Waiting for the doors to open

A couple of days in Rye at their Jazz Festival. We booked to see Eric Bibb tonight and Seth Lakeman tomorrow, staying overnight in a hotel in the town.

Rye is an ancient town in East Sussex, once on the coast but now a few miles from the sea. Full of old buildings and cobbled streets and St Mary's Church in which tonight's concert was held.

We arrived at around 3.30pm, walked along the banks of the River Rother for a few miles in glorious weather, following the track of the old Rye and Camber Railway still embedded in the road after all these years.

Eric Bib was superb even if the pews were hard and uncomfortable and the view of the stage less than satisfactory. A great mix of energetic blues as well as more upbeat songs that had great guitar riffs and fascinating lyrics. We'd heard Eric as part of the Transatlantic Sessions shows, CDs and DVDs of which we are great fans and about which I've written before.

But the day was made by a late evening call from Chris and De'Shaun in San Marcos in California where they were hosting a "gender reveal" event at their baby shower. We were delighted to learn that the baby, due at the end of October, will be a boy and his name will be Landon Arthur Noakes. I was really moved that they'd chosen Arthur as that was my Dad's and Chris's Grandad's name so his name and memory will live on.

Chris was "over the moon" really hoping for a son. They'll send a video of the event where will can see Chris's reaction when the gender was revealed. (A blue balloon in one box a pink balloon in another box - the balloon with the gender was filled with helium - they each opened a box and the boy balloon rose from the box)