Back in lovely sunny Bristol after a few days messing around in middle England. Our drive to Shrewsbury on Thursday evening was so traffic free that I think we must have stumbled upon a theme road which was aiming to replicate the driving experience of 1950’sBritain.

Friday saw a lazy wander around the timber framed buildings which cling to the various hills that this oxbow lake in the making of a town had us tripping up and down. When we got a bit tired in the afternoon, we nipped into a charity shop and picked a few of those film DVD’s which come free with newspapers these days, returned to our hotel and slipped “Defence of the Realm” into the laptop and rested our weary toes for a while.

Pre gig we met up with some people which Orynthia had been chatting with on the Camera Obscura forum and very pleasant it was too. Then off to the gig, housed in the old butter market, we had to endure a couple of support bands and DJ’s who favoured volume over all else, so we were forced to take refuge on the smokers balcony. Eventually “The Obscura” as I’m sure no-one calls them hit the stage and guess what, they didn’t need to blast us half the way to Wrexham with an overstretched P.A. as they have songs, wonderful, wonderful songs, even a couple of new ones to raise our hopes for the next album.

Post gig we caught up with band in the decidedly unglamorous dressing room area, and admired the plentiful amounts of Tea but no kettle, Wine but no corkscrew and Beer but no bottle opener. They did have a bottle of Gin which rather suspiciously was missing a third of it’s contents - someone’s drinks cabinet had been raided at the last minute I suspect.

The next morning we bumped into most of the band again in the excellent Alfie and Billy’s Café. Then after further hill walking we took the short trip to Weston Park a grand stately home on the way to Wolverhampton the location of the Saturday evening gig. Now Weston Park is a place that we have been meaning to visit for around 15 years or so as it has P.G. Wodehouse connection. Indeed many years ago we picked up a leaflet which described the place as almost being a P.G. Wodehouse theme park. Imagine our surprise then when we found no mention of Mr Wodehouse on the present day literature for the place. Indeed with the exception of one member of staff, none of the guides knew that this was the place that he used as his model for Blandings Castle the home of Lord Emsworth.

After a brief tour of the grounds on a child size train ride we drove into Wolverhampton and meet our friend Heather who had journeyed up from Bristol by train. Camera Obscura were playing in the bar at the Civic Hall, which contrary to what you would expect did not contain a working bar. Another top show from the band, who excitedly told us the new world which they had discovered in Wolverhampton - The dressing came equipped with a Jacuzzi, the crazy world of rock n’ roll eh!