Chilli, Boats, Music, Morris Dancers and Rubber Ducks. "It's Festival Time."

Today Reading has gone festival mad and there is no Bank Holiday Monday to follow.

                My housemate Nat called from the landing to check for signs of life and that I wasn’t cancelling because we are heading to town for the Chilli festival before moving on to the Water festival and some music (and drama) at the Abbey Ruins. Nat has been a friend since I was young(ish) and foolish. Now she tolerates and I think at times enjoys the old fool. The first time we met had chilli’s and dark Morris Dancing and both were involved today, in part.

We began with Chilli’s.

                Nat has an asbestos tongue and a sword-bearing mentality but she doesn’t like the taste of wood so in the health and safety and hygiene world of 2019 that means sampling peppers that could rip out your internal organs has become tricky. There are wooden, disposable forks but there is less bread available to sample their fiery delights.

                We had Chilli “Gummy Bears” though.

              

  Forbury Gardens was alive by the time we got there with the relentless pulse of music, food, people and the Lion who doesn’t walk like a Lion. We zig-zagged and shimmied through though, heading for the newly repaired ruins of the Abbey. The order of play was in sight but so were the ‘happy not dark’ Morris Dancers so to get to the list we risked being dragged into an alien world of bells and white socks (and far too much hand clapping.)

                What draws a person to Morris Dancing? I must meet one and find out but not today.

                The events we are interested in are hours away but the water is near so we headed to the tow path.

There’s a rubber duck race!”

                What fully grown man could resist this?

Not this one. £1 for 3 ducks as I joined the queue. Actually, I made the queue because there was only one in front but it wasn’t an express lane.

“There’s got to be an easier way than this but I can’t find it.”

The ‘Duck Lady’s’ resigned tone didn’t suggest she had spent too much time searching for it.

“And someone forgot her glasses.”

She suggested a gesture to her colleague and we all knew who she meant. My pound collided with the other coins and the Tupperware while my three ducks stumbled into the plastic barrel.

              

  The first boat we saw had a sign blu-tacked to the widow saying ‘volunteers required’ but there was no-one to volunteer my services to. It’s early though. The next boat had straw inspired scare crows and humanised Coke bottles (!), then the Canal and Waterways charity before finally “The Grumpy Goat” cheese and Ale. We stopped here.

               

There are probably only a handful of things that make me smile more than a child with a balloon which I witnessed today. A child dropping a balloon and an adult desperately trying to rescue it while the wind teases it away. Bent in an undignified, childish manner genuinely believing this time will be different as the balloon once more wriggles free. Fantastic! (Another is “Large White Baps” in Tesco, always makes me smile.)

***

The weather is, according to Nat (and the un-available on Android Nat App,) schizophrenic while families argue and friends smile but there is overwhelmingly a balloon culture to the day as we headed to a play that was being performed. It was a period drama that we witnessed with the cast dressed in jeans and Nike trainers and printed scripts. It was good but we left before the conclusion to watch the Gospel Choir.

                The Choir sang well and with an enthusiasm that was infectious until all that was left was “La Morte Subite,” a band that do not fit anymore than they want to. Zarand, the band leader/singer/ dis-organiser/ hurdey-gurdey (I’ve no idea either!) player, was a neighbour of Nat’s before I knew her and he is a man who’s sense of excitement is infectious. The man with the happiest smile I have seen coupled with a Jools Holland joy and an ability to play the accordian, guitar, triangle and the hurdey-gurdey.

                It is Gypsy music and it is happy. Defiantly happy. Sung and shouted in several languages with one message (and no sense of chronological time.)

                We stopped at “The Nag’s Head” for a final pint and I checked my phone.

                No missed call.

                No text message.

My rubber duck didn’t win.

Bookshops, Boats, Breaks And Ben.

Clubbing seems to have changed. I need to download an app to download a ticket to get to security to show my ID to get on the boat.

                Ben has not changed at all. He has a clipboard and a designated leader frown on his face. Whatever is written on the clipboard is being ticked off in a haphazardly organised way. It’s time to party though (I hope that was on the clipboard) and Martin Krafty is on the first deck as I get on the boat playing a set only he can. It’s dirty with an element of funk cheese always lurking in the background.

                The set times are up and the clipboard is down by the time I caught up with Ben Jurassic and it’s as if time has stood still. Actually, time sat up and thought about making a move for the door as we caught up on nearly 10 years and then gently reclined as if it were sat in the dodgy chair Ben owned in Liverpool Road in Reading. The beats and breaks and basslines (and rocking boat) made my feet move, my heart race and my face smile as Terry Hooligan played his set. The legends of Breaks are out in force and don’t fit in now anymore than they did in the Noughties which is great because Breakbeat never fitted in and never knew its place. Ben’s record bag is now a memory stick, records became CDs which became CDs paying signals but the groove is still there. It’s still so organic and like a happy accident. “The Next Level” by the Ils still makes me wave and jump and shake in a style I call dancing.

***

“Don’t do anything bad until after the first docking point. They won’t chuck you off after that because it costs them money.”

There’s a life lesson in there.

***

                We docked back at Tower Bridge and it’s time for the after party (LaLaLand), but Ben Jurassic is in clipboard mode with the same expression and a phone glued to his face. The after party needs extra decks (CDJs in the modern world) and we need to get them there which in a Nu Skool world meant Uber. When Nu Skool let us down the Tube didn’t (our legs may have slightly.)

                By 3am we were hungry. The club was a dingey, dirty, sweaty hive of activity but outside was a London A road and nothing else except a 24-hour garage shining like The Murco. Time unravelled, tangled, criss-crossed and settled as we headed to the 24hr talking point.

“What sandwiches do you have?”

“Chicken and egg.”

“Chicken AND egg?” There’s something discordant about adult and child in a sandwich but we took what he offered which wasn’t chicken and egg.

                We got back to Ben’s at a time only he knows and he only knows because he has a watch that tells him where he has been, what he has been doing and how many calories he’s burned doing it and it is a whole new world to me. I’ve seen people argue over who woke who up but I’ve never seen it argued with statistics from a phone. That doesn’t seem to settle it though, it serves as another angle of attack, but I think Ben lost.

                It seems fitting that after breakfast we visited a bookshop and Ben Jurassic was passionately involved with a Roald Dhal book he wanted for his children while Rosie (his wife) was perplexed by an A to Z book where A was activist and F was feminist. Ben is the same child I met so many years ago.

                My body ached as the train headed back to Reading and my face smiled. A fantastic trip back to the Noughties which I probably never left.