The Drugs Don't Work (Very Well)

Or rather, yesterday they worked in the wrong way. My first day volunteering at Oxfam with Brian, Katie , Jan and another girl who came in briefly before I had to leave and may have been called Mary. While going through the basics of what I was going to do I suddenly started getting floaters and bright light lights in my eyes distorting my vision , and getting very trippy . I really had to sit down for a minute before going outside and sitting on a bench. I started to feel a bit better but the sun had gone supernova making even walking impossible for a few minutes. Anyway when I did improve I went back in to see everyone and say goodbye with a view to actually doing something useful on Monday.

I think the reason is some reaction between antibiotics and the blood pressure lowering tablets that I take, although this is the second lot of these antibiotics to tide me over until the minor required surgery (I wont go into that but feel free to contact me if you want to know the gory details).

After that experience the song that comes to mind is the Moody Blues "Legend of a Mind" sbout sixties LSD advocate Timothy Leary, which I've always loved ever since I first heard it on Alan Freeman's Saturday Rock Show.

Katie's Vinyl Door

But before all that it was great talking to all the staff who were really nice and welcoming, and the most impressive thing for me was Katie's vinyl door and the sheet music wallpaper. The music area is small but very interesting and probably has a better selection of music than HMV Harrogate and Shrewsbury. This is one of the things about blogging is how one particular item can throw up some totally random connected thoughts but maybe thats just me.

Anyway if you get a chance to visit the Oxfam Music shop in Jesmond do so, take a selfie by the vinyl door and spread the word. There is some great stuff and the staff are excellent, well apart from me who had to cry off like a proper softy yesterday.




Anyway enjoy your weekend, I'm feeling better and looking forward to another packed week. I thought this redundancy meant you had nothing to do?

Shrewsbury In A Nutshell

Coming to the end of our week in Shrewsbury , well Hook-A-Gate and it has been most excellent. Lots of new discoveries meeting great people and finding things I didn't know were there , but thats the joy of going to different places.

I always look for the positives in things and got a phonecall from my neighbour , he'd discovered a leak in our second bathroom , luckily it stayed in bathroom but leaked through to the kitchen , so will see the full extent tomorrow. Just shows what  brilliant neighbours I have , so will have to make sure I get an extra special looking after the house present.

Anyway this week I have discovered , in no praticular order of brilliance:

• A wonderful pub , with excellent staff , great food and excellent service, The New Inn at Hook-A-Gate.
• A wonderful cottage to stay in , The Old Coach House, very comfortable , well equipped with really friendly owners
• Excentric Tattoo Parlour run by Val and Dirk and two girls who may or may not be their daughters , but crammed with amazing stuff , and all as friendly as anything
• Attingham Park a wonderful National Trust property with amazing grounds and a fantastic stately home , complete with deer and sharp horned cattle
• Cromwell's in Shrewsbury , incredibly friendly , and they do excellent food but make you feel very welcome.
• In The Groove - an excellent vinyl and memorabilia emporium with a really nice lady running in . I dont normally buy vinyl but came away with some very nice stuff. It's in The Parade Shopping Center in Shrewsbury which is full of interesting shops.

I'm sure I've missed out loads but it's time for bed now , and will maybe expand on some bits later.

Let's Get Tattooed - Excentric In Shrewsbury

Excentric - Shrewsbury 

Last time I was in Shrewsbury one of the places that made the biggest impression on me was Excentric , which is a Tattoo studio as well as supplier of excellent and exotic stuff. This time a couple of Gremlin's from the second movie caught my eye , placed upon one of my favourite glass tables that I've seen. Theyr on the right hand side of the pic just above the open sign.

As well as tattoos , which I don't fancy by the way though Val had some excellent ones, the place has loads of steampunk , biker , cult film and weed related paraphenalia.

Chestwigs

All the staff are really nice and incidentally everyon had the same phone as me a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, although we couldnt get a decent signal or connect to wifi If you are it Shrewsbury it really is worth checking out and while the tattoos were not as exotic as my mate Shev's (of the Doll at The Black Bull and the Star Spangled Chestwigs) with his left leg washing line it's a great place and if you want a tattoo I cant recommend them highly enough.


So that was the highlight of the day , rounded off by dinner at The Armoury by the river , again a recommended place to eat and drink if a little pricey. I'll leave you with some classic 'wigs

HMV - How Much Longer

I visited HMV in Shrewsbury yesterday . I've pointed out about the drought of record shops in Salop , but found HMV in a shopping centre. I also managed to buy six CDs and Trojan Mento compilatopn , a Carribean Compilations and Terry Hall Retrospective , and The Stereophonics singles and something else.

Anyway the HMV seemed to be mainly selling DVDs and Blu-Rays along with a big section for Apple i-Things . The CD section was miniscule , the only contempory CD on display was Madonna's new album . No Black Keys El Camino or Jack White Bluderbuss. No singles , no chart display, and certainly no vinyl. I may have missed something but they had quite a lot of floor space and very little devoted to music.

HMV's looking like it hasn't a clue what it's doing . It's logo is a dog listening to a record player. It's looking like the only appropriate part of that is the dog!