At my count, there were seventeen of us at The Dashwood Arms despite some notable absentees.It being close to Trafalgar Day, some French-related  material came out. However, I missed a significant part of the evening, so apologies for focusing this account on what Rosie and I played ....

Firstly, while it was raining when we were on holiday in Turkey, Rosie and  I had compiled a list of new songs we might work on. Over the weekend, we'd managed to get two of them to the stage where we were happy to play them at the club - they even went well when we practised them before setting out. Both of them had innovations. However, we realised when we got to The Dashwood Arms that we'd left the lyric sheets at home.

Never mind, I thought, I'll look them up on my phone and we'll write them out before our turn comes. There was no reception for Orange inside the pub so I spent a significant time outside trying and failing. However, my pleas for some with a smartphone (with reception) were answered by Judith and her Blackberry. After struggling with the Blackberry user interface, and skipping our turn, we finally got the words written out. We were therefore able to play:

• Autumn Leaves - the Nat King Cole favourite that started life as a French song (Feuilles d'Automne) so Rosie sang the English and French versions of the main theme, with a concertina solo. 
• Istanbul not Constantinople - a song from the fifties that was covered in the eighties by They Might Be Giants. This had come into my head as we landed in Turkey and infected Rosie too for the rest of the holiday. This had a couple of innovations for us - Rosie played her melodica and I sang a bit!

Secondly, I missed a significant part of the second half because I went to the bar and chatted with the landlord, Wayne. If you've met Wayne, you'll know that this is rarely a short event!

We'll be at the Price Albert next week when I intend to pay more attention, and I hope for less background noise than last time.