Mandy Woods
  • Home
  • Gigs/Reviews
  • Homelessness
  • Albums
  • Wags Lyrical
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Photos

A perfect day... nearly

25/7/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Apart from Chilli barking very irritatingly at nothing in particular from the front seat, this feels like a pretty well perfect day for someone striving to make a living from her music. The dogs and I are parked up in Rusty in Chorleywood Common, a beautiful green area with a cricket pitch, a golf course, ponds and wild bits of woodland – and on a sunny day like this, it’s a great place to be. The dogs have just had their evening meal, I’ve just made a lovely cup of coffee on Rusty’s stove, and – apart from the above-mentioned barking – all is right with the world.

This morning, after I finished writing a new song, the three of us drove down from Kidlington to Chalfont St Peter to play at Chalfont Lodge, a nursing home in beautiful rural surroundings in Buckinghamshire, being directed (unnecessarily, it turned out) by Serena the Satnav down very picturesque but equally scary single-track roads to get there. The gig itself went very well – due in no small part to the dogs’ overwhelming canine charisma – and we secured two more bookings on the spot.

Then lunch in Rusty and a snooze in the back before our afternoon gig at Sunrise of Chorleywood, another nursing home – this time proudly displaying a Cinnamon Trust certificate proclaiming its dog-friendliness – a good sign! Sure enough, the dogs ramped up the cuteness factor while I sang a few ‘country & western’ songs ranging from John Denver to Patsy Cline to Hank Williams and fended off a well-meaning elderly Scottish lady with dementia who was determined to feed Chilli potentially lethal (to a dog) pieces of her mince pie… As a result, there were abrupt endings to a few songs as I dived over to snatch the offending morsels off the carpet before Chilli gobbled them up. But nobody seemed too bothered!

The woman on the front desk was very keen to have us back, so we came away from there slightly flagging by now but buoyed up by another care home success.

This evening I’m going along to the lovely Chesham Folk Club singers’ night, as I have a gig there next month with Annie Greig as The Mockingbirds, and want to do a bit of promotion for that. So the girls and I have a few hours in which to kick our heels and relax, while I can feel good about the fact that as well as entertaining a load of folk today, I’ve made a bit of money, and I’ve got a musical evening ahead that bodes well. And tomorrow I’m recording in London and then meeting an old friend in the evening before heading back home.

Life is brilliant when it’s full of music. As one of the residents at the care home this morning said after singing along to a number of songs, ‘Music feeds the soul!’

The only thing that stops it being completely perfect is Chilli’s shrill barking from the front seat… On the other hand, if it was completely perfect, I might start to worry…

0 Comments

    Author

    Mandy Woods

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    Categories

    All
    Amanda Burgess
    Angello Sound Studio
    Arran
    Bayonne
    Bazaar Cafe
    Bluebird
    Bluebird Cafe
    Brook Guitars
    Butterfly
    Butterfly Spirit
    C2C
    Calamity Jane
    California
    Cam
    Campervan Adventures
    Camping
    Cannes
    Carol Mac Photography
    Catweazle
    Cayman Islands
    Charity Shop
    Coda Music
    Copy-editing
    Corona Virus
    Country Music
    Covid-19
    Cowboy Hats
    Cowgirls
    Craft Fairs
    Dachshund
    David Naylor
    Deadwood
    Distinctly Blue
    Dolly Parton
    Doyle & Debbie
    Eastbourne
    Felix Macintosh
    Fisherman's Wharf
    France
    Freelance Work
    French Riviera
    Fringed Jacket
    Germany
    Gigs
    Gilet Jaunes
    Gilly Spencer
    Glastonbury
    Guitars
    Haight-Ashbury
    Handmade Guitars
    Hollister
    Holy Isle
    Homelessness
    Keith Urban
    Kibosh
    Kitten Kaboodle
    Las Vegas
    Le Mans
    Le Pilier Rouge
    Lesvos
    Lfest
    Little Silver Guitar
    Live Music In Norway
    Log Cabin
    Log Cabin Living
    Mandy Woods
    Memory Stick
    Mouans-Sartoux
    Musée Matisse
    Musee Mecanical
    Nashville
    Needle Felting
    New Life Abroad
    Nice
    O2 Concert Venue
    Oslo Open Mic
    Pandemic
    Peacock Butterfly
    Penny Arcade Museum
    Petula Clark
    Phantom Power Supply
    Pick-ups
    Proofreading
    Randy Moods
    Renegade Of The Road
    Rhinestones
    Roulette
    San Francisco
    Sausage Dog
    Scène Ouverte
    Scully
    Scully Jackets
    Seacliff State Beach
    Self-employment
    Self-reliance
    Social Distancing
    Social Separation
    Song Critique
    Songwriting
    Soquel
    SoulHuntress
    Southwest France
    Station Inn
    St Tropez
    Teaching Guitar
    The Chase
    Tigersonic
    Too Bad To Be True?
    Toyota Campervan
    Trail Of Goodbyes
    Under Ground Theatre
    Usa
    Virtual Open Mics
    Wags Lyrical
    Women's Centre
    Youtube
    Zoom Music Events

    RSS Feed

Mandy Woods