After a break since earlier this year, I got out walking again with Anne – we did a little walk up Castlelaw Hill to check out her knees! All seems well, thankfully. It was an extremely windy day, but our walk slotted in nicely between showers so we didn’t get wet.
I enjoyed playing with the Greenbank Buskers again for the annual youth ceilidh. The fiddle needs its exercise! Here’s the best photo of the band (until the Facebook link breaks).
The band personnel always depends on who’s available, but it’s always good fun to play with these great people.
We were through in Gatehouse and went to the Masonic Arms for their regular Thursday evening session. We had been once or twice before but not found anyone there – this time some great musicians turned up, singers, guitars, a bass (electric with small amp), moothie, bodhran, tea chest – great stuff with a fine mix of songs and tunes.
An absolutely great session today, with a lovely mix of instruments. When I stopped playing to listen it sounded great
Apart from Steff’s sparkly Christmas tree plant, we haven’t had any plant life in the house for ages. I decided that I would like – at the very least – to start growing spider plants again. I used to have a lot of them, because I found them fairly unkillable and they propagate by producing babies very easily. A few days ago I ordered one from Waitrose (I couldn’t find them in local shops) and it’s arrived. A magnificent specimen with lots of babies already, so we’ll soon have a few more.
We moved on from Devon to Cornwall, where we stayed in Mevagissey. We saw the Eden Project, which was really great, and had a nice trip over to Perranporth so that I could get in the sea in the sunshine.
We were in Devon and Cornwall after Halsway, and somewhere I have wanted to visit for a long time is the Eden Project. In particular I wanted to see the biomes – two large climate controlled zones made from geodesic dome sections, built in an old clay pit.
After Halsway we has a few days in Devon and Cornwall. In Devon we stayed at the Duke of York in Iddesleigh, a lovely little village quite a long way from most places.
Early September means the annual Halsway nyckelharpa meeting. This year Marwyn attended as a non-participant (i.e. groupie!) and enjoyed the concert and sessions (and catching up with her Swedish). I enjoyed the workshops and wished I could have been at all of them – the guest musicians were Josefina Paulson and Torbjörn Näsbom, with Vicki Swan also teaching some fascinating stuff (as well as organising the whole thing).
One feature was the increased number of gammelharpor (old style instruments) and their relations – not from the original period, but built recently (including my kontrabasharpa). The photo of Vicki’s Moraharpa (I thought it was Scott’s – they come from the same maker!) is one of several (along with measurements) I took – now I wonder what a future project could possibly be?
I enjoyed a great session in the Boda Bar this evening hosted by Alice Thorsell. Lots of great tunes (pretty international, though lots of Swedish and Scottish) and good to see other session friends there. I will be back! For a change, I took the fiddle – nice to give it some exercise, and I played a few Swedish tunes on it that previously I have only played on the nyckelharpa. G minor is very good for my fingering 🙂 No photos, sorry.
