It was such fun up at Cafe Mapleton this morning when I stopped in for a late breakfast
Stuart a frequent patron was there having brekky on his way to the Mens shed showing off a really impressive sculpture he had just created and telling me how years ago he had found an old rusty military vehicle in a paddock cut into three parts and had restored it and sold it to the Canberra war memorial for a cool $70.000 and it is still there on display ( pretty impressive )
John and Laifun
Then the lovely Laifun coowner with John has been having guitar lessons came out of the kitchen to show us her progress on the guitar . So far her beginners repertoire is several songs including Horse With No Name and Brown Eyed Girl and she displayed excellent mastery of the two chords needed for the first and also a skillful handling of the rather large steel string guitar she was using She was genuinely delighted when I actually knew the words to Horse With No Name and could sing along with her then this other bloke arrived who was not only on an expert on the guitar but could play the spoons and the cafe was suddenly filled with rip roaring cheerful sound
It was true Laifun probably needed to brush up on her chord changes and the spoon player didn’t quite get the tempo right but what the hec we were makin music and by all accounts our impromptu ensemble was even appreciated by the other patrons sitting outside
John the other coowner and Laifuns partner was all smiles and sat there with a beaming look on his face which I am not sure was incredulity or wonder ….that his wifes progress on the guitar was really paying off or that we actually sounded not too bad …..
Coming from a similar part of the world as I do John and I reminisced about the delights of Little Boxes On The Hillside ……which used to be part of my repertoire on the guitar with the kids .
I had to cut the music and merriment short and get back to my packing for yet another house move but I promised to take my soprano and sopranino recorders along another time and regale them with some irish jigs and reels my fingers used to fairly fly over the notes to the irish washerwoman and Marys Wedding so we’ll see ……
Maybe I can persuade John and Laifun to have a regular open mic breakfast session at their lovely cafe .