Grow Your Blog

Today I am taking part in the Grow Your Blog blog party which was initiated by Vicky at 2 Bags Full Blog.   Thank you so much Vicki for doing this as an opportunity to meet new bloggers and extend our reach a bit.   There are over 400 bloggers taking part, so if you have a bit of time spare today, follow the link and take a look at some of the others who are writing today.  

Hello and Welcome 

A glorious day during the week

If you are a newcomer to my page here, then you are very welcome to my little corner of Ireland, by the sea, on the East Coast.   My name is Fil Campbell.  Fil is pronounced Phil - long story - Phil is a common short name for women here, but abroad, people expected a man to walk out on stage ...  So one very smart (not) record company manager suggested this more Irish, and more feminine we thought, spelling... Now people ask: "How do you pronounce your name?"  and proceed to tell me all the naughty means of the word in various languages around the world!!   Not the best decision I ever made, but I'm living with it and now love it.

I'm a singer - full stop, or period, as you say across the pond.   I get very burned out listening to music sometimes, because my days are all about singing - if I'm not out touring with my husband Tom then I'm working with individual singers at home, or with my community choir in the village or with various senior groups in the area.   I also write music, put music to other people's words as well as sometimes writing my own, and  at the moment am setting some poetry to music for a show about Women's Emigration from Eastern Europe to Ireland.  In the past I've narrated TV documentaries about Irish women singers, and have also presented radio programmes on folk music, something which I would dearly love to get back into.

Already the first snowdrops are out for the first days of Spring
which is the 1st February in the Celtic Calendar

On blogging

I've been blogging on and off for a while and mostly write about my travels or about Irish folk music and singer songwriters in general.  I love the community that exists here and on a break from writing recently, I realised that this has become quite an important part of my life now and the people in it are in my thoughts often.   They have become friends in far flung places and I love reading about their day to day lives.

Crafting, particularly knitting, is my other big passion in life, which is how I first came to Vicky's blog.   It has interested me for a while, to be able to take my skills further than simply following a patterne.  Hence the reason for following so many crafty blogs.   I suppose crafts and folk music do tend to go hand in hand.

A little giveaway

So in honour of  today I am offering a prize of a bundle of my CDs - just leave a comment here and I will pick a name at random.   You don't have to have a blog to enter, and I'm happy to post to any place in the world.   Some of my CDs are of old Irish folk songs, and others are more contemporary folk - a mixture of my own songs and those of other writers.   The winner will be announced on February 15th along with all the other people who are offering prizes today as part of this Blog Party.

It's been lovely to meet you ...

Please leave me a comment to say hello and do tell me where you come from ... I inherited a love of maps from my father and to this day it's a delight to me having friends all around the world.  And if you have time, stay a while and look around.

I'm off now to have a look around some of the other people in this years Grow Your Blog challenge.  Have a lovely week.

Oh by the way this is me at a recent songwriting retreat ... getting to play this most beautiful grand piano.