July 21st - Liverpool Piracy with The Blood Red Roses.

Not piracy in a bad -not giving musicians their just desserts sort of way, but in a Liverpool Pirate Festival sort of way, something some of the regular band and friends have done annually for a while at various venues around the Albert Dock, Liverpool. It has a sort of busman's holiday feel to it, for instead of doing our "serious" band music we played pirate songs and sea shanties. Good fun. This year The Blood Red Roses was a smaller ensemble consisting of myself, Emma and Hayley from the band plus Pete (Emma's hubby) and their little one, Casper. It was still sweltering but at least we were regularly cooled to some extent by a reasonably perky breeze.

Another day, yet another railway platform.

My mini-guitar, Hayley's small Djembe and to the left, Casper's award-winning ship-pushchair, not seen from it's best angle. Photo by Emma.

Taking a breather by the mighty Mersey with Pirate Pete & the officially pronounced youngest pirate at the event, Casper! Photo by Emma.

This can only mean it's Liverpool again. Good things.

Serious train disruption on the way back, officially due to "signal failure" but sadly platform staff said it was due to a suicide on the track.