Tag: travel

These are your only days

by Lucy Simister, posted in Blog

Forgive me for being a bit philosophical today but I’ve just released a track on YouTube that means a great deal to me. It’s a folk song called Only Days and it was inspired by our photo album.

Everybody has favourite photos that capture a moment, an image that brings the memories back of happy times, on holiday or at family gatherings, a picture that crystallizes and experience and freezes it in time. This song flips through our personal photos. I know that your experiences though different from ours – and the images snatched at the time will do the same for you and I urge you to get that album out and have look into your history. Relive those heart-warming moments from the past. For us, Only Days allow us to do just that.

I beg you to realise that making memories is what life is all about – or at least it should be.

This song started with early camping trips – we didn’t have a lot of money when the kids were little – and we would take off for a few days sometimes only a few miles down the road and pitch a tent, just to give the kids the experience of camping. Even the nettle stings and the insect bites were a part of the memories of it all!

We’ve had the great good fortune to travel quite widely and so the song mentions some of those memories too – for these experiences I will be eternally grateful. When we were in Thailand the owner of the cabin we stayed in invited us to join him while he planted a tree. I would like to revisit and see how our tree is doing now! It was quite a few years ago now so I bet it’s grown! We felt deeply honoured to have been a part of that experience. It feels like we have left a little bit of ourselves planted there!

Think about your own experiences! Go out and make new ones. Next time you look out of the window and the weather is shocking (as indeed it is while I am typing this!) get your coat on and go for a walk. By yourself or with someone – get out there and see what experiences might be waiting to greet you. You never know when a story will present itself to you – a story that you can relate to friends, that you can exaggerate for laughs.

Make the most of your lives. This quote, usually attributed to Confucius, says it all: “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one” 

Go out and do something outrageous, courageous, amazing, fantastic – brave – bold and above all KIND.

Please have a listen to the song and if you like it give us the thumbs up and subscribe to our channel – it helps us a lot and encourages us to write and perform more music which is what we love doing.

And if you don’t know what to do – do something. Life isn’t going to come around asking if you want to come out to play – you have to go looking for it.

Course Laid In, sir!

by Lucy Simister, posted in Blog

What can I say about the Pirates in the Port Festival in Newport, Gwent?

The festival started with a convivial gathering at the Mercure Hotel in Newport with many pirates, shanty singers and similar ne’re-do-wells and they were in fine voice!

For the next two days the streets and bars were full of so many great singers and musicians enjoying the sessions as much as we did! Shanties and songs of the sea were the order of the day.

These Shanty and Pirate festivals attract people far and wide and we bumped into others friends from Devon! (Check out the Teignmouth Mermaid here! A real life singing mermaid…) And all prepared to make sometimes very long journeys just to join in with the fun!

We were down for performing on Saturday at two venues – the Mercure Hotel at 1200 hrs and then McCanns Rock N Ale bar at 1400 hrs. We did our thing there – and then we were offered the opportunity to play at the Corn Exchange – a great venue – and performed a set there at 1900 hrs to a near full house. The audience was made up of lovely fun people up for a party – and we had an absolute blast! They joined in with the choruses and the daft action songs with gusto! Our sincere thanks to them that the evening was so successful.

Where next, Sir?

So now we are looking ahead to our next adventures and there are a few in the offing.

On Sunday July 13th we will be playing a set of songs of the sea at the Exmouth Festival. The Festival runs from the 10th to the 13th July and will showcase songs of the sea in all their manifestations. Its a fun for all the family event – and ecologically sustainable as well! check out their website to read all about it here. Trust me, free and fantastic and definitely not to be missed.

We’ve a few other things on the horizon too and I’ll post more in due course when we have more details. In the meantime keep a bright lookout me hearties and speak soon! Take care

Tony

Updates and News

by Lucy Simister, posted in Blog, Home

Good morrow to all ‘ee Pirates out there ’tis nearly Brixham Pirate Festival time again!

In around three weeks time if the weather’s set fair the good ship Hooligan’s Rule will be sailing to Brixham for to entertain the folks there with our brand of songs of the sea and piratical shenanigans.

‘t all starts on Friday afternoon of 2nd May at the Pearl and Oyster bar – like it says on the poster above – from 4 o’clock

Then we will be in Brixham Town Centre carpark at 1100 hrs on Saturday 3rd May and again on Sunday 4th May at 1100 hrs for more….

Now I suppose it may not be obvious but to put on a festival like this is no mean feat – a small bunch of dedicated volunteers work tirelessly to get it all up and running and you would be astounded at how many dubloons it takes to get all the stuff in place that’s needed – health and safety arrangements, equipment hire, staging, road closures, events, even portaloos! And nobody does nothing for free nowadays – except for the volunteers of course! It all takes a heap of treasure to make it happen – all for YOUR ENTERTAINMENT.

So we’d ask you two favours!

One – yes, my friends, support our local traders! Buy things from the market and our shops. As you will know many small town traders are facing stiff competition from the big boys …

Two – Pirates are not known for asking nicely. But here goes: Please Please Please donate to the Brixham Pirate Festival to ensure that we can continue to make the festival a success this year and into the future. We are very proud here in Brixham that we host THE BEST PIRATE FESTIVAL IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Let’s keep it that way – and the only way to hang on to such an accolade is – well, MONEY MONEY MONEY. And a bit more MONEY. It can only happen year on year if the volunteers that organise the whole Festival cover the overheads. A Spanish galleon full of gold would hardly cover it! So please donate whatever spare dubloons you can afford.

All we want is for you all you ladies, gentlemen and kids to come along and enjoy. Come and sing along and laugh until your sides ache; get you ice cream and your chips and your souvenirs of our beautiful town, and if the grown ups fancy a few drinks (responsibly and peaceably of course), I’m sure you’ll be made to feel most welcome. Then when it’s all over go home with your very own treasure of rich and wonderful memories.

Who could want more treasure than that?