A Roving We Will Go

We had such an unusual sight at our concert in Riesby in the North of Germany on Thursday night last when 12 Journeymen showed up at the gig - journeymen and women I should say.  The local newspapers were dying to get a photo and we were delighted to be included.

It is a very rare thing to see so many of them together - usually there is just one or two.  

Do you know about Journeymen?   In Germany they are called Travelling Workers and they're all craftsmen and women.   They wear an insignia on their tie to denote their craft - in this group there were carpenters, joiners, a blacksmith, a goldsmith, a pastry chef, and a metal worker - I didn't get to ask the rest.  They have a very strict code of conduct and practice and all of them wear their uniform with pride.

Journeymen  are apparently quite common now again in the German speaking world but one young man told me that apart from New Zealand and very occasionally in Ireland and Scotland, they're not known anywhere else.  If one comes to a business to ask for work, they must be given a job if there's a place for their skill and if there isn't, the business owner agrees to look after them until work is found.  This is a very old tradition and was a common way for a young man to gain an apprenticeship until the 1920s when the Nazis came to power and banned them as tramps.

They sign up for at least 3 years and a day and must stay travelling at least 50 kms away from their homeplace.   They must be single, have no children and no debts so they're not running away.   They leave home with €5 and can only have the same amount when they return - they only do this to gain experience in their work and not for monetary gain.   The word Journeyman comes from the French word Journée meaning a day as they are paid daily and the main reason for this journey is an apprenticeship.

And the reason there were so many?  Well one of the girls was finishing her time on the road, after 4 1/2 years, and the rest came to walk her home.  They still had 20 kms to go from here.  And she was going home to get married to one of the others who had left 2 years earlier but came back to join the troupe for the walk.

I asked one young man why he had decided to do this and he said that it symbolised freedom for him.  In this world where people are so afraid of strangers, I think this is a wonderful thing.  By the time they have finished their time as a journeyman they are a master at their craft.  This Wikipedia article is a very interesting article if you'd like to read more about the tradition which is known as on the Walz and indeed the song Waltzing Matilda is about someone on this journey.

They were a really love bunch of people and I felt honoured to have met them.

If you're familiar with Irish or Scottish music, you'll maybe know this song - The Roving Journeyman, here sung by The Corries.

House concerts - the new folk clubs

In recent years, we've played quite a few house concerts.  They're an absolute joy.

Where someone has a large living room or a separate room they can use, it has taken the place of folk clubs in America and is now becoming popular all across Europe.  For the performer it's fun because we don't need a sound system and we're much closer to the audience and can judge when we need to change direction more quickly.  

Here's a snap shot of 3 that we did on the same tour, the year before last, in Europe.

Beside the piano in Michel and Christine's kitchen in Orsay

The audience in Orsay

Tom amusing people with his "eggs" solo

This one was the first concert of our 2015 tour to Europe - a house concert in Orsay just outside Paris where about 40 guests arrived into Christine and Michel's house, each bringing a dish of food with them.   Wine was served and we played a 80 minute set and then joined the visitors for a buffet supper which went on well into the night.   And it was the night before my birthday, although I'd mentioned it to no-one but it still felt like a special night for me.   Orsay is a University town so there were lots of international academics there, particularly physicists and internet security researchers for some reason which was really interesting plus I got a chance to practice my French. And I even got our one French song dusted off. 

The next day, my actual birthday, we spent the day on the road driving to Munich - it took us 11.5 hours .. yawn ... but we were still fresh at the beginning of the trip and it was actually not the worst way to pass the day.   We split the driving and got to our friends house to be greeted by a birthday cake and a lovely dinner. 

Supper time in Kanne's house

The next house concert came half way through - we took a day up into Denmark when we were in the North of Germany.  Our host there, Kanne, is a performer herself and she and her husband Jørn have a wonderful concert room.

Kanne getting the audience going

Another pause for food in Denmark

It's our second time there and because it was midweek she decided to just have a small evening - So she put on a 3 course meal for 30 people plus us!!  Small indeed.   And I'd only suggested that we'd pop up to see her for a couple of hours to have a coffee :)  She is such a delightful woman and we had a brilliant night, meeting up with lots of people who had visited the festival here in Rostrevor as well.  

