Fleetwood is a ginger tailless (thanks to a road accident) habitue
of folk music pub sessions around Midlothian (south of Edinburgh)
and folk festivals in the north of England, where he goes with his
hoomins in a camper van.  (I can't find where his web page has gone).
Usually he just sleeps through the music in his basket.  Tonight he
was at a twice-yearly bluegrass session in the Sun Inn, a pub just
outside this village (it's in aid of the Macmillan cancer nurses).
Usual deal, Fleetwood's basket goes up on a shoulder-high cupboard
in a corner where he shares the space with a few instrument cases.
There's a small table directly below it where his hoomins sit (Bruce
playing the dobro, Jill doesn't play or sing bluegrass, and there's
a rather quiet mandolin player at the table as well).  My table is
next to that, shared with a woman singer/guitarist.  (I'm playing
Puerto Rican cuatro, clarinets and washboard).  He spends the first
hour in the pub sound asleep.

Up near the ceiling there is an 00-gauge model train that runs round
behind the bar counter and over to the other side of the room.  We
*think* it might have had something to do with what happened - it was
turned on, and maybe there was some stray current or unexpected motor
noise.  Anyway, Fleetwood suddenly shot into the air as if he'd been
plugged into the mains, back legs flailing like something out of a
Warner Bros cartoon, did a couple of somersaults and crashed into
the table below, scattering a full pint of beer over the singer/
guitarist's skirt and two glasses of wine in other directions, then
cannoned off the table arresting his fall by lacerating Jill and the
mandolin player in the wrists, ending up under a bar stool hissing.
Somehow all the flying fur and alcohol missed me and my instruments
entirely, and I don't think the landlord saw any of it (or Fleetwood
would have been summarily bounced).  A few minutes later he was back
in his basket sound asleep again and stayed that way for the rest of
the evening.

And no I couldn't tell you what song we were playing at the time.

==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts