Bandidos

Our friends Neil and Diane often host bands to play at their home on Cowichan Bay. On this occasion, they had The Bandidos, a Mexican band from Melaque/Barra de Navidad. We’d seen The Bandidos on several occasions in Melaque so were really looking forward to seeing them again here.

They arrived in BC a couple of months ago and have been playing in the Okanagan, on the lower mainland, and finally Vancouver Island.

It was a busy Thursday, I had two doctor’s appointments and then had to attend the regular mandatory pub meeting in the afternoon. We arrived in Cowichan Bay just before 5 pm and very much looking forward to a few drinks and some good music. We weren’t disappointed on either count.

The music started at about 6 pm and the food appeared soon after. Rosalie had made a seafood cake which we shared with Jim and Ylda. It was delicious.

There were about 70 people in attendance who had to pay a minimum $20 donation each, all given to the band, who played three sets during the evening. Some people danced.

Neil and Diane are doing a house exchange with some people from Portugal and their guests weren’t expected to make the show because of the ferry situation. However, they showed up about half an hour before the end.

I was surprised to find that Harry was actually English. He is a lawyer and I don’t know what Vanessa does. We had a great conversation with them and Ylda was happy to meet someone from her birth country to practice her Portuguese.

Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to cut back on drinking but I failed on this occasion, waking up with a bit of a hangover. It was a great evening and Neil and Dianne were gracious enough to let us stay overnight.

It was an early start the following day to catch the ferry to the mainland. We arrived at the terminal at 9:30 and were told that we would be on the 3:15 sailing; a six-hour wait. Fortunately, this was expected and Rosalie had packed a picnic lunch so the wait wasn’t too bad. As it turned out we managed to get onto the 12:45 sailing which left at 1:10 (?).

We got to Agassi at 5 pm and had a great weekend with the family including our great granddaughter Stevie’s first birthday party. All weekend was very smokey. It seems as if the whole mainland is on fire.