A date with Davies…

The perfect gentleman!

He almost fell asleep on my shoulder, perked up immeasurably for the price of a cornetto, came down the front to dance with me near the stage, held my hand in public and chatted to me all the way home. 🙂 He also totally unprompted told me that some words on a recycling bin said ‘No’ and ‘Glass’ while we were queuing to get in. Apparantly he’d looked at the letters and spelt them out – he didn’t actually realise that that was what reading meant! 😉

The concert was at The Assembly Hall in Worthing – a venue I frequented fairly often in my youth. I did at least two carol concerts and one other choir performance there with the school as a child, it was the venue for roller discos where we used to skate round in a big circle, in the dark with disco lights listening to Wham! and I went there for a Christmas party when I was about 17 which was ticket only organised by my sixth form college where I drank snowballs all night! Ah, happy memories!

I shared all of these with Davies while we were waiting for Shaky to take the stage – not at all sure how interested he was really, but the couple infront of me were quite clearly listening and seemed fairly enthralled! 😉

Weird old collection of people there tonight. I hadn’t previously realised what a high percentage of Shakin’ Steven’s fan base had special needs! They were all there tonight, the aisles were lined with wheelchairs, there were all the wannabe Shaky’s with their sad combover quiffs and their shoestring ties with collar tips on their shirts, there were the Fleetwood Mac style ladies caught in the 80s in their flouncy skirts and bubble permed hair, the denim era Shaky fans with their stonewashed jeans, jean shirts, jean jackets, white trainers and studded patterns on the back of their jackets spelling out ‘S H A K Y’. There were a smattering of people who had been lured there by watching him on ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ and then the hard core die hard fans who clearly run Shaky tribute websites in their spare time, feel like they know him personally on the strength of a signed poster from the fan club and were wearing hand customised clothing to show their love. Frankly it was like a bad day on 5p listing on Ebay exhibition! 😉

I felt slightly embarrassed actually when Shaky – who’s age I believe is officially undisclosed but has gotta be over 50 was up there giving it some pelvic thrusts to You Drive Me Crazy. FFS I adored him when I was about 8 so I cannot possibly see him in any sort of sexual way without feeling all shy and blushing!

Anyway, Davies did really well. He was starting to doze off just before the interval (no mean feat given it was probably the loudest concert I’d ever been to) but perked up as the lights came up at the propect of ice cream. During the second half when all the woman of a certain age wearing sequins stood up to dance and clap their hands above their heads thus rendering all of those seated behind them unable to see anything other than their gyrating arses, creating a mexican wave effect of others standing up until there were just the odd reluctant pockets of people still sitting down, watching the arses of those infront of them and half heartedly tapping their feet (aside from the wheelchair bound of course – even Shaky couldn’t perform that sort of magic!), we decided to venture down the front too – so we saw This Old House within spitting distance of the man himself. We then moved back slightly to watch the grand finale of Merry Christmas Everyone. Davies had wanted to go home about 10 minutes before the end but we were both glad we’d hung it out really.

For me, all comedy value of Shakin Stevens playing the Assembly Hall in Worthing some 20 odd years after I had his poster on my bedroom wall aside there was a real magic in standing close to the stage, my own child resting on my hip with his cheek next to mine, a week before Christmas Eve listening to him singing Merry Christmas Everyone. We’d been commenting earlier – as it is actually quite traditional to do as an adult – that it didn’t feel like Christmas yet – well this, coupled with coming home to watch When Harry Met Sally – my all time favourite film and a very Christmassy one to boot, I am feeling pleasantly filled with the festive spirit now. 🙂

In other news today we whizzed round a couple of Ady’s friends (and mine too I guess) delivering Christmas cards with the usual promise of getting together in the New Year being trotted out and exclaimations made at how D & S have grown! We then spent the afternoon at Chris and Julies, drinking spiced apple juice and catching up on the last couple of weeks. Julie also was on a Christmas crafts roll and had some beeswax sheets and wicks to make rolling candles and some slabs of silver birch which Chris drilled holes in and the children decorated with connifer clippings, red berries, gold leaves and red feathers to make candle holders. Very pretty and an excellent idea for presents for the grandparents! 😉

Tomorrow we are over at Mum and Dads as my Granny is flying out to America for Christmas on Wednesday. She has friends who live near Hollywood and more often than not ends up going there for Christmas. Ady is going chopping logs with Dad in the morning to stock up for the next couple of weeks firewood and I’m planning to bake some mince pies with the children while they’re gone before heading over to my parents at lunchtime.

Next week is already pretty much filled up with various pre Christmas get togethers with friends and sitting here with the fire slowly dying, the tree lights twinkling, the tinsel catching the last of the fires flickers and reflecting the light around the room I can still hear the echoes of Shaky in my ears and I am finally feeling quite excited that in one week and five minutes time sleigh bells will be jingling far up in the night skies.

Tis the season of love and understanding, Merry Christmas Everyone xxx