Thursday

Things are really winding up now. There is a team of cooks who help Connie to prepare food and they have been bustling round all day, making pies (chocolate, banana cream, lemon meranguie), soup (any dish vaguely damp is pronounced ‘soup’ in America, from chilli to goulash to clam chowder, this happened to be goulash) in 5 gallon boilers and enough macaroni cheese to feed an army. Lots of signs have gone up, the registration tent is now active and the sound system has been put in place. We awaited the arrival of Don and Sandy and they turned up just after 12.00, having set out at 6.30 from West Palm Beach. Meanwhile the music has started, Sally and I practiced for an hour, trying to make up for 6 months of doing nothing. There was one big jam session in the evening, which moved further and further into the Pole barn as the evening got progressively colder, finally ending up in the food store, which was delightfully warm from all the fridges in there. I bowed out at 12.55, which in jet lag terms was 5.55 a.m. U.K. time. Sally made the sensible decision and went to bed at about 10.00. Really good fun though.