Hello,

Gosh it's been ages since I've checked in here and I thought it was time to come by and reassure everyone that I'm still here - thanks Susan for the nudge.   

Under the beech tree on the garage roof
They're all in hiding now

It's a miserable day here and I've nailed myself to the desk to do some catching up and start getting work stuff ready for Christmas.   I have a real love hate relationship with Christmas preparations - as soon as I see things in the shops in October I want the biscuits and puddings and then I turn into Scrooge and don't want to hear a carol or see a decoration until Christmas week.   That all being said I made my cake at the weekend and start the choir on Christmas songs tomorrow - eek!  

We've been running between two houses since Mum passed away and for several months before that, and our own house was looking kind of unloved and unlived-in for a while.   We needed a concerted offensive on spiders - where are they all coming from! - and now it's just taking a day to feel like home again each time we come back.   

A lot of clearing out has been done and if this rain ever stops I have a gardener waiting to help me make her garden more manageable when we're not living there full time.  The penalty for living so close to the Atlantic is rain 90% of the time according to the builder who'd been doing some fixing up for us.  It dumps on Donegal and Fermanagh first so that by the time it gets to us here in Co. Down it has tamed down a bit.   I think people in Cornwall and Devon are the same.  

My lovely mum Margaret or Marguerite as she was known on one side of the family,
who passed away in July.  
She was 3 weeks away from her 95th birthday.  

Mum was a great crafter.   A life long member of the ICA (the Irish Countrywomen's Association, the Irish equivalent of the Women's Institute), she knitted and crocheted, made our clothes, embroidered my Irish dancing costumes and tried her hand at every new thing that came along.  Right up until a few days before she died she was still asking us to bring her crochet into the hospital to her.   And like every crafter she had endless supplies of everything needed - for every new craft!  So I have two trunks and two cupboards full of patterns and material and tools dating back to the late 50s and as yet I've not tackled the attic!  And that's after giving away enough wool for two or three blankets at least.   It's a real treasure trove and although I can hear her asking why I'm poking around in her stuff, I'm enjoying what I find.   Problem is I also have those collectors instincts and already have a house full of stuff that'll never be touched again!

Saxophone on a folk album you ask!!
Channelling our inner Van the man band on a couple of songs

We finally got back to recording over the past couple of weeks, finishing up pieces that we need other people to play on and fingers crossed the album will be totally finished by the end of this month. 

Tom at work making everything sound good.

We'll have a song out on digital platforms for Christmas and the album will hopefully have a February launch.   So normal service is returning.

Ah!  concertina!  That's more like folk

I find it hard to find up beat things to talk about when life isn't going so smoothly and I hate writing doom and gloom  - there's enough of that in the world.   But I'll be back at some point.  

Thanks for reading.   

Fil x

Updates from here

Things have been a bit manic here and I'm a bit the worse for wear at this stage, but the end is in sight.   

summer colour in spite of the cold

My brother arrived home from Australia on Sunday for a month long visit to stay with Mum, which has freed our time a bit for a few weeks to let the end of term run out, get choir performances done and get the album finished.   Unfortunately new medicine I've been on has not agreed with me and I'm struggling putting one foot in front of the other at the minute - isn't that always the way - never feel poorly when you've loads of time to be sick in ... humph.   Anyway, this too shall pass as some wise person once said.  

Break out the champagne ... We had a successful crowdfunding project on Kickstarter - hit our target a few days ago and the time isn't up until tonight at midnight so we're delighted with that.   A couple of very generous friends asked us to do special concerts which we are only to happy to do and they lifted the total well up between them.   

Terrible photo but drum set up in the living room

Now we're finishing up our bits of recording.   I have to say this has been a most enjoyable experience.  Every room in the house has been used and as if by magic it all disappears in the evening.  

guitar studio in the bedroom

 Yesterday and today I've been engineering for Tom to add his percussion parts and I'm getting to grips with all the technical terms - I am now someone who knows that a bus is not only a means of transport!!  Mind you I can't explain it much beyond that but it's something to do with sound recording lol. 

For the next few days now we'll do backing vocals and final vocals while other musicians are adding parts to songs remotely.   On previous recordings we brought a musician in for a day to add their instrument to several tracks, but now most musicians have the facility to record in their own studio and send the parts back.    So there's bass, fiddle and keyboards going on to some songs and we've a few minor things to add then - perhaps an harmonica on one or two songs and we're looking for a nice wooden flute player.   I've never gotten around to buying my wooden flute but I will do that over the winter - mind you my wish list of instruments never seems to get smaller - let me see: I need another guitar, a ukulele (even though I'm not a fan of the instrument, but it may have uses in recording ), a wooden flute and a shruti box.   I think I'll have to keep doing the lottery.  As you can see my annoyance with music has diminished - the rest over covid has really done me good - that and constant playing with paints and papers.   Now to get the medicines sorted, get a wee break and hope that my mum keeps improving.   She'll be 95 next month so we'll look forward to that.      

And of course, I can't go without the squirrel updates :)  Our morning entertainment ... 

Count the tails!!!

there was another one on the ground

... if the sun is shining they are really red but if it's dull they seem much browner.  I really must learn to take better photos but the wee brats won't sit still long enough for a good pose - they need training :)

Til the next time, stay well and safe.  

