Ooops! Catch-up.

Oops, have neglected this shamefully this year. Mostly due to having way too much fun stuff to do and being either far too knackered or off to write anything inbetweentimes.

Shall try to recap.

Festivals I Have Been To.

Holmfirth - Great fun. Spent most of it hanging around with Stone Monkey Rapper who are lovely and saw, amongst others, Belshazzar's Feast, Rachel McShane and Pete Coe who were all brilliant. Got hugged by a morris dancer who was dancing on (took me a second to work out who it was!) and had a great evening in the session at the Cricket Club.
The Big Session - Just as awesome as last yeareven with the pouring rain on the Friday. Oysterband were brilliant in both their gigs, Chopper's solo stuff is lovely, Alan's stuff was great fun again. Saw the Proclaimers and realised a lifetime ambition I never knew I had (to hear them sing '500 Miles' live), really enjoyed Cara Dillon's set (which was a surprise since I can usually take or leave her stuff), loved Kerfuffle, enjoyed dancing to Whapweasel and discovered Megson and the Moulettes.
Ely Folk Festival - Blazingly hot weather, lovely little festival. Thoroughly enjoyed myself. Oysterband, Faustus, Demon Barbers, The Woodshed, Beckleberry, Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley, Colvin Quarmby and John Tams and Barry Coope were all amazing. Met loads of people I knew, had fun at the French dance workshop and got thoroughly freaked out by how flat the land is there. Awesome weekend.
Whitby Folk Week - Amazing week. Hung around with Snark Rapper, played my fiddle in the beginners' sessions, learnt some cool new rapper figures, danced my socks off, loved the Dance Challenge between Chiltern Hundreds and Snark rapper, had an awesome night with all the sword dancers at Beck Hole, got to watch sam Sweeney and Hannah James while stewarding and had a really good time at the Northumbrian Ceilidh.
Shrewsbury - So much fun. Saw and loved Bellowhead, Belshazzar's Feast, Kerfuffle (last gig!), The Young 'Uns, The Wilsons, Kerr and Fagan (with and without Rob Habron), Fay Hield, Karen Matheson, Tickled Pink. All brilliant! Managed to play my fiddle through the Beginners' Session and loved John Kirkpatrick's 'Playing for Dancing' workshop.
Bromyard - Fun despite the rain. Belshazzar's Feast and Mike Wilson and Damien Barber were probably my favourites (both time both bands played) but Show of Hands, James Findlay, Fay Hield and Tri were also great fun. Whapweasel's ceilidh was lovely and I took my melodeon out for the first time for Issey Emney's workshop.

Concerts

Belshazzar's Feast - Saw them in Settle. Absolutely brilliant and so funny.
Spiers and Boden and Saltfishforty - Saw them in St Andrews. Enjoyed both of them as duos and they all played together really well in spite of the differing styles.
Mozart Festival Orchestra - Saw them in The Royal Albert Hall. Music was fantastic and the costumes were lovely. Might have accidently threatened to kill (and it was an honest accident) some german tourists beside me who would not stop talking (well, they did afterwards)
Bellowhead - Got an invite to the launch of Bellowhead's new album 'Hedonism' down in London. It was brilliant! They were so good in such a small space (and it was scary just how much of the audience I knew!) The new album is brilliant and they played it all the way through.
Spiers and Boden - saw them in Berwick. Really lovely weekend (got stared at by the seals off the pier) and the music was lovely and hilarious.

Rapper

Been a bit of a quiet year for rapper since DERT. We had one tour down Rose Street in the summer (fun but the football was on which dampened things a little.) We danced at the Anstruther Lifeboat Gala and then finished with a tourette in St Andrews which was good fun. We had a good day of practice for the DART team at The Village where I had another go at tumbling. Still not quite there but getting closer and I'm not giving up. We also had another soiree at The Village. Little more subdued for some reason than the previous one but still fun before we ended up at Trina's for mystery cocktails (which, is suspected, mostly consisted of vimto and slivovitz!). Apparently our team went down well in america at DART and I'm not jealous, not jealous at all.


