Went to see Belle and Sebastian yesterday, and the whole day rocked. Worked in the morning, that was pretty productive, me and the AI just getting on with things. Stopped at lunchtime, nephew came over to visit, and then four of us headed to Margate. T2 stayed here on his own, did not fancy the idea at all. Train there was fine, via Ashford, busy until Canterbury then we got a table. Then off the train in Margate, and the place was heaving. Not all for our gig, but there was a soul festival going on too, lots of live music around the town. First we headed to a bar wife had heard of, Floc's first pub. They have taken over a lovely old pub The Lifeboat in Market Street. Maybe it wasn't lovely before, but they have made it lovely. It's very trendy, lots of Margate is. I had the WEIRDEST beer, a mango sour, it looked more like a smoothy. I guess they made a sour beer and just kept adding juice to it until it was drinkable. It was nice, but so unlike a beer.
Then looking for ale, first place said er no to T1 being in, no under eighteens at all. It looked a bit rough anyway. Then instead to The Bull's Head which was very nice. Sat in the garden, with a proper normal beer, a pint of Gadd's, and it was also good. This place has a blue plaque, Eric Morcambe had his wedding reception there.
Then to the gig, a bit of a faff to get into Dreamland, the ticket app didn't work very well but they are used to this and someone was able to help me. What happened that I need a young person to help me with my phone? We got in in time to see St Etienne the support band, but we weren't very interested, and didn't get more interested. They finished on the two songs we knew.
Belle and Sebastian were good, they started with the whole of If You're Feeling Sinister, then a break, then a set of mixed hits. Nothing off Tigermilk though? Weird. They played The Boy With The Arab Strap, which I don't love, but the nephew did, and we thought that would be the end. Then they played another one I don't know and got loads of kids up on the end, and I thought that was the end, so we left to make sure we got our train. THEN they played Lazy Line Painter Jane, their best song, as we were walking back to the station...
Full setlist:
Taxi home, and all good. What a great day out, we must go back to Margate again when it's less busy.
Overdrawn, keeping fingers crossed for premium bonds prize day on Monday.
Oh look, I saw Belle and Sebastian that same date in 1997 too, so is that really twenty-nine years?? Surely not.
Sunny intervals and light winds, 14 - 22℃.
⬅️ Run stats 1/8/26 - 6'10/K :: Parkrun 233 ➡️
Paulʼs blog - I live in A sleepy town, Kent. Married + dad to two, I am a full stack web developr, + I do js / node, some ruby, python, php etc. My hobbies are pubbing, running, restaurants, home automation 🤖 and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, tree stuff, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, + time travel.
Yep, deliberately unstyled.