FUN in Gloucester

FUN stands for 'Friends Ukenited' - an informal group of players drawn from ukulele groups in Gloucestershire and beyond.  They've featured several times on this blog, but this was the first time I'd been able to join them since lockdown. To my delight, I was greeted like a long-lost friend, with hugs and kisses.

It was cold!

The guy on the right with his festive red jumper and low-slung ukulele is our amazing leader Terry, who somehow keeps us all playing and singing in time and in tune.  "We never practice together," he explains to the small group of onlookers. "Perhaps you can tell!" I'm on the far left - playing, singing and gradually freezing.

Many of the FUN events either take place far from my home, or on days when I have other commitments, but when this one appeared on the group's Facebook page I immediately put it in my diary.  

Being Christmas, we rattled through our Winter Songbook with old favourites such as Jingle Bells, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Frosty the Snowman and (of course) Merry Christmas Everybody.  I also found myself singing a little Hawaiian (Mele Kalikimaka), Italian (Dominic the Donkey) and Spanish (Feliz Navidad).  Next year, Cornish maybe?  "Is there a good one?" I ask myself.

My only disappointment was that that there weren't many people in King's Square to hear us. Quite why the local Rotarians (the business folk of the city?) set up their stand in a place where there were no shops is a mystery to me, especially as buskers were playing to large crowds in nearby Eastgate.