In other areas, have got rid of Roger. There was too much too fix and parking was becoming an absolute nightmare. In one way it's incredibly annoying since I now really have to think hard before I want to go places again but in another way, it's a huge load off my mind. I managed before I got him, I'll manage again.
Attended the wedding of some reenactment friends at Craigmillar Castle. Lovely day, they both looked lovely in their medieval gear (ashamed to say I was in civvies since none of the kit I have is fit to be seen in nice places and I haven't had a chance to do any sewing this year), the company was good and there was a barn owl to drop off the rings.
Only managed one re-enactment event this year but it was a fun event in Inverness (where I managed to get quite a nasty sunburn despite linen coverings and factor 50 suncream!), multiperiod event at Fort George. Lovely to see the other time periods and nice to see the rest of the group as well.
Spent 2 weekends with Freaks in the Peaks. One was a normal dance weekend with blazing hot weather, and some fantastic sessions and the other was the canal trip which was wonderful. I ended up on the boat with Triskele rapper and we had a huge amount of fun on the gin slum as our boat became known. Some good fun dances (including the somewhat drunk gentleman who ran through the middle of a set with no trousers and only his hand to hide his modesty (as was pointed out later, he didn't really need the whole hand...) and some lovely scenery.

Lots of stuff coming as well. Will actually try to keep this thing up to date from now on.

Imagined Village and Winter Feast

Well, missed fiddle practice due to not feeling at all well. Am trying to remember what a sense of impending doom is symptomatic for but, for the life of me, I can't recall.

Off to Glasgow on Friday to meet up with some of Mons Meg and attachments to go and see The Imagined Village at Celtic Connections and eat curry. The curry was very nice but the concert was superb. They were being supported by Jackie Oates (who also guested with them) who was entertaining and had a lovely voice. They only played 'Cold, Haily, Windy Night' from their previous album which was a shame but it was more than made up for by the new stuff. My particular favourites were 'Space Girl' (possibly because of the Theromin. And possibly the duck in the Space Helmet) and 'Mermaids' (Although their version of Scarborough Fair has a nice Wicker Man feel to it). There was a freaky bit where there cellist (who is scarily bouncy) kept playing bits and then moving on to another instrument while that bit was still repeating and just building up a tune that way (although I feel that drinking a bottle of water in the middle of it was just showing off!). Whole thing finished off with 'Come on, Feel the Noise'. Much gentler version than the Slade original but the audience had fun joining in. (Those old enough to know the words. I am.) All of this was followed by Trina's scarily good Slade impression outside. Really good evening.

On Saturday, I came to greatly regret offering to make bread. My first batch died a sad death when I got caught up with cutting tatters for my coat and forgot to get them out of the oven (whole burrow now smells distressingly like burnt toast!). The next lot just refused to rise (possibly cause I was a little panicked and hurrying) and came out as hockey pucks (that career in the Dwarven Bakery beckons...). At this point I may have said 'Sod it!' and headed off to buy bread from Sainsburys.
The actual MidWinter feast was lovely. Lots of food (most of it cooked in alcohol and most of it meat, good old medieaval cookery), I got to wear my pointy C15th hood and look like an evil gremlin and just enjoy good company. At some point I am going to have to make some kit for his kind of occasion that isn't lower class. Quite fancy something either C18th or late Victorian since it wouldn't have to be period specific. Will have a muse.

Meant to do something constructive on Sunday. Didn't though.

Rapper Aftermath

Rapper practice last night was fun but not exactly energetic. This was partly because we had no musician but mostly because none of us were really awake. We did, as predicted, do a bit of stepping practice but I think I need to do quite a bit more in the burrow between fiddle practices to get up to scratch for DERT. Speaking of DERT, must send the booking form in.

