A bricked surprise, a class A limerick and a reassurance that I am NOT the biggest nutter in the world.

After the previous week's travails in the beautiful Croatia, I was happy enough this week to find myself travelling around the North, gigging and sight-seeing like a slightly demented tourist and troubadour, beginning, last Wednesday evening, in Chester.

I've been to Chester a lot down the years as I have frequented Alexanders Jazz Theatre's comedy nights roughly Bi-annually since the mid-nineties (Well I wouldn't go there for the jazz) but I've never stopped and had a proper look round so had no idea about the extent of the City Walls. I just thought there was a small section close to the gig (It's address is 1, City Walls) and seeing as I had a day to kill I took a punt, walked up the steps onto the wall and proceeded to spend the best part of an hour circumnavigating the entire city. It was brilliant. The walls are punctuated with plaques offering information and I was left in no doubt that the walls had been built for one reason and one reason alone - to keep the bloody Welsh out! Here are a few views from the wall, as I wandered around

A typically spectacular Chester street

Sadly the Chester ring-road is not spectacular and I went through this bloody arch at least four times before I finally found the hotel car park.

These are the ruins of the Roman Gardens and NOT the remains of  Enforcement Droid 209  from Robocop

I can't remember why I took this picture

This is an impressive bit of the old castle, with added knocking-off workman

This is a clock. I said "clock"

Anyway the weather was useless (The Met office had issued their annual "Amber Warning") so I buggered off to Llangollen where I was doing a gig for my mate Silky. Llangollen is another beautiful place and is the unofficial gay capital of Wales. It is also capable of having utterly miserable weather. I met up with Silky for an early dinner (delicious) and then we walked up to the show in driving rain, before performing to a small (but perfectly formed) audience. During the performance I got a girl on stage to perform a limerick she had written whilst driving home from a night out snorting cocaine (Her words, not mine). I wish I could remember it - it was brilliant! I then went on to accuse the local vicar of looking like Dennis The Menace, told a lovely young kayak enthusiast that I intended to sleep with her mother and ended the show suggesting we all go back with the rhyming coke-head for a party. We didn't, but it was a good idea.

As usual I can't remember the name of the bar we went to after the gig because everything started getting a bit blurry and Silky then dropped the bombshell that he couldn't have a late one as he was getting the train to Poland the next day.

The train.

To Poland.

From Llangollen.

That's like going to the moon on a space hopper.

lunar-cy

The next day I got a text from him to tell me that his train had been cancelled at Chester, which is approximately twenty miles from Llangollen and over eight hundred miles from Posnan. He didn't fancy his chances of making the Eurostar he was booked on to and held out slim hope of catching his connecting trains in Brussels and Berlin. I had explained to him about air travel the day before but hey - he's a comedian, not a travel agent.