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I was up early with Phoebe and it seems that we’re on about the same level now in terms of what we enjoy, because I had lots of fun playing with her, even though I was exhausted. We sang and danced, spent about fifteen minutes running round in a circle in the lounge until we fell over with dizziness (but then Phoebe would grab me and insist we carried on running) and we played with her Penguin Race game, a toy that it seems I should find infuriating as an adult, but fucking love. I could play with it all day.
It’s like a perpetual motion machine, but involving penguins, who are pulled up to the top of a slide, via a step like mechanism as lights flash and loud, annoying music imbued with sirens plays. Then the penguins slide down the slide until returning to the top of the mountain to continue their never ending journey. Except Phoebe like to turn it off pretty quickly and choose her own ways for the penguins to descend. Which annoys me. I want the bluster and the music and the never ending spectacle.
I also like to imagine it’s called Penguin Race because it is trying to finally ascertain which is the best race of penguin, black, blue or red. It certainly can’t be a race as there is only a single track and no way to overtake.
We then came up with a brilliant game where I had to pretend to be asleep, then Phoebe would turn on the penguin race and I’d pretend to angrily wake up. But as I could just lie on the floor for all of this I didn’t care. It’s the best game ever.
I couldn’t remember the last time that I was in Andover. It seemed like ages. Then just before I went on I remembered that I had done a luke warm “What Is Love, Anyway?” the day after I got back from my honeymoon. I mentioned that at the top and it was clear that people in the audience knew this wasn’t in fact the last time I’d been here. I
’d done the venue two years ago.
I have no real memory of that, even after reading the blog, but vaguely recall the parking situation.
It was mildly embarrassing to have to admit to the crowd that I had totally forgotten them and the last time I was here. But it’s a really nice venue and the staff are supportive and Steve who runs it is a bit of a card.
The good news is that although it was the first date on the last tour to get under 100 in, it wasn’t this time. Comfortably getting over my self-imposed target with 113 punters (a huge 33 more than two year ago - Things are looking up in Andover). It went a lot better this time with the first half especially buzzing along. They seemed a lot quieter in the second half, but the people who spoke to me afterwards seemed to prefer the later stuff, so maybe in Andover they show their appreciation through weird frosty silence.
