Out of Our Woods

table

I was in Godalming for lunch at Café Mila. I had a feeling Out of Our Woods would be on exhibition at Godalming Museum. I looked, I was correct, a board outside said Music Today.

A change of plan, music, then lunch at Café Mila.

No music. The board was for Saturday just gone.

I had lunch at Café Mila, then returned mid-afternoon.

An interesting exhibition, a mix of tables and chairs, cabinets and musical instruments but very badly presented.

The table, a lovely large wooden table, had a notice not to put cups on it. Hmm, is that not what a table is for? The table was badly designed, instead of a smooth surface, it had large grooves, joints between the different woods, ideal for food and dirt to lodge in and a pain to keep clean.

The musical instruments were half finished and not stringed. This would have been ok if in various stages of construction, but not a single unfinished instrument.

A volunteer and myself spent some time trying to work out how a bowed psaltery was stringed.

A bowed psaltery is a strange flat pyramid structure, with acute corners (stringed instruments usually have curves, eg guitar, violin, cello). Bowed refers to being played with a bow, not the instrument being bowed. There was no bow, nor any indication of how it was played. 24 strings, silvered steel, played one note at a time.

Out of Our Woods is also an album. A pity not on bandcamp, and sadly not well recorded.

Wood is made to be handled, to be appreciated. Why hide behind glass?

The pieces on display were well made, clearly made by a skilled craftsman who loves working with wood, all the more the pity the exhibition was so poorly put together.

Day trip to Guildford and Godalming

The morning started off quite cool, by midday turning hot.

Train to Guildford, and too my pleasant surprise I found St Mary’s open.

I lit a candle for Pussy Riot and my Russian friends.

Shocked to find the bookshop outside the church selling a Christian fundamentalist newspaper backing Assad and his slaughter of innocent Syrian people.

Lunch at The Keystone.

Last week I walked to Godalming along the River Wey, today I caught the bus.

Godalming is a small market town on the banks of the River Wey. Sadly the centre of the town has been despoiled by the same old High Street chain stores that rob every town of its character. Two Costa Coffee shops, one Caffe Nero.

What Godalming needs is a lovely old fashioned tea shop or coffee shop, it has neither.

I looked in Godalming Museum to find it was the same art exhibition as the least time I looked. They had had a small concert in the garden out the back for which they had had to pay £28 for a music licence, even though the concert was free,

Last year, in Church Street, the street leading down to the church, was a lovely little wholefood shop. It closed due to the greed of the landlord wishing to jack up the rent. The shop now lies empty, as I predicted last year. Yet another small business destroyed by a greedy grasping landlord.

I had hoped to look in the church, but now too late, closed.

I fancied a cup of tea.

The Bell and Dragon, a converted church, was offering tea and scones and cream and jam. I looked in, curious if nothing else to what they had done, I asked the price. £7-50 for cream tea!

6.25pm, last bus back to Guildford.

Then Eden People at The Keystone.

Luckily I got a lift home, but still did not arrive home until shortly before midnight.