The audience in Luxembourg

The concert room in Luxembourg

From there we headed back down into Germany, through Kiel and around Berlin and then made our last visit of the European leg of the tour into a small village in Luxembourg called Ell, where our host Soren had laid on a 3 course dinner for 60 people!   I kid you not.   We had champagne, did a set, went and joined the visitors for a fish starter, went back to the concert room for the second set and sold out of CDs, then back downstairs for the main course and desserts and cheese.  Again, like the other two nights we met lots of really interesting people.  In Luxembourg, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, everyone speaks at least 3 languages, most speak 4 and several speak 5 - fluently!.  When I asked which language should I use they said either German or French, but we all understand English - it was quite confusing at the start.   Eventually it ended up a mishmash of GerFranglais

photo courtesy of Romain at our house concert in Ell Luxembourg

Of course, there are much smaller house concerts too - we were just very fortunate on that trip.   We've done several in a sitting room with 8 or 10 people and had just as much fun - some are very regular events for the host and are run like a concert hall, others are very cosy and intimate and are about having friends around and supporting live music.

Have you ever been to a house concert?  Or have you hosted one?   What do you think? 

Some of the animals

The day after we arrived in Australia my lovely cousins took us out to Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria to see some of the local wildlife - a wonderfully relaxed way of spending the day after a long flight - I'd recommend it. It was very hot though, so some of the animals were very sleepy and staying in the shade.

Here's some of the residents...

Feeding the emus

Look at the colours of these guys - beautiful

She's got the food!! 

I can't remember the name of this bird, but it's a relative of the owls, not actually one. 

This raptor has a wingspan of 2.5 metres - huge bird

I don't want to meet him on a dark night

Or him ... although he's looking very proud and handsome here

Snakes alive

Tom having a chat with a baby wallaby

Wallaby

This fella was not for getting his photo taken -
feeding time is much more important than visitors to a Wombat

A Pelican hiding in the shade - how magnificent

Scavenger Hunt October 2015

Today is the start of the Celtic New Year - All Soul's Day.  I wish you all the blessings of the season.
It's been a lot harder getting time to blog regularly so this monthly scavenger hunt is a great way of reflecting on the month just passed.  A huge thank you to Greenthumb from Made with Love for hosting it.   If you have time, go on over the link and see some of the fabulous photos that the other participants put up.  It's a fantastic way of getting a peak into lives in different corners of our beautiful planet. 

The first half of October has been spent on the road, finishing up our European tour.  
It was a very enjoyable and successful trip, meeting up with lots of friends old and new, playing in a huge variety of venues - churches, clubs, an aircraft hangar!!, small theatres, and house concerts.

When we eventually made it home on the 19th, the adrenaline hit the bottom and the cold I'd been carrying started to do really well for itself - in fact it's still doing well!   But it has been lovely to be home and get my choirs started back singing again, preparing for the C word..  

So without further ado, here's my contribution for October's list.

Question

Are you looking at me?  We spotted this chap down in Co. Cork when we stopped off for a walk in Baltimore Forest on the day of our last gig of the tour.

Cream

I love my friend Kanne's creamy white decor - this is in Denmark - we did a house concert in the room at the back 

Number

Here in the North of Ireland we have miles but in the south it's Kilometres.  During our trip we drove just over 6000 kms - that's about 4,300 miles I think.  - nearly every day was governed by how far we needed to drive that day or how far to the nearest rest stop or lay-by.  kilometres are great - they go by so much quicker than miles!

Lattice

Driving in to Luxembourg, we passed this town hall, salle de fëte - a communal hall that can be rented for a small amount for family gatherings right through to big functions.  

I love the lattice work on these kind of buildings.

Familiar

Back in Ireland again - I loved the shades of Autumn here in Galtymore Forest.  In fact Autumn was beautiful everywhere we drove.

Ring

On the ferry over from mainland Germany to Hallig Hooge.   The cabin is below the water line and it felt like looking in to a washing machine as we left the port. 

Today

on the ferry home

Down

In the Mournes in Co. Down

Writing

There's lots of graffiti along the sides of the German motorways - mostly on bridges.   They fascinate me ... I was driving at this point and I kept wakening Tom up to get some snaps for me and this one popped up just at the right time.  If you look to the left of the word Muse, it's written on the other side of the fence - It beats me how they manage to do that. 

Many

Some of the Bonn folk club audience in the middle of the caravans and other Bed and Breakfast spots at Camp Base - easily the weirdest place we've ever played - read more about it here. 

Broken

German motorways under constant construction... I loved the registration of the car in front of us - don't scream, don't rant, don't get annoyed at sitting so long behind me?

Whatever you want

At the Nature reserve in Storkow Germany ... I loved the colours of this wee fella and the water around him.

