Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I think I’ve blipped the band’s new smoke machine before, but it went into overdrive at last nights gig! And there wasn’t even anyone operating it as we were just sitting around chatting between sets. It was when we realised that we couldn’t see most of the stage that action had to be taken. Machine turned off and side door opened to try and clear the smoke. Unfortunately, the breeze coming in was so strong that it just blew all the smoke away from the stage and dumped it behind the bar! It did dissipate eventually, but there was a definite haze in the air for the rest of the night.
I didn’t get home until 1.30 - thankfully it had stopped raining and the earlier floods on the roads had pretty much drained away so it was quite a good journey. Which is more than could be said for Mrs C’s return from Manchester. She set off to come home around 5.30 but didn’t get in the house until an hour before me! The storms had brought down trees on to overhead lines so there were no trains out of Piccadilly. And no trams to Victoria because that line was out of action. After walking to Victoria - in the wind and rain - she managed (after a very long wait) to get a train to Wigan and then to Preston. Where she was informed no trains were going north, there were no buses and all taxis available had been utilised. The - somewhat unhelpful - advice at the station was to try and find a hotel for the night and hope the train operator would reimburse her.
I said I could pick her up after the gig, but it would have been about 2am by the time I got there. Luckily the husband of the friend she was with was eventually able to drive down from Kendal and collect them, but it was still a long, cold and tiring journey.
So we’ve not had much sleep, but did get up in time for a coffee and a bit of shopping in town this morning. I’ve had to go to Panto rehearsal this afternoon so I suspect I’ll crash and burn later this evening. I think Mrs C was - sensibly - planning an afternoon in front of the fire watching Christmas films on the telly. A wise choice.