Banana Bag & Bodice at the Hidden Cafe

I seriously could not stop smiling today.

See, moving to a new place, even when two of your best friends live there already, I find it... socially difficult. I like people, and I like hanging out, and sometimes you just sort of click with a vibe and an ethos but I wasn't sure if it really felt right for us. Possibly a little lonely, especially on the weekend when Richard and our friends are all working and there isn't the routine of nursery, even.

It's a little plain village. Two corner shops, some pubs which we would probably go to occassionally if we were childless. A play park and a little wood. Zumba on a monday night (we tried it, it was very.... jiggly), possibly bingo some other time (we didn't try that), a charity cafe. Annual flower show, village hall art exhibition. A travelling puppet show came to visit a few months ago, did a show, which was nice. Old people's home. Friendly people who speak a dialect I don't quite understand yet.

Quite a lot of rain, drip, drip, incy wincy spider rain rain go away.

Then, two weeks ago, we discovered a hidden cafe half a mile out. It's up a little country lane, no sign it's there. We were slightly miffed when we found he'd been open three months already.

So we toddled up today, William and I, we knew a band were coming to visit. And I had an coffee and William had an icecream and a vinyl record played and we had a chat, and then the Banana Bag & Bodice crew turned up so Mike, the owner, lowered the steps to the mezzanine with a rope on a pulley and took the record off, and they all came in and said Hi and fell on the organ and the accordian and felt the need to get the trombone out of the car and play some tunes, even though there were only a handful of us there and it was FECKING AWESOME. Achem.

They're from New York and California by the way, but they're touring all over. And if you ever get the chance to go see you should, because if the aforementioned awesomeage and also just being some of the nicest people I've stumbled across, ever.

More on the hidden cafe later, there's so much more to that place.

Seriously. Could not stop smiling.