone, did I remember to set the timed cat feeder, will I get home to a piteously starving moggies! Oh no, phew, we don't have a cat any more. I still get occasional feline flashbacks especially approaching home and opening the front door in anticipation of a furry welcoming committee.

Got chatting to the bloke next to me who was also on the Merlot and when I went to get a refill he suggesting splitting a bottle - a more cost effective purchase. Not sure I needed that last glass but I had nothing in the diary for the next day so "hurrah!".

Salento Parkrun Number 6

Lecce, Puglia, Italy. Saturday 09-June-2018.

It seems like I’m collecting parkruns.

For those of you who don’t know there is a clue in the name. People gather in hundreds of parks up and down the UK, and in parks around the world, at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning to do an organised 5K run.

Mostly I have done my parkruns in Tooting Common. But as we travelled about the UK for various weekends away I have picked up Parkruns in Scotland, Ireland and England (North and South).

I very nearly added an Italian Parkrun in Florence when Mary was planning to do a language course there. But in the end her trip was curtailed so that never happened.

Last time I looked there were no parkruns in Southern Italy. But then last month we had some visitors who said “there is a Salento Parkrun” and, lo and behold, someone had just started up a parkrun outside Lecce. It is run by Italian, Saverio, who had lived in Maidenhead for some time and discovered park run. On his return to Italy he decided to start up a local event. Inspired by our guests we decided to combine an early start for the park run followed by a visit to the beautiful city of Lecce.

This parkrun being in its infancy there were only eight runners and four of them were from our party. It is a very different experience running round the olive groves of a national park compared to running around Tooting Common where the first two runs in 2018 had over 800 runners!

It was only the sixth Salento Parkrun and our friend Sarah was able to set the female course record; unfortunately another UK visitor knocked her off the top spot a week later.

The 'A' is missing from my vest because I put the iron-on letter upside down and ironed it onto the sheet of paper.

One of the runners was visiting from Sicily and shot off like a greyhound and was round the course in 19:09. Me, I was happy to have managed it in under 30 minutes.

Garmin timings:

When I was back in the UK for a week I decided not to do my usual Tooting run but instead cycled up to Wimbledon Common so that I could add another unique Parkrun to the list. That is now nine different locations I’ve done park run.

Again under 30 minutes so again happy with that.

When I go back in September I think I’ll have to pop over the river to Fulham and bag Parkrun location number 10.