Red hot mamma moment

I spent today (after a lovely sleep-in) working on a design project that has boiled hot and cold for the last four months, and is finally at Deadline stage. So the day was spent tweaking and polishing, and nipping into Facebook to play a bit of scrabulous, then back out for more tweaking and polishing.

I wasn't finished in time to go to the whole of one of Barbara Blackman's periodical soirees (she's a friend of BB and his family), but I dropped in towards the end to pick up BB, who was ruddy and jolly from lashing of champers, and caught a fabulous blues jam involving Tony Hill (a writer who can play a mean piano) and classic jazz and blues belter Madam Pat.



If you look closely, you can see M. Pat reflected in the piano. She is 84 years old, in a wheelchair, but can still belt out a low growly hot mama blues better than anyone I've heard.

I sat beside the piano, absolutely thrilled and mesmerised. I tried to video her to record the sound, but the piano drowns her out and I was too shy to sit next to her with the camera rolling.

Magical. Twenty minutes of her singing that I will never forget. Ever.