Here's the list for November's Scavenger Hunt if you fancy joining in.

November's List

A Stranger
Looking Down
PopCulture
The Weather
Big
Sign
Bottle
Out and About
Hat
Hole
One
Whatever you want

Lecker the lamb - Take 2!!

I have no idea why why this post is in my draft folder - I distinctly remember posting it and noticed the other day that it has comments on it - so if you think you're experiencing deja vu, rest assured you're not.  

We were having a wander around Hanswarft on Hallig Hooge before our gig in the Cafe zum Seehund when we spotted this man walking in front of us.   Is that sheep following him? we asked each other!!!!  And sure enough he was. That's a chain around the garden, not a lead on him...

Man and sheep made their way to the front door of our abode for the night and Jörg, our host, came out to see what was going on.  

The guy told the sheep to wait and it obediently did and then told it to go the other direction and off it went!!!

Roars of laughter and oohs and ahs followed. 

What's he called Tom asked.   Well, I don't want to give him a name cos he's going to be a sausage some day - OH NO!!!!!  You can't do that!

So Jörg very helpfully named him Lecker.  Do you know any German?   Lecker is the German equivalent of Yummy!!!!  Oh dear....  The poor wee sheep.  

The previous night we walked to a session on Lorenzwarft and some more of Lecker's pals decided to follow us too - they must have been into the music.  

At the session - the first Irish type session every held on the Hallig run by Barney (in the green T shirt) and it was  a huge success.  All with German songs - lots of fun.   People here in this picture from Austria, Cologne, Bavaria, Dusseldorf, Kiel and Ireland.

Odd shoes found around the dyke which surrounds the island - they stink but there's something fascinating about such a collection.

Arriving on to Hallig Hooge at sunset.

The Hallig is a very unusual place  - not quite an island, more like a silt deposit in the ocean without protection.  It's a nature reserve and the Canada Geese land here both in May and October.  The houses are all built on little hillocks, and the whole island is surrounded by a dkye.  Still, there are occasions when a storm hits and the place floods - then the houses look like they're sitting on the water.  There are other halligen - including Sylt, Langanesse and Amrun ... excuse the spellings if I've got them wrong.   In total 10 off the North West Coast of Germany.
If you're interested in reading more you can check out www.hallig.de   Hooge now has 85 inhabitants.

On the way home

Saying goodbye to Denmark,
Molly thought we were there to play with her!!

After nearly a month on the road, we're nearly back home.   The ferry gets back in to Ireland in another couple of hours, then it's one more concert in Co. Cork and up to the North on Saturday.

We've driven almost 6000 kms (about 3,700 miles), been through France, Germany, into Denmark, back down into Luxembourg, had lunch in Belgium on the way to the ferry and now back to Ireland.   Not once did we spot another right hand drive car until we pulled up at check in last night.

We've played 13 concerts in churches, theatres, clubs, pubs and houses and even in an aircraft hangar - met old friends all over the place and made many new friends.   Practised our French and Germany, learned a few words in Danish and were impressed by the Luxemburgers who as a matter of course speak 3 languages, oh and plus English naturally!   Many of them speak 5 languages seamlessly.

We've kept company with cats and dogs as well as friends and sold lots of CDs.   All the concerts were really well received and we're well pleased with the tour in general.

Got her to sit down this time - with Kanne from Sommersted, Barney from Kiel and Tom and myself,
bags packed and ready to head down into Germany again

But 3 1/2 weeks is a long time away from home and 6000 kms is a long time sitting down.  We're so fed up with all the roadworks on the German motorways - what a pain - it felt like the whole country is getting a new road surface. I'm looking forward to emptying the suitcase and various bags and seeing what treasures I've brought home - goodies :)   And also to getting a bit more internet time - I've missed reading all your stories and seeing your photos - roaming charges are way too high to be indiscriminate about logging in each day and in people's houses you want to chat rather than work.  

But most of all I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed - a different bed each night, even though they were all comfy and lovely beds, checking the layout of the room before going to sleep in case I need to get up in the middle of the night without tripping over something, becomes a bit unsettling.  However we are now experts on both showers and beds and mattresses  - so if you need any advice about the best ones to get, I'm your man!!

I'll be back with some pictures from the trip in coming weeks - memories for my own historical records department ...

September Scavenger Hunt

I love this Scavenger Hunt challenge - thank you to Jill (Greenthumb) at Made with Love for setting it up.   It's a lovely way to reflect on a period of time just  past.  

