HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh... I know... it's already the sixth day of 2009 and this is the first time I've blogged this year. Just as well, I didn't make any New Year resolution to post a blog every day.
Do people seriously make New Year resolutions these days?
I know myself too well even to kid myself on about it.
New Year means very little to me... except that is when I get to go away for a couple of nights to the Fiddle Force Winter School, held for the last 9 or 10 years at Wiston Lodge. [the photograph above shows the low afternoon sunlight casting shadows through some of Wiston's woodland]
It has been a busy end to 2008 and start to 2009 for me with lots of funerals to conduct, so the chance to go away and forget things for a day or two is virtually irresistible.


Highlights of Fiddle Force 2009?

• some excellent tunes, great advice and good laughs from tutor Alasdair White

• improvising to some great old-time stuff from some of the Wiston folk, a mixture of blues, skiffle, American folk and who-knows-what-else

• playing tunes till 3.30am

• catching up with friends, many of whom I only see once a year

• some great conversations

• good food and plenty of it

Lowlights?

• it was cold!!! And I mean, cold!! (Outside and inside the house, in spite of the log fires.)

• leaving on the Sunday afternoon I managed to reverse my car into a big block of sandstone that was just too low to be visible in my wing mirrors... crunch!! So it turned out to be a pretty expensive weekend after all.

Anyway, I still think it is good to start the year with music.

If anybody still reads this stuff, may I wish you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.