Well, this more like it. Two and a bit years into retirement and as regular readers will know, the ‘I’ time experiences have been few and far between. But last Friday we all set sail for our ‘I’ time cruise. ‘We all’ being the Tuesday night crowd from the Cornerhouse, that’s little Kev, Dom, Ray, Paul, Pete, Mike, Rob, big Kev, David and me together with five guitars and a selection of shakers and harmonicas.


The Tuesday before we set sail we are all down the Cornerhouse planning the week-end cruise. It is the annual festival of Art, Music and Culture in Amsterdam which the Tuesday crowd have arranged for themselves for the past seventeen or so years. Some of these guys are now experts on the museums and galleries of Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum are common place to the Tuesday crowd. The Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art and the Museum Rembrandthuis hold no fears for this crowd, the Museum Van Loon-A Home on the Canal and the Amsterdam Historical Museum feature as usual haunts.


I am looking forward to the weekend reflecting on the finer things in life, to appreciate art and culture to the full.


We board the ferry at seven o-clock and arrange to meet in Irish Bar at seven thirty. Obviously we are to start the evening with a little Irish culture. Well there is certainly guinness to drink so I suppose that counts. Presumably we will discuss art and culture over dinner. The pre-booked all you can eat buffet dinner is excellent except that as you may guess with my lack of will power in the food department I eat too much. But it’s not really my fault, it’s just that my brain translates ‘all you can eat’ into ‘you can eat it all’. Dinner with wine and liqueurs is followed by the odd beer, gin, whiskey etc. and finally a low key impromptu gig in the Piano Lounge. Whilst everyone else is drinking I, of course am left wandering what happened to the culture, must be tomorrow.


Breakfast comes too soon for some and even I am struggling with a second helping of bacon and egg and can only manage one slice of toast and marmalade. Then it’s off to Amsterdam.


On arrival we have coffee and a bun or maybe a cake in the usual coffee shop followed by some free time, for some it’s the flower market, for others it’s the music scene with the purchase of yet another guitar and yet another harmonica and a few more things to shake. The transport museum is the destination of some while Ray continues his in-depth study of the Oriental influence on local trade and commerce. The free time is soon over and we all meet for a few beers in a bar somewhere behind The Krasnapolsky hotel in Dam Square to discuss culture in more depth.


We visit another bar to discuss more culture before moving to a different bar to discuss even more culture. Fitted in between is some busking in Dam Square and a little shopping.


Then back to the ferry for our trip back home and as far as I can see culture hasn’t figured too strongly in the day. Am I disappointed? Not at all, it’s been a very good day.


Another large dinner with drinks is followed by a spell in the casino before settling in the piano bar again complete with guitars and shakers. The pianist takes the night off as Dom, Paul and Kev set the room alight with a display which overshadows the ferry boats usual concert performers, well that’s what Dom, Paul and Kev said anyway. It is certainly very entertaining, other passengers join in and requests are played, although I am pleased that Kev only manages the first fifteen verses of ‘Those were the days’ before his voice gives out........!


An excellent week-end away and I now understand that Amsterdam is only peripheral to the trip, it is the ferry trip out and back that makes the event what it is. Good company with plenty to eat, plenty to drink and plenty of good music. This is definitely what ‘I’ days should be about. Roll on next year.