Rock Of Ages

It's certainly been quiet in terms of the Blog recently - one post in November until now.  Not that I haven't been busy, of course.  I had a little recuperation time to kick (pun intended) my sciatica into touch and since then I've been laid up.  By laid up, I mean usually on my back with a gentleman wonderfully filling me with some seasonal spirit.  OK, not always.  Sometimes I've been on all fours whilst my visitor delivers his pleasurable parcel into my eager pussy, other times I've been riding on top, my lover bucking beneath my thighs like a pony over snow-covered fields.  But you get the idea.  It's not much to write about... well, it probably is, but I'm not entirely sure that each session should be documented that way!

Last weekend I headed east, all the way to.... Stockport.  The town was having it's monthly vintage fair, and with it being December, was Christmas-themed.  Not only that, but 'The Best Cake Shop In The World'®, The Hillgate Cakery, was having it's first birthday and I wanted to be there to celebrate with the fantastic team... and have cake at the same time.  Who says you can't have your cake and eat it.  Ha!

I went for my rather fetishy 'Lady In Leather' look - leather jacket, leather-look tight jeans and over-knee boots - hoping they would keep out the chill of Sunday morning Stockport.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - leather lady in Stockport.

I had a look around the vintage market before enjoying some Biscotti 'birthday cake' with friends at The Hillgate Cakery.  A lovely way to spend the morning.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - leather lady in Stockport

I headed back home early just as the Christmas crowds began to arrive.

Because, of course... Christmas Is Coming.  The words should sometimes, I think, be said with that portent of doom like 'Winter Is Coming' from Game Of Thrones...

A time for seeing friends and family, and as I get older there seems to be more a sense almost of celebrating the surviving of another Christmas, another year.  This year I've seen the passing of people like Dave Playpenz from Club Submission and the gloriously talented China Hamilton.  Friends and family age, too, and with the passing of time the scars of survival begin to work their way to the surface, shattered splinters from the battles of life.

Through the rushing waters of time we are accompanied by the music of our lives, its sounds entwine in our memories as threads running through the tapestry of time.  Whilst visiting friends recently we ended watching random stuff on a TV music channel - a swirling kaleidoscope music from our teens, twenties, thirties and onwards.  Yazz - 'The Only Way Is Up' was played... from 1988 when I was 16 - is thirty years old now.  Others in the group remembered hazy seventies summers listening to the new Eagles album 'Hotel California' on an 'eight-track' in their old Ford Escorts and Minis.  Faces delighted in memories unfolded by the music, Bowie and Slade gracing Top Of The Tops on a Thursday night, seventies girls in tiny hotpants, bra-less under their small tight t-shirts in the hot endless summers of the seventies.  Christmas is a good example.  I remember the first Band Aid song in 1984, the harrowing images of that terrible time in Ethiopia - even though we later learnt most of the trouble came from the hands of politicians of the country.  Other older friends remember the release of Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody' (1973 - I was one at the time), or the year John Lennon was shot (1980).   The sounds took us all back to different times, all invaluable, all personal, but many shared.

This year I saw Garbage celebrating twenty years of their break-through album Version 2.0.  Last week it was another celebration by a band of another seminal album - Def Leppard and an incredible thirty year birthday of the album Hysteria.

THIRTY years.  Talk about marking the passing of time, and, like celebrating The Hillgate Cakery hitting their first birthday, was another party I didn't want to miss.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - are you ready to rock?

Supporting band Cheap Trick were having a celebration of their own - forty years since the 'Live At Budokan' album, which featured heavily on their setlist, and which I could see from my great position next to the stage.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Cheap Trick.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Cheap Trick.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Cheap Trick.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Cheap Trick.

They weren't really my thing, in truth - even if they got the crowd cheering for the classics like 'Surrender', 'Ain't That A Shame' and 'Dream Police', but they weren't helped by a pretty muddy and indistinct sound that seemed to jumble all three guitars into one wall of sound - made perhaps worse with Tom Petersson using eight and twelve-string bass guitars and lead guitarist Rick Nielson producing a 5-neck guitar for the last couple of songs.  Dream Police was pretty good, though.

Half an hour later Sheffield rockers Def Leppard arrived on stage - and for the remainder of the night powered through the full Hysteria album with a few of their massive hits thrown in.  Superb.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Dexi Delite Altrincham and Manchester Escort - Def Leppard, Hysteria tour.

Hysteria was a turning point for the band, when drummer Rick Allen crashed his car during the extended recording sessions, losing an arm.  The band had to change their sound to incorporate Allen's half-electronic drum kit, but the perseverance paid off with the album becoming one of the biggest sellers of the 1980s.  The band took time in the gig to emotionally honour a fallen comrade of their own - Steve Clark, who died after the album's release.  Battle scars and the fallen, indeed.

So, Christmas is coming, and with it the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. The new year, doubtless, will bring it's own trials, tribulations, battles and victories.  For now I'll raise a glass to my own friends and family, and to those left behind.  As another glorious rock god, Chris Squire, sang...

"Are you hopeful, are you haunted,
By the ghost of Christmas past?
Face the future undaunted,
Step aside or take your chance...

Have yourselves that certain Christmas,
Eat, be glad and drink the wine, 
Leave your sadness by the river,
Giving love and given time..."

'Merry Christmas, Everybody' indeed.