10. On The Waterfont. Exeter

After the events the night before at The Old Bookshop, the last thing I feel like is a two hour drive to Exeter for yet another battle. I could do with sleeping into the afternoon but the gig starts at three.
When I get there, however, the scene is of a gentle Sunday afternoon on the very picturesque quayside. It is the beer festival and morris dancers prance gaily at the waters edge. I am offered a pint and there is a hog roast.
The music is taking place just inside where nobody is and the volume barely reaches where the people are sitting out in the Sun.
It's perfect and when the time comes I sit and while away the hour playing gentle guitar tunes, tuning up and singing the easiest of songs and the least taxing on my voice. Hardly anyone notices except a small child who contorts theatrically and eloquently to what I'm playing and the hour passes as a Sunday afternoon should.
I get paid and go to drive home. The phone rings, it's Rick. He's wondering what time I'm playing.
We meet up for some coffee and a chat, it's been a while and there's stuff to talk about. we spent about four years on an album that didn't get finished.
I was thinking that it was strange to have come all this way for a hog roast.