September is always a hectic month, and looking back through my photos here it's also been a long month for us.   All regular activities start up again with the start of the school term.   So my singing group began again, tour planning for later in the year kicked in full time and then we headed off on the road.   So we've been through France, starting the tour with a house concert just outside Paris, and then in to Germany where we're now into our second week and this month's photos are reflecting that.    We head up into Denmark for a day then back through Germany to finish the tour in Luxembourg before taking the ferry back from France to Ireland. 

It's very hard on tour to get time to just play with journals and blogs and photos.  We've been staying with friends, old and new, and the constant being in company, although it's wonderful at the time, is exhausting when there's no time to be on your own.  

So I'm grabbing a quick half hour here and there to get these photos lined up and linked up.  Right now I'm sitting in a cafe on Hallig Hooge - a little island off the coast of Germany.

So without further ado, here are my pics for the September prompts list. 

Reunification

An iconic image - the Berlin Wall after the fall of the wall in 1989

Today, 3rd October is German reunification day.  And this year is the 25th anniversary of when the two parts of the country became one.  It's not actually the day the wall came down - that was some 11 months earlier.  Can you remember what you were doing that day?  We were playing at a small gig in Strangford - I remember stopping playing and watching the TV - it was such an emotional event.

So today was a national holiday here in Germany and like every other country in the world, when there is a big holiday, what do people do?   They head out onto the motorway to go somewhere!   We were driving from Bonn to Kiel today - a journey that should have taken us about 5 hours maximum, but which ended up taking nearly 9 hours!   Every car in the north of Germany seemed to have been on the road.   Plus there were roadworks the whole way... Aaarrgh - why couldn't they just stay at home and watch the tele.

Anyway I just wanted to mark this day.   And I am half in jest - we got to where we were going - had two lovely gigs on either side of the journey, enjoyed the sunshine and  are safely tucked up in our hotel before tomorrow's journey.

Let us know where you were back then - do you remember it?

Back home again

Heading for home across the Yorkshire Dales

Firstly, thank you all for your get well wishes - I'm starting to feel more human now.  

I was trying to write this on the ferry yesterday, but the Internet connection was terrible and I finally gave up.   Plus the water was very lumpy and plus the rugby international was on and it was much more important to watch that - Ireland v England - and WE WON!!!!   I don't think I've ever watched a sporting event in a public bar with a lot of strangers before and it was much more fun than watching it alone at home.   I'm a sort of armchair sports fan and only really watch the big international matches when one of our teams or our guys are playing, with the exception of soccer which I can't stand.  And I've even given in and watched golf last year - 3 Northern Irish players in the top world rankings ... amazing.   Mind you I still subscribe to Oscar Wilde's definition of golf - a waste of a good walk!! 

Anyway, back to much more serious things :)  
We finished up our tour in Keighley in Yorkshire on Friday night with a fabulous room full of people who sang along with every chorus, lustily and in beautiful harmonies.   

Singing along at Keighley

This is the home of the famous Yorkshire carols and groups gather that are based around folk clubs, to do crafts, or watch old music videos, to raise funds for charities, to go camping - and all activities involve singing.  It's an inspirational place to be.   I lived in Yorkshire for a while in the 1980s and loved it.

Yorkshire dry stone walls on a misty last day of Feb

Thursday was York. And wow!   If ever a place felt like home this is it. 

If you haven’t already been there it is one of the most gorgeous cities in England and should be on everyone's visitor itinerary at some point.  Almost totally walled in, full of cute little curiosity shops and cafes.   Fabulous.

We played in The Black Swan – which is a 16^th century coach  house.  

The stairs are totally off balance – you feel drunk trying to get up them!  

And the room we play in has a wonderful original tapestry in it. 

This was a brilliant tour - the gigs were great, we were well received and the audiences were fabulous.    But it was also a tough tour for me - I got sick on nearly the first day and was really bad for the whole of the second week.  

After the couple of days resting near Newcastle I felt a bit better and managed to sing ok.   But I have to tell you that I’d want to feel an awful lot fitter for future tours.   None of us are getting any younger and carrying a heavy cold does not help you feel anywhere more capable.  

So with stuffy nose, a pulled muscle in my side from coughing and an allergic reaction to an overdose of chillies that a host put in our dinner, I was not a very happy budgie.  But, today, back at home again, having seen some wonderful old friends and met lots of new ones  … I am feeling a good bit better.   Thankfully we have no appointments today so it's a chance to catch up and rest up more. 

Happy start of March - it looks like it's coming in like a lion here... Hopefully it will go out like a lamb.