Our British summer is so fleeting it can feel like a real triumph when you manage to enjoy a 'proper' balmy, open air evening event, as I did yesterday - especially when the previous night saw half the population dive under the bedclothes and the other half revel in that spectacular storm, lighting and everything, tearing through our skies.
The occasion was that great Tunbridge Wells' tradition - Jazz on the Pantiles - and if you've never been, make a date in your diary for next Thursday. It's brilliant. Every Thursday until 4 September the outdoor music season, organised by The Pantiles' new owners, Targetflow, takes place from 7.30pm 'til late and showcases a new band every time. I went last week with my mate Kellie, we had a bite to eat first and got there about 8.30pm - big mistake! The place is literally packed every week, all the tables were well and truly taken and we could barely squeeze in at the back.
Last night was different - I met up with an old friend I used to work with and she had very cleverly got there early and bagged us a prime-spot table right near the bandstand by charming a lovely old boy into giving up two seats at his table for us. Despite the fact that we chatted non-stop for the first half hour at least, I don't think he minded too much: we had an awful lot to catch up on!
We did listen to the music as well, honest, and the Jim Mullen Organ Quartet, with the eponymous leader on guitar, the wonderfully monikered Mornington Lockett on sax, Mike Gorman on Hammond organ and Matt Skelton on drums were absolutley brilliant - perfect summer entertainment.
We were joined by a friend of Mary's who goes by the name of *** (don't even ask) and somehow all four of us got onto the subject of allotments - turns out the old chap has a plot at Hawkenbury and he was a mine of information about rods and stuff (plot sizes are measured in the old Anglo-Saxon unit of rods, a rod is 5.03 metres and plot sizes are usually five or 10 rods. Don't say I never tell you anything useful!). I might even have gained a new reader, as he seemed quite excited about the fact that we're running a feature in our September edition on 'grow your own' and why the take-up of allotments in Kent is at an all-time high. If I could work out how to deal with slugs, I might even be tempted.
The evening took a positively surreal turn when Monkey turned up with his mate who's over here from New Zealand. The lovely Phil has been travelling around the UK for the last five weeks but seemed to have spent yesterday afternoon not only taking the waters on the Pantiles, in time-honoured tradition, but also taking in an awful lot of the beer, too... Monkey was also seeing double - Mary, now an extremely senior journaliast with the Courier newspaper, and I have both been his bosses in his short working career, and here we both were out on the town together, comparing notes about him! Very unfair.
Safe journey home, Phil - and I might take you up on that offer to visit one of these days!
Anyway, the working day beckons and I've got a magazine to get to press - until later,
Sarah