World Bee Day

Today marked World Bee Day according to Positive News Magazine.   Is there a day to celebrate everything now?  Mind you the bees need celebrating.   

Our neighbour John keeps bees so our garden is full of them at the minute.   The cotoneaster is starting to bloom and they're all over it and we left a lot of dandelions until their blooms had disappeared.  The bluebells though don't seem to attract them in the same way.  I've also seen quite a few bumble bees around - they're really fun to watch, just getting on with their business and burrowing into the ground. 

And then I've become addicted to the Spelling Bee - another NYTimes puzzle alongside Wordle - are you on the Wordle fad yet?  Apart from the really annoying American spelling of words it's a good brain challenge.   I've reach Queen Bee status a couple of times on the Spelling Bee and they have absolutely beautiful bee pictures - a couple of which I have appropriated here.  

In other news we are progressing well with recording on the new album which we now have a working title for - Shoreline.   Our fundraiser on Kickstarter got off to a good start and we're on schedule to have all the guide tracks finished in another 10 days or so, barring more hospital appointments for mum.   We're down with her every weekend now so the week and our brains are split - I keep trying to walk through a window to get to the loo in the middle of the night - it's very disorientating moving between two beds on a regular basis.  It's around now that I wish that I'd got a 'proper job' with a pension and paid sick leave when I had the chance and when petrol didn't administer heart failure every time you went to fill up the car.   A bit late now.  But all will work out.  

So once the guide tracks, or the skeleton tracks as I like to call them, are done, then it's time to add the little bits of other instruments.   Nowadays that's mostly done remotely - we send tracks to a keyboard player or guitarist or fiddle player and they add their bits and send it back for finishing.   So then when all the songs are completed to our satisfaction we put final vocals and harmonies on the tracks and start mixing - that's when the fun really begins.  

We hope to have a sample of one of the songs in a basic form shortly. 

Images removed due to copyright infringement ... 

The Squirrels babies are here ...

 I just had to share this ... 

In the middle of the recording this afternoon I looked out the window and we had four feeding together ... how fabulous.  

Thank you for all your comments the other day - much appreciated :) xx

Too much

Sing for Earth Day Rostrevor 
singing in the forest after a morning workshop learning songs to praise the Earth.

It's been such a long time since I posted here - nearly three months - that I hardly know how to start writing.   It's not that there's been anything overly dramatic happening that has kept me away, just an accumulation of too much.   Too much distraction, too much general illness, too much tiredness, just too much.  Anyway, I'm back for now - not promising anything more than that, just to say hello and let you know we're all still alive here! 

So what have I been up to? 

We had a first trip of the year over to Scotland to do a couple of folk club gigs last month - it was harder than usual to get ourselves wound up and started, but by the third gig we were back in our stride again and the fourth gig of the week, when we got back home again, was superb. Great energy.  

crossing bridges in Scotland

My extra two new choirs have been enjoyable but I'm finding it hard to keep my energy up for three nights a week, especially during the dark months, driving on country roads and leaving a roaring fire after an early dinner.   Now with the brighter evenings it's not quite as bad.   But the one off workshops I've been doing -for International Women's Day and for Earth Day, have been very enjoyable.   I think I'd like to do more of those.   

Recording wise we're making good progress, finishing songs and getting guide tracks completed, ready for other musicians to add sparkle to them.   We are launching a crowdfunding campaign to presell that CD and get people involved with the process.   Here's the link if you're interested in contributing.  You can hear one of the songs which will be a single - People - in the background of the video.    

The view from Carrick Cottage Cafe in the Mournes on a sunny Easter Tuesday - heavenly.
The Isle of Man was visible in the distance and the place was absolutely packed. 

The garden is starting to perk up and I'm so excited to see that my wisteria has finally bloomed - I've always loved seeing very old wisteria after being in a house once on Orkney where the conservatory was just full of blooms and from there the whole house was filled with the heady smell.   I think I planted this one 5 years ago and patience has finally won out.  

Over Covid I've had more time to play with paper and paints and have dabbled with junk journalling which I really enjoy - it's great not to have to be brilliant at something and just enjoy sticking things in a book with glue. 

and playing with found poetry 

I think the best part of this pastime is all the bits to be bought - sweetie shop for grown ups lol. 

I have been dropping in from time to time to catch up with your writings and I was very grateful to Susan for getting in touch a while back to see if we were ok - I appreciated it so much Susan and hope I didn't scare you off with my ranting - it wasn't the best day when I wrote back !

Take care everyone and belated Bealtaine greetings. 

Blessings of Brigid's Day

 Beannachtai lá Féile Bhríde Ort

Blessings of Brigid's Day to you and yours

1st February, Imbolc, Brigid's Day, the start of Spring

I hope you are all keeping well.   We've had a lovely start to the year in this part of the world - bright skies and mild days.

Now the days are getting noticeably longer and there are the first signs of Spring. 

We've been busy in our recording studio finishing a new song to mark the day

Check out First of February here on YouTube

I had my first go at making a Brigid's cross with rushes I collected near my home house in Belleek.  You'll spot a little clip of me making it in the video of the song.  

Take care and enjoy the coming spring.