Busy this week. Off to the library tonight, going to see Avatar in 3D with Vicki on Wednesday, fiddle class on Thursday, off to see The Imagined Village in Glasgow on Friday and then COSM's mid winter feast whatsit on Saturday. After that, Roger goes for his MOT.

It's very nice that the snow is now disappearing but the thaw is turning all the pavements into sheet ice and it's a little unnerving having to cling fences as I go (although, at least it's finally stopped my neighbour from cheerfully melting the ice outside our door each morning with water from her kettle...!) and that's with my walking boots on!

Must also get a move on with my tattercoat since the end of the month is creeping up. I have the shirt, I have the tatters, I just need to bring them into conjunction.

Mons Meg Soiree

Had fun at Vicki's on Friday. We watched 'The Librarian; Quest for the Spear' which was hilariously bad. Apparently there are 2 sequels. Must look our for these.

Saturday was the Mons Meg ceilidh thing which has become known as 'The Soiree'. Was a little late meeting up with folks at Nobles (a pub which might have been built for rapper) for tea because I had to wait for the telephone repairman. On the other hand, I now have a working phone for the first time in months, which is nice. Now I just have to work on the Tv and the heating... Anyhow, had a nice tea (and got given a soft toy duck billed platypus by Trina. I have named him Bruce) and then decamped to The Village Inn. Absolutely fantastic evening.

We got things off to a cracking start with one of out better perfomances of our Number 1 dance (Our Winlaton, later on, went well except for the stepping. May need to work on that!), this was followed by story-telling from Kev with bemused accompaniament on the pipes from Andy, some Jake Thackery songs from Ian and random silly songs from various others (special mention goes to John and his kazoo and Stretch's Edinburgh version of 'Gorgie on My Mind'). We had some ceilidh dancing and Hazel had her first dance out in public which went really well. I believe there are (or soon will be photos up on the Mons Meg website http://www.monsmeg.com/Gallery.html )
After this we retreated to Trina's and continued with the silly songs and some more music. It might have been a mistake letting Trina make me cocktails. Apparently Vimto and Slivovitz (or however that is spelled. I don't even know what it is!) were involved. At any rate I was very giggly and chattery and at some point found a medical text book which I was apparently very happy about. Ended up spending the night and felt fine in the morning but I didn't think it was a good idea to try driving to Cupar so rang up and made my excuses and missed the COSM meeting. However, volunteered to make bread over the phone (well, in the kitchen. I know what I mean)
Slept for a little while when I got home and the went to see Sherlock Holmes again. Vicki has told me that there is a shot where the bridge is intact and I have become obsessed with finding it but I keep getting distracted. Besides, it's warm in the cinema!
Fantastic night out though. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and want to do it again. Hope we do.
Anyhow, rapper tonight (I suspect we may be practicing stepping in 8's).

Familiar Fiddle Tune

Started learning Mairi's Wedding at class last night. I found I was either singing along or running through the dance in my head so paying no attention to actually playing the thing at all. Might need to put a stop to that.

Yet another fire alarm this morning (I now strongly suspect a devious scheme by work to get us to go for walks in the morning!). There is now another snowbunny (with slightly better eyesight) flanking my snowgremlin.

Roger's behaving himself which makes me think he's up to something but at least it means I can get to the Post Office depot tonight to collect an Amazon parcel which (I hope) contains some books including 'The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard' by Arthur Conan Doyle which I used to have years ago in Northumberland but was sadly lost to time. Should also hopefully contain Vicki's Christmas present since I'm off there tonight. Have decided to leave the library till next week.

As well as Mons Meg's do, have a COSM meeting in Cupar on Sunday. Hope the roads are clear. Apparently we're organising cooking for our Mid-Winter Feast next week. I think I shall volunteer to make bread if I can since that's pretty much my limit in a modern kitchen. (Hopefully it should go better than my attempts at Linlithgow!)

Am planning to go along to the Irish Set classes when I get the chance (ie not this week cause of Vicki and not next week when I'm going to see The Imagined Village) so we'll